This tower and spire were built in the year 1308, under the directions of Nicolle L'Anglois, a burgher of Caen, and treasurer of the church.--How far we are at liberty to infer from his name, as Ducarel does, that he was an Englishman, may admit of some doubt. He was buried here; and De Bourgueville has preserved his epitaph, which recounts among his other merits, that
"Et par luy, et par sa devise
Fut la tour en sa voye mise
D'estre faicte si noblement."--
But the name of the architect who was employed is unrecorded.--The rest of the church was erected at different periods: the northern aisle in 1410; the opposite one some time afterwards; and the eastern extremity, with the vaulted roof of the choir and aisles, in 1021.--With this knowledge, it is not difficult to account for the diversity of styles that prevails in the building.--The western front contains much good tracery, and well disposed, apparently as old as the tower.--The exterior of the east end, with its side-chapels, is rather Italian than gothic.--The interior is of a purer style: the five arches forming the apsis are perhaps amongst the finest specimens of the luxuriant French gothic: roses are introduced with great effect amongst the tracery and friezes, with which the walls are covered. The decorations of the chapels round the choir, although they display a tendency towards Italian architecture, are of the most elaborate arabesque. The niches are formed by escalop shells, swelling cylinders of foliage, and scrolls: some of the pendants from the roofs are of wonderfully varied and beautiful workmanship.--The nave has nothing remarkable, saving the capital of one of the side pillars. Its sculptures, with the exception of one mutilated group, have been drawn by Mr. Cotman.--The subjects are strangely inappropriate, as the ornaments of a sacred edifice. All are borrowed from romance.--Aristotle bridled and saddled by the mistress of Alexander. Virgilius, or, as some say, Hippocrates, hanging in the basket. Lancelot crossing the raging flood.--The fourth, which is not shewn in the sketch, is much defaced, but seems to have been taken from the Chevalier et la Charette. According to the usual fate of ancient sculpture, the marguilliers of the parish have so sadly encumbered it with white-wash, that it is not easy to make out the details; and a friend of mine was not quite certain whether the bearded figure riding on the lion, was not a youthful Cupid. No other of the capitals has at present any basso-relievo of this kind; but I suspect they have been chopped off. The church suffered much from the Calvinists; and afterwards, during the revolution, when most of the bas-reliefs of the portal were destroyed.
The neighboring church of St. John appears likewise to be the work of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This building and St. Peter's agree in general character: their towers are nearly the counterparts of each other. But, in St. John's, the great tower is placed at the west end of the edifice, the principal portal being beneath it. This is not very usual in the Norman-gothic churches, though common in England. The tower wants a spire; and, at present, it leans considerably out of the perpendicular line, so that some apprehensions are entertained for its safety. It was originally intended that the church should also be surmounted by a central tower; and, as De Bourgueville says, the beginning was made in his time; but it remains to the present day incomplete, and has not been raised sufficiently high to enable us to form a clear idea of the design of the architect, though enough remains to shew that it would have been built in the Romanizing-gothic style.--The inside is comparatively plain, excepting only the arches in the lower open part of the tower. These are richly ornamented; and a highly-wrought balustrade runs round the triforium, uniform in its pattern in the nave and choir, but varying in the transepts.--In the other ecclesiastical buildings at Caen, we saw nothing to interest us.--The chapel of St. Thomas l'Abattu, which, according to Huet, "had existed from time immemorial," and which, to judge from Ducarel's description and figure, must have been curious, has now entirely disappeared.
In the suburb of Vaucelles, the church of St. Michael contains some architectural features of great curiosity[[75]]. The circular-headed arches in the short square tower, and in a small round turret that is attached to it, are unquestionably early Norman, and are remarkable for their proportions, being as long and as narrow as the lancet windows of the following æra. It would not be equally safe to pronounce upon the date of the stone-roofed pyramid which covers this tower. The north porch is entered by a pointed arch, which, though much less ornamented, approaches in style to the southern porch of St. Ouen, and, like that, has its inner archivolt fringed with pendant trefoils. The wall above the arch rises into a triangular gable, entirely covered with waving tracery, the only instance of the kind which I have seen at Caen.