While William the Red reigned in England, and the feeble Robert was nominal Duke of Normandy, Henry Beauclerc descended upon the Côtentin, and ruled it for many years. His rule was firm and good, and he was popular, and the peninsula consequently enjoyed far more prosperity than the rest of distracted Normandy. Henry’s power extended as far south as Domfront, for the titles of Count of Mortain and Count of the Côtentin still went together. When Henry became King of England he yielded the Côtentin to Robert, until he won it back again by his sword. When Edward III. swooped down upon France he passed through the whole district capturing, burning, and destroying, and none could stand up against his army. Again, when Henry V. made an effort to retrieve the domains which had belonged to his forefathers, the Côtentin was swept from end to end. In the religious wars, once again the town was in the midst of turmoil, but it yielded to Henri IV. after the battle of Ivry.
We have specialised only on a very small part of the Côtentin, and that the least known, but it is impossible to leave without mention of the famous port of Cherbourg, the finest harbour in France. The records of Cherbourg go back to the sixth century, when a saint named Scubilion is said to have resided here, and even before Scubilion’s day, a still mistier and a nameless saint had landed here, and converted the inhabitants. The breakwater at Cherbourg, finished in 1853, can hold a fleet at anchor, and is guarded by forts.
The town of Cherbourg is said to derive its name from Cæsar’s Bourg, but the derivation is very doubtful. William the Conqueror founded here a college, which his granddaughter, Matilda or Maude, incorporated into a new monastery of her own. The castle was a great favourite with Henry I. It was here he had been staying in November 1120, when he set sail from Barfleur, leaving the merry company of young nobles to follow with his son and daughter in the White Ship. History gives it that the prince himself might have been saved after the fatal wreck had he not returned at the cry of his sister, who had been left on the wreck, whereupon so many leapt into the boat that it was swamped. How persistently the fact that only a butcher of Rouen was saved, impresses itself upon the childish mind, so that years after, when we have forgotten far more important things, we still remember it!
Before we leave the Côtentin altogether, we may mention that delightful chronicler Wace, to whom we owe so much, and who wrote with the ease and picturesqueness of a Pepys, in an age when composition was a serious and dry-as-dust matter. Wace was born in Jersey about 1100–20, therefore he was a native of the Côtentin, in which Jersey was then included. He is reported to have lived to the age of eighty-four, and to have died in England. His life was contemporary with the reigns of Henry I., Stephen, Henry II., and Richard I., and that which he records before 1100 was told to him by word of mouth, partly by his father, to whom he makes reference. His chronicle, which is in the form of a poem, is called the Roman de Rou (or Rollo), and the English translation of it goes no further back than William I. Wace is the most delightful and interesting of chroniclers in an age which was singularly rich. Robert of Jumièges, Ordericus Vitalis, and others have left us accounts as full as any modern newspaper report, of what happened in their days, and they are only the leaders among a host of lesser men.
CHAPTER XI
DIEPPE AND THE COAST
Passengers who land at Dieppe may perhaps be conveniently divided into two classes—those who pass through, intent on tours further inland or in other countries, and those who go to Dieppe, as they would to Brighton. It is pretty safe to say that very few of either class really know the place.
But Dieppe deserves some consideration apart from its harbour and its beach; it is no mushroom town of villadom, but has an old-world flavour, and a delightful mingling of simplicity with its fashion. We can see in it a series of charming pictures. There is, for instance, a long, narrow, cobble-paved street passing through the middle, running more or less parallel with the front, and cut off from it by a double wall of houses. But, alas, there are few old houses, for gable end and ancient woodwork went down before the furious bombardment of the combined English and Dutch fleets in 1694, when the bombs, falling in all directions, set the place on fire. After having done such damage that the whole town had to be rebuilt, the fleet sailed away to Havre. It is said that some of the rich inhabitants at the first sign of danger hid their valuables in the caves, which may be seen in numbers along the limestone cliffs, and that 4000 houses in all were burnt. Thus it is that there is nothing to be seen in the streets anterior to this date. Nevertheless there is a quaint irregularity in the nondescript architecture that is very charming. And on a Saturday morning the long street is lined by the market women, who come in to dispose of their country produce. They have no stalls, but sit on the edge of the pavement on the sunny side, each one with her basket or baskets ranged beside her. Dazed hens with tied legs, faintly expostulating ducks, baskets of pearly eggs, wedges of butter under cool green leaves, great masses of roses and other flowers—such are the goods for sale, and each one represents a large amount of hard work and patience. The women chatter gaily, comparing produce and prices, their pleasant, brown faces shining the while in the sun, until perhaps the babel is for an instant stilled by a funeral passing down the narrow street. The walking priests, in their birettas, lead the procession, followed by the acolytes and the silent coffin; they wind slowly over the cobbles, and the solemn dirge rises on the summer air; but it has passed, and is forgotten, and all is happy tumult once more.
Midway down the street, by the fountain, there curves off another, at the end of which is the magnificent church of St Jacques. It is only the west end we can see in this vista, with its two curious octagon turrets, gargoyle crowned, but as we draw nearer, the fine western tower comes into view. The church, like so many another, was begun in the thirteenth century, and completed in the sixteenth. The other notable church of Dieppe, St Remi, stands further west, and is hemmed in by houses; it was not begun until St Jacques was nearly finished.