It is well to enter from the west, and to seat oneself at the very end of the nave, in order to observe best the cathedrals greatest peculiarity, namely, the strange carving on the spandrils and interstices of the pillars. The patterns vary from diaper work to overlapping scales, and clothe the walls richly. Between the arches are shields with the strangest collection of figures, a dragon, an Anglo-Saxon man, and other devices, showing a wide range of thought on the part of the sculptor. The pillars themselves, which rise into Norman arches, are all of one pattern, what may be called the fascicle or bundle of small shafts forming one whole. As in every church whose growth ran throughout several centuries, the Early Pointed style caps the Norman work; and here pointed clerestory windows rise above those splendid arches. The arches are decorated with various devices, among which we see an unsurpassed example of the beakhead moulding. The choir stands over the crypt, and both the transepts are on the lower level—a beautiful idea, which gives an appearance of loftiness and elegance in looking up toward the east. The vista is, however, unfortunately blocked by a heavy altar at the chancel step. This peculiarity in the level of the choir, and the fantastic carving in stone, are the two most notable features in the building, as the stained glass is not very attractive.
AN ANCIENT INN YARD
It was in this great church that William wrested from Harold the deadly oath on which he partly based his own right to the throne of England—an oath extorted by fear and partly by fraud, and the breaking of which, by even the most malevolent of Harold’s foes could hardly be accounted to him for wickedness. The scene is depicted in the Bayeux tapestry, fully described in the next chapter.
On this same wide green space there is a statue to Alain Chartier the poet, a native of Bayeux, the “most distinguished Frenchman of letters in the fifteenth century,” who also bears the reputation of having been the ugliest man of his time. He was born at Bayeux between 1380–90, and became highly popular by his verse. Margaret, wife of the Dauphin, is said to have kissed him as he lay asleep, for the sake of all the beautiful things that had proceeded from his lips; and it is probably the record of that kiss rather than his poems which has kept his memory alive.
One of the charms of Bayeux is the number of its famous old carved houses, which more than anything else carry us back into the streets of the past. One of the most notable of these, with innumerable statues on its frontage, is to be seen in the Rue St Malo, another, plain but very substantial, and having several features of its own tending to give it individuality, is in the Rue St Martin.
This is at the corner of the main street, and turning up it we may go to the open space where the market is held. If we are fortunate enough to visit the town on a Saturday, we shall see this long, narrow, cobble-paved street literally flecked with the little tight white caps, which are all that remains of the national headdress. These are not worn by very young girls, but are assumed after the first communion, when the child is supposed to have become a young woman. The fact of wearing the first “bonnette,” as the cap is called, is very serious, and not to be lightly considered. The invariable style is that the hair should be neatly parted in the middle and smoothed back, flattened down, while a tight-fitting bit of muslin is drawn over the head and set into a band of muslin, which is again mounted on one of plain black velvet; the only jaunty part of the headdress is the white muslin bow at the back, which bobs up and down like a rabbits scut, and when a number of women are talking together, the bobbing sometimes becomes quite laughable.
The rest of the women’s costume is of the usual peasant type, stuff jacket-bodices or blouses; full, all-round stuff skirts, well off the ground; check aprons of blue, or mauve, or grey, and among them all there is a strong family likeness. We see the same good-humoured commonplace face again and again; there is shrewdness in the keen eyes and sensible mouths, health in the smooth brown-red cheeks, and a certain comeliness notwithstanding the homely features. One feels sure that if one asked a question an intelligent answer would be given, for these women habitually use their brains as well as their hands in all their daily occupations. Here and there one sees a young girl with a much fluted upstanding edging to her cap, and perhaps a pair of white muslin strings elaborately tied under her chin, but where such a one appears she is recognised as being uncommonly fashionable, and respectfully admiring glances follow her self-conscious figure.
The men in this district have a great partiality for pearl buttons about the size of a sixpence, with which they stud the fronts of their smocks, sometimes in double and treble rows. They are big, broad-shouldered fellows these brothers by blood to the men of the Côtentin, and are more akin to ourselves than to the Frenchmen of Rouen, for the Danish blood and speech lingered on in Bayeux when the west of Normandy had been Frenchified.
The market is surrounded by a thick hedge of limes, and here is sold the usual assortment of everything in daily use, from boots to bonnet pins. The only thing which would strike a stranger as novel are the enormous masses of butter, fitted into cylindrical hampers, and so heavy that it takes two men to move them at all.