Evreux.—Old and historic town, with barracks; cathedral includes several periods, from 1125 to 1630; town belfry, built in 1490, contains bell of 1406; museum, with Roman discoveries from Vieil-Evreux; Church of St. Taurin, Norman and fifteenth century, contains in the sacristy a thirteenth-century silver-gilt reliquary.
Nonancourt.—Small town, with remains of castle, built by Henry I. of England.
Dreux.—Hôtel