OF ENGLAND AND DUKE OF NORMANDY,
RECEIVED ON HIS KNEES,
FROM THE LEGATES OF THE POPE,
THE APOSTOLIC ABSOLUTION,
ON SUNDAY, 22D MAY 1172."

At its feet is another slab, the aforementioned door-step, on which,
before the papal legate, the remorseful monarch did penance before his
later expiation at Canterbury.

A little farther on is a small heap consisting of shafts and capitals of
columns, a stone sarcophagus and a brass plate stating that they are the
"Derniers restes de la cathedrale d'Avranches; commencee vers 1090 et
consacree par l'eveque Turgis en 1121." The nave having fallen in, the
rest of the edifice had to be taken down in 1799.

Because of its picturesque environment and situation, Avranches is
perhaps a more than ordinarily attractive setting for a shrine, and it
is well worthy of the attention of the passing traveller, in spite of
its ancient cathedral being now but a heap of stones. Apart from this
it is of little interest, and hence, to most, it will probably remain,
in the words of a French traveller, a mere "silhouette in the distance."

[Illustration]

[Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of S. SAMSON DOL_]

X

ST. SAMSON, DOL-DE-BRETAGNE

The one-time Cathedral of St. Samson, at Dol, is, says an unusually
expressive Frenchman, "a grand, noble, and severe church, now widowed of
its bishops. Its aspect is desolate and abandoned, as if it were but a
ruin _en face sur la grande place_, of itself, but a mere desert of
scrub." This is certainly a vivid and forceful description of even a
wholly unprepossessing shrine. This St. Samson is not, and due allowance
should be made for verbal modelling which, in many cases, is but the
mere expression of a mood _pro tempo_. There is, however, somewhat of
truth in the description. About the granite walls there is a grimness
and gauntness of decay; of changed plans and projects; of devastation;
of restoration; and, finally, of what is, apparently, submission to the
inevitableness of time.

The enormous northwesterly tower is stopped suddenly, with the daylight
creeping through its very framework. Its facade is certainly bare of
ornament, and gives a thorough illustration of paucity of design as well
as of detail. There is, indeed, nothing in the west facade to compel
admiration, and yet there is a fascination about it that to some will be
irresistible.

A sixteenth-century porch, of suggested Burgundian style, fo