mer capital of the duchy of the same name is a sleepy,
countrified French town, with little but its reputedly valuable and
beautiful lace to commend it to the average observer.

As a cathedral town, of even secondary rank, it will fall far short of
any preconceived ideas which one may be possessed of concerning it,
though its Cathedral of Notre Dame is in many ways one of those
irresistible shrines, which at least promise, and often fulfil, a great
deal more than their lack of magnitude indicates.

Its facade, lacking the conventional towers, advances well into the
roadway, as a sort of forward porch; as at Louviers near by. This porch
is very ornate, with decorations of the late Gothic period of flowing
tracery.

After all, it is an incongruous sort of a building, in that only this
porch and its squat central tower, which is nought but a mere cupola,
are in the least decorative.

The nave, the choir and chevet, and chapels, are all of a bareness which
only exaggerates the floridness of these other appendages. The nave
itself is but one hundred and ten feet long, and perhaps a scant thirty
wide, and dates from the fourteenth century. It contains good glass of
the same period, which luckily escaped the spoliation of the Revolution.

The choir is more modern, and much plainer in treatment, and is but
fifty-five feet in length and of the same width as the nave.

There are no transepts; in short, the chief and most interesting
features of the church are the before mentioned details, which,
unquestionably bordering upon the debasement of Gothic art, are in every
way attractive, with lightness and colour, if such an expression may be
applied to gray stone.

Certainly the play of sunlight on gracefully carven stone is indicative
of a brilliancy which might be termed an effect of colour; and it is
with respect to that quality that the west facade of Notre Dame
d'Alencon appeals; more than as an otherwise grand or even highly
interesting structure.

[Illustration: _St. Pierre de Lisieux_]

IV

ST. PIERRE DE LISIEUX

Lisieux, the city of the Lexavii, taken by Caesar and besieged by
Geoffrey Plantagenet; its old houses; its crooked streets and
picturesque decay; with its former Cathedral of St. Pierre (M. H.),
memorable as the marriage place of Henry III. and Eleanor of Guienne;
all go to make up the formula of one of the stock sights of Normandy.

It is scarcely an attractive town, in spite of its picturesq