The convent was placed under the immediate protection of the sovereign, by virtue of an ordinance issued by Philip Augustus[[61]], in 1280, at which time Peter, Count of Alençon, attempted to establish a claim to some rights affecting the monastery. He alleged a grant from a former monarch to one of his predecessors, by whom he asserted that the convent had been founded; and, in support of his claim, he urged its position within the limits of his territory. The abbot and monks resisted: they gave proof that the abbey of Bernay was really founded by the duchess; and therefore the king, after a full and impartial hearing, decided against the count, and declared that the advocation of the monastery was thenceforth to belong to himself and his successors in the dukedom for ever.--Judith died before the convent was entirely built, and the task of completing it devolved upon her widowed husband, whose charter, confirming the foundation, is still in existence. It begins by a recital of the pious motives[[62]] which urged the duchess to the undertaking; it expressly mentions her death while the building was yet unfinished; and, after detailing the various lands and grants bestowed on the abbey, it concludes by denouncing the anger of God, and a fine of two hundred pounds weight of gold upon those who disturb the establishment, "that they may learn to their confusion that the good deeds of their ancestors, undertaken for the love of God, are not to be undone with impunity."
The parochial church at Bernay is uninteresting. The sculptures, however, which adorn the high altar, are relics saved from the destruction of the abbey of Bec. The Virgin Mary and Joseph are represented, contemplating the infant Jesus, who is asleep. The statues are all of the natural size. We saw many grave-stones from the same abbey, nine or ten feet long, and covered with monumental figures of the usual description, indented in the stone. These memorials were standing by the side of the church door, not for preservation, but for sale! And at a small chapel in the burial-ground near the town, we were shewn twelve statues of saints, which likewise came from Bec. They are of comparatively modern workmanship, larger than life, and carved in a good, though not a fine, style. In the same chapel is kept the common coffin for the interment of all the poor at Bernay.
The custom of merely putting the bodies of persons of the lower class into coffins, when they are brought to the burial-ground, and then depositing them naked in their graves, prevails at present in this part of France as it did formerly in England.--In a place which must be the receptacle for many that were in easy, and for not a few that were in affluent, circumstances, it was remarkable that all lay indiscriminately side by side, unmarked by any monumental stone, or any sepulchral record.--Republican France proscribed distinctions of every description, and those memorials which tended to perpetuate distinctions beyond the limits of mortal existence, were naturally most unpardonable in the eyes of the apostles of equality. But doctrines of this nature have fallen into disrepute for more than twenty years; and yet the country church-yard remains as naked as when the guillotine would have been the reward of opposition to the tenets of the day. There are few more comfortless sights, than such a cemetery: it looks as if those by whom it is occupied regarded death as eternal sleep, and thought that the memory of man should terminate with the close of his life. However unlettered the muse, however hackneyed the rhyme, however misapplied the text, it is consolatory to see them employed. Man dwells with a melancholy satisfaction upon the tomb-stones of his relations and friends, and not of them alone, but of all whom he has known or of whom he has heard.--A mere hic jacet, with the name and years of him that sleeps beneath, frequently recals the most lively impressions; and he who would destroy epitaphs would destroy a great incitement to virtue.--In other parts of France tomb-stones, or crosses charged with monumental inscriptions, have re-appeared: at Bernay we saw only two; one of them commemorated a priest of the town; the other was erected at the public expence, to the memory of three gendarmes, who were killed at the beginning of the revolution, and before religion was proscribed, in the suppression of some tumult.
At less than a mile from Bernay, in the opposite direction, is another church, called Notre Dame de la Couture, a name borrowed from the property on which it stands. We were induced to visit it, by the representation of different persons in the town, who had noticed our architectural propensities. Some assured us that "C'est une belle pièce;" others that "C'est une pièce qui n'est pas vilaine;" and all concurred in praising it, though some only for the reason that "les processions vont tout autour du choeur."--We found nothing to repay the trouble of the walk.
