at which we shall perhaps have some future opportunity of
glancing.

FOOTSTEPS OF THE CONQUEROR

1868

Many of the great events of Norman history, many of the chief events in
the life of the Great William, happened conveniently in or near to the
great cities of the Duchy. But many others also happened in somewhat out
of the way places, which no one is likely to get to unless he goes there
on purpose. The Conqueror received his death-wound at Mantes, he died in
a suburb of Rouen, he was buried at Caen. All these are places easy to
get at. Perhaps we should except Mantes, which in a certain sense is not
easy to get at. All the world goes by Mantes, but few people stop there.
The reason is manifest. The traveller who goes by Mantes commonly has in
his pocket a ticket for Paris, which enables him to spend a day at
Rouen, but not to spend a day at Mantes. People very anxious to stop at
Mantes, and to muse, so to speak, among its embers, have had great
searchings of heart how to get there, and have not accomplished their
object till after some years of reflection. And the interest of Mantes,
after all, is mainly negative. The town stands well; its river, its
bridges, its islands, suggest the days when Scandinavian pirates sailed
up the Seine and encamped with special delight on such _eys_ or _holms_
as that between Mantes and Limay. A specially prolonged fit of musing
may perhaps lead one to regret the prowess of Count Odo, and to wish
that Paris also had received that wholesome Northern infusion which
still works so healthily between the Epte and the Coesnon. But Mantes,
as regards William, is something like Mortemer as regards William's
rival King Henry. Mantes can show no traces of William or his age, for
the simple reason that William took good care that no such traces should
be left. By perhaps the worst deed of his life, a deed which awakened
special indignation at the time, he gave Mantes to destruction to avenge
a silly jest of its sovereign. At Mantes he held his churching and
lighted his candles, and their blaze burned up houses, churches,
whatever was there. Therefore, because William himself was there in only
too great force, it is that Mantes has no work of man to show on which
William can ever have looked. The church, whose graceful towers every
one has seen from the railway, is a grand fabric a hundred years or more
later than William's time, but to Norman and English eyes it might
seem that, with s