n Gaulish. In the Cenomannian state, the Prince, the Bishop,
and the citizens all held their distinct places, and it was reasonable
that their geographical quarters should be marked also. In fact, in the
great days of Cenomannian history the Bishop was a power independent
alike of Count and city. He owed temporal allegiance to neither, but
held directly of the King at Laon or at Paris. Had the development of
things in Gaul followed the same course as the development of things in
Germany, Maine might have seen, like so many German lands, the
ecclesiastical and the temporal principality and the free city, all side
by side, bound together by no tie beyond such degree of dependence as
any of them might have kept on the common centre. But when county,
bishopric, and city all came under the strong hand of the Norman, all
tendencies of this kind were checked. And they perished for ever when
Normandy and Maine, instead of external fiefs, became incorporated
provinces of the French kingdom.

Within and around the walls of the city there arose in different ages a
series of buildings, ecclesiastical, military, and civil, which might
claim for Le Mans a place among the cities of Gaul and Europe next after
those cities which had been the actual seats of imperial or royal
dominion. Above the river rose the double line of walls and towers,
Roman and mediaeval, and high above them the vast and wondrous pile of
Saint Julian's minster. On the side away from the river, the side
pointing towards the hostile land of Anjou, built on the Roman wall
itself and seemingly out of Roman materials, stood the palace of the
Counts, well placed indeed for Count Herbert, _Evigilans Canem_, to
sally forth on the nightly raids before which black Angers trembled.[67]
And besides the dwellings of the temporal and spiritual chiefs, the
ancient streets of Le Mans were set thick with houses, the dwellings of
priests and citizens, which showed how well both classes throve, and how
each did something for the adornment of the city in every form of art,
from Romanesque to _Renaissance_. But a little time back the traveller
might have seen at Le Mans more houses of the twelfth century than he
would see anywhere north of Venice. And besides the works of her own
princes, bishops, and citizens, Le Mans had also once to show the
grimmer memorials of her conquerors. But, as not uncommonly happens, the
memorials of the earlier time have outlived those of the later. At th