re can surpass. Then there is Bayeux, with its cathedral,
its tapestry, its exquisite seminary chapel; Cerisy, with its mutilated
but almost unaltered Norman abbey; Bernay, with a minster so shattered
and desecrated that the traveller might pass it by without notice, but
withal retaining the massive piers and arches of the first half of the
eleventh century. There is Evreux, with its Norman naves, its tall
slender Gothic choir, its strange Italian western tower, and almost more
fantastic central spire. All these are noble churches, sharing with
those of our own land a certain sobriety and architectural good sense
which is often wanting in the churches of France proper. In Normandy as
in England, you do not see piles, like Beauvais, begun on too vast a
scale for man's labour ever to finish; you do not see piles like Amiens,
where all external proportion is sacrificed to grandeur of internal
effect.[9] A Norman minster, like an English one, is satisfied with a
comparatively moderate height, but with its three towers and full
cruciform shape, it seems a perfection of outline to which no purely
French building ever attains.

FALAISE

1867

The beginnings of the Norman Conquest, in its more personal and
picturesque point of view, are to be found in the Castle of Falaise.
There, as Sir Francis Palgrave sums up the story, "Arletta's pretty feet
twinkling in the brook made her the mother of William the Bastard." And
certainly, if great events depend upon great men, and if great men are
in any way influenced by the places of their birth, there is no place
which seems more distinctly designed by nature to be the cradle of great
events. The spot is one which history would have dealt with unfairly if
it had not contrived to find its way into her most striking pages. And
certainly in this respect Falaise has nothing to complain of. Except one
or two of the great cities of the province, no place is brought more
constantly under our notice during five centuries of Norman history. And
Norman history, we must not forget, includes in this case some of the
most memorable scenes in the history of England, France, and Scotland.
The siege by Henry the Fourth was in a manner local; it was part of a
warfare within the kingdom of France. But that warfare was one in which
all the Powers of Europe felt themselves to be closely interested; it
was a warfare in which one at least of them directly partook; it was one
in which the two great