Bernay contains upwards of six thousand inhabitants, the greater part of whom are engaged in manufacturing coarse woollen and cotton cloths; and the manufactures flourish, the goods made being principally for home consumption. It is the chief place of the arrondissement, and the residence of a sub-prefect.--Most of the houses are like those at Rouen, merely wooden frames filled with mortar, which, in several instances, is faced with small bricks and flints, disposed in fanciful patterns: here and there the beams are carved with a variety of grotesque figures. The lower story of all those in the high street retires, leaving room for a wooden colonnade, which shelters the passenger, though it is entirely destitute of all architectural beauty. The head-dress of the females at Bernay is peculiar, and so very archaic, that our chamber-maid at the inn appeared to deserve a sketch, full as much as any monumental effigy.
On our road between Bernay and Orbec, we stopped at the village of Chambrais, more commonly called Broglie. Before the revolution, it belonged to the noble family of that name, and it thence derived its familiar appellation. The former residence of the Seigneurs of Broglie, which is still standing, apparently uninjured, upon an adjoining eminence, has lately been restored to the present Maréchal Duc de Broglie. It looks like an extensive parish work-house, or like any thing rather than a nobleman's seat.--The village church is very ancient and still curious, though in parts considerably modernized. Unlike most churches of great antiquity, it is not built in the form of a cross, but consists only of a nave and choir, with side-aisles and an apsis, all on a small scale[[63]]. Towards the north, the nave is separated from the aisle by some of the largest and rudest piers I ever saw. They occupy full two-thirds of the width of the intervening arches, which are five feet wide, elliptic rather than semi-circular, and altogether without ornament of any kind. Above each of these arches is a narrow, circular-headed window, banded with a cylindrical pilaster; and, in most instances, a row of quatrefoils runs between the pillar and the window. The bases of the windows rest upon a string-course that extends round the whole building; and on this also, alternating with the windows, rest corbels, from which spring very short, clustered columns, intended to support the groinings of the roof. On the south side, the massy piers have been pared into comparatively slender pillars; and the arches are pointed, as are all the lower windows in the church.--The font is of stone, and ancient: it consists of a round basin, on a quadrangular pedestal, like many in England.--The west front of the church is peculiar. It is entered by a very wide, low, semi-circular door-way, of rude architecture, and quite unornamented. Above is a window corresponding with those in the clerestory; and, still higher, a row of interlaced arches, also semi-circular. A pointed arch, the receptacle for the statue of a saint, surmounts the whole; but this is, most probably, of a later æra, as evidently are the two lateral compartments, which terminate in slender spires of slate, and are separated from the central division by Norman buttresses.
We stopped to dine at Orbec, a small and insignificant country town, formerly an appendage of the houses of Orléans and Navarre, with the title of a barony; but, more immediately before the revolution, the domain of the family of Chaumont. Its church is a most uncouth edifice: the plan is unusual; the entrance is in the north transept, which ends in a square high tower.
Bernay, Orbec, and Lisieux, communicate only by cross roads, scarcely passable by a carriage, even at this season of the year. From Orbec to Lisieux the road runs by the side of the Touques, which, at Orbec, is no more than a rivulet. The beautiful green meadows in the valley, appear to repay the great care which is taken in the draining and irrigating of them. They are every where intersected by small trenches, in which the water is confined by means of sluices.--In this part of the country, we passed several flocks of sheep, the true moutons du pays, a large breed, with red legs and red spotted faces. Their coarse wool serves to make the ordinary cloth of the country, but is inapplicable to any of a finer texture. To remedy this deficiency, and, if possible, improve the local manufactures, some large flocks of Merino sheep were imported at the time when the French occupied Spain; and they are said to thrive. But it is only of late years that any attempts, have been made of the kind.--The Norman farmer, however careful about the breed of his horses, has altogether neglected his sheep; and this is the more extraordinary, considering that the prosperity of the province is inseparably connected with that of the manufactures, and that much of the value of the produce must of necessity depend upon the excellence of the material. His pigs are the very perfection of ugliness: it is no hyperbole to say, that, in their form, they partake as much of a greyhound as of an English pig.--These animals are sure to attract the gaze of our countrymen; and poor Trotter, in his narrative of the journey of Mr. Fox, expressed his marvel so often, as to call down upon himself the witty vengeance of one of our ablest periodical writers.