eserved. Beyond the Sarthe is another
fine Romanesque church, also a complete minster, the church of
Notre-Dame-du-Pre. A fine hospital, the work of Henry the Second, is now
perverted to some military purpose, and some military tomfoolery forbids
examination, in marked contrast to the liberal spirit which allows free
access to everything that the antiquary can wish to visit at
Fontevrault and at Saumur. But the ecclesiastical remains of Le Mans are
far from being the whole of its attractions. Its military and civil
antiquities are endless, and they are more characteristic. We have not
the least wish to depreciate Chartres. It is a highly interesting city;
it contains a magnificent cathedral and several other remarkable
buildings. But it cannot compare with Le Mans.

[Illustration: St. Martin-in-the-Vale, Chartres]

[Illustration: Apse of La Couture, Le Mans]

LE MANS

1876

We spoke some years ago of the architectural character of the chief
churches of Le Mans, especially in comparison with those of Chartres.
But the comparison was of a purely architectural kind, and hardly
touched the general history and special position of the Cenomannian city
among the cities of Gaul. That position is one which is almost unique.
The city of the Cenomanni, the modern Le Mans, has never stood in the
first rank of the cities of Europe, or even of Gaul; but there are few
which are the centres of deeper or more varied interests. Le Mans has at
once a princely, an ecclesiastical, and, above all, a municipal history.
It is true that its princely and its ecclesiastical history are spread
over many ages, while its municipal history is a thing of a moment; yet
it is the municipal history which gives Le Mans its special character.
Le Mans, in the course of its long history, has been many things; but it
is before all things the city of the _commune_. Among cities north of
the Loire--it might perhaps be unsafe to say among cities north of the
Alps--Le Mans shares with Exeter the credit of asserting the position of
a civic commonwealth in days when, even in more Southern lands, the
steps taken in that direction were as yet but very imperfect. And it was
against the same enemy that freedom was asserted by the insular and by
the continental city. The freedom of Exeter and the freedom of Le Mans
were alike asserted against the man who appeared in Maine as no less
distinctly the Conqueror than he appeared in England. Exeter, in her
chara