ded, and the vine, of
which we hear so much in our accounts of ancient Cenomannian warfare,
is, to say the least, not so prominent a feature as it was then. And we
need not say that vines, except either on a hill-side or against a
house, do not add to the picturesqueness of a landscape. The land,
without being strictly hilly, much less mountainous, is far from flat,
and it contains some considerable heights, as the ranges culminating in
the peak of Mont Aigu, which forms a prominent object from the theatre
at Jublains, and the high ground at and near Le Mans itself, some points
of which proved of great importance in the last warfare which Maine has
seen. In short, without containing any very striking elevations, there
are many sites in Maine well suited for military positions in ancient
warfare, sites where the castle has not failed to spring up, and where a
town or village has naturally gathered round the fortress. But since the
city of the Diablintes was swept from the earth, Maine has, at least
till quite modern times, contained no place which can at all set itself
up as a rival to the ancient capital. The hill fort which grew into the
city of the Cenomanni still remains the undoubted queen of the land of
Herbert and Helias.

It is well to enter the Cenomannian county by a point which is
Cenomannian no longer, but which not only plays a great part in the
local history, but gives a view of a very large part of the land from
which it was long ago severed. This is from the hill of Domfront, the
fortress and town which the Conqueror wrested from Maine and added to
Normandy; but which till the changes of modern times kept a sign of its
old allegiance in still forming for ecclesiastical purposes part of the
Cenomannian diocese. Domfront, the conquest of William, the cherished
possession of Henry, is indeed an outpost of the Norman land, placed
like a natural watch-tower, from which we may gaze over well nigh the
whole extent of the land which lay between Normandy and the home of the
enemy at Angers. Like Nottingham, town and castle stand on two heights,
with a slight fall between them, and the town itself is strongly
fortified, with a noble range of walls and towers which are largely
preserved. The shattered donjon rises on the height where the Varenne
runs through a narrow dell between the castle hill and a wild rock on
the other side. Castle and town alike equally look out in the direction
of danger; from either height i