The usual earning for this highly-skilled labour is about 1s. a day. The castle of Alençon was destroyed, all but the keep, by Henri IV. of France.
Of the famous siege of Alençon we have already spoken.
Here must come to an end this rather rambling chapter, designed to cover a district which, with the exception of Falaise, is comparatively little known by the English visitor to Normandy.
CHAPTER VII
BAYEUX AND THE SMALLER TOWNS
Some old established shops there are, with prestige so secure that they do not have recourse to the art known as “dressing the windows”; it is the customers who seek them out, not they who try to attract the customers. Something of this kind may be said of Bayeux, for of all simple unpretending towns it is the chief; anyone who entered the long straggling street unforewarned, would imagine that he was in some humble village, and yet Bayeux ranks high among Norman towns. After Rouen, admittedly the capital, and Caen, so much larger than herself, she assuredly, for importance, antiquity, and all those things that go to make the fame of a city, comes third.
The first sight of the cathedral strikes one with astonishment; it is so composite, so decorative, that it takes one’s breath away. There is a feeling of hopelessness—one will never be able to understand it. And even after some study it remains almost impossible to analyse the architecture as one generally can analyse a cathedral, setting down the nave to one age, the choir to another, and perhaps the western towers to a third.
The great central tower rests on a square decorated platform, and is carried up two lantern stages above it; the top one is surmounted by a copper cupola. The upper stage was added in 1860, and is unfortunately quite ugly. Features which add much to the appearance of the exterior are the richly decorated portals; that of the south transept is carved with figures representing scenes in the life of St Thomas à Becket, who at the time it was done had been dead for more than thirty years, and was among the most popular of saints. The great portal at the west end, however, surpasses it in beauty; in it are no less than five doorways, diminishing in size from the centre; and seen beneath the fine western towers, it forms a feature in a view of the exterior by no means the least attractive.
The oldest church on this site was burnt down in 1046, and rebuilt by Bishop Odo, Arlotta’s son by her second marriage. It was consecrated with great ceremony in the same year as St Etienne of Caen, and in the beginning of the next century again suffered by fire. But the greater part of the cathedral as we see it, dates from the reconstruction in 1205 by an Englishman named Henry Beaumont, and as has been said, the tower was only completed recently.