he did
not notice any of these things, there was some one in his company who
did. We suspect that in this, as in a great many things, we have more in
common with our forefathers several centuries back than we have with
those who are nearer to us by many generations.

[Illustration: Abbey of Fecamp, N.E.]

Modern taste might possibly make one objection to the site of Fecamp.
Though near the sea, it is not within sight of the sea. The modern
watering-place of Fecamp is springing up at a considerable distance from
the ancient abbey. But the love of watering-places and sea-bathing is
one which is altogether modern, and, in the days in which our old towns,
castles, and monasteries grew up, a site immediately on the sea would
have been looked on as unsafe. And in truth there are not many places,
and certainly Fecamp is not one of them, where all the various buildings
of a great monastery could have been planned so as to command the modern
attraction of a sea-view. Moreover it is a point not to be forgotten
that people who go to Fecamp or elsewhere for sea-views and sea-bathing
go there during certain months only, while the monks had to live there
all the year round. The monks of Saint Michael's Mount were indeed
privileged with, or condemned to, an everlasting sea-view; but the title
of their house was that of Saint Michael "_in periculo maris_." To be
exposed to the perils of the sea was no part of the intention of the
founders of Fecamp, either of abbey, town or palace.[16] They chose them
a site which gave them the practical advantages of the sea without the
dangers of its immediate neighbourhood. Fecamp then lies a little way
inland. Two parallel ranges of hills run down to the sea, with a
valley and a small stream between them, at the mouth of which the modern
port has been made. On the slope of the hills on the left side lies the
huge mass of the minster rising over the long straggling town which
stretches away to the water. But though the great church thus lies
secluded from the sea, the spiritual welfare of sea-faring men was not
forgotten. The point where the opposite range of hills directly
overhangs the sea is crowned by one of those churches specially devoted
to sailors and their pilgrimages which are so often met with in such
positions. The chapel of Our Lady of Safety, now restored after a season
of ruin and desecration, forms a striking and picturesque object in the
general landscape. And from the chapel itse