, St Etienne le Vieux and St
Nicolas, the last two now secularized. Caen possesses many old timber
houses and stone mansions, in one of which, the hotel d'Ecoville (c. 1530),
the exchange and the tribunal of commerce are established. The hotel de
Than, also of the 16th century, is remarkable for its graceful
dormer-windows. The Maison des Gens d'Armes (15th century), in the eastern
outskirts of the town, has a massive tower adorned with medallions and
surmounted by two figures of armed men. The monuments at Caen include one
to the natives of Calvados killed in 1870 and 1871 and one to the lawyer
J.C.F. Demolombe, together with statues of Louis XIV, Elie de Beaumont,
Pierre Simon, marquis de Laplace, D.F.E. Auber and Francois de Malherbe,
the two last natives of the town. Caen is the seat of a court of appeal, of
a court of assizes and of a prefect. It is the centre of an academy and has
a university with faculties of law, science and letters and a preparatory
school of medicine and pharmacy; there are also a lycee, training colleges,
schools of art and music, and two large hospitals. The other chief public
institutions are tribunals of first instance and commerce, an exchange, a
chamber of commerce and a branch of the Bank of France. The hotel-de-ville
contains the library, with more than 100,000 volumes and the art museum
with a fine collection of paintings. The town is the seat of several
learned societies including the Societe des Antiquaires, which has a rich
museum of antiquities. Caen, despite a diversity of manufactures, is
commercial rather than industrial. Its trade is due to its position in the
agricultural and horse-breeding district known as the "Campagne de Caen"
and to its proximity to the iron mines of the Orne valley, and to
manufacturing towns such as Falaise, Le Mans, &c. In the south-east of the
town there is a floating basin lined with quays and connected with the Orne
and with the canal which debouches into the sea at Ouistreham 9 m. to the
N.N.E. The port, which also includes a portion of the river-bed,
communicates with Havre and Newhaven by a regular line of steamers; it has
a considerable fishing population. In 1905 the number of vessels entered
was 563 with a tonnage of 190,190. English coal is foremost among the
imports, which also include timber and grain, while iron ore, Caen
stone[1], butter and eggs and fruit are among the exports. Important horse
and cattle fairs are held in the town. The in