little heavy. In the
choir the clerestory and triforium are thrown into one stage of singular
likeness, though in this style the lack of a distinct triforium is
always to be regretted. The mouldings in both parts have, as is so usual
in Normandy, an English look, which is quite unknown in France proper,
and in the choir we find a larger use of the characteristic English
round abacus. But, next to the lantern, the most striking thing in the
interior of Coutances is certainly the sweep of the eastern aisles and
chapels, where the interlacing aisles and pillars produce an effect of
spaciousness which is not to be found in the main portions of the
church.

[Illustration: Capitals in Bayeux Cathedral]

The interior of Bayeux, besides its greater spaciousness and grandeur of
effect, is attractive on other grounds. It is far more interesting than
Coutances to the historical inquirer. Many facts in the history of
Normandy are plainly written in the architectural changes of this noble
church. The most interesting portion indeed does not appear in the
general view of the interior. The church of Odo, the church at whose
dedication William was present, and which must have been rising at the
time of the visit of Harold, now survives only in the crypt of the choir
and in the lower portions of the towers.[11] The rest was destroyed by
fire, like so many other churches in Normandy, during the wars of Henry
the First. Of the church which then replaced it, the arcades of the nave
still remain. No study of Romanesque can be more instructive than a
comparison of the work of these two dates. Odo's work is plain and
simple, with many of the capitals of a form eminently characteristic
of an early stage of the art of floriated enrichment--a form of its own
which grew up alongside of others, and gradually budded into such
splendid capitals of far later work as we see at Lisieux. Will it be
believed that the remorseless demon of restoration has actually
descended the steps of this venerable crypt, and that two of the
capitals are now, not of the eleventh century, but brand-new productions
of the nineteenth? Of course we are told that they are exact copies; but
what then? We do not want copies, but the things themselves, and if they
were a little ragged and jagged, what harm could it do down underground?

A striking contrast to the work of Odo, a contrast as striking as can
easily be found between two things which are, after all, essentially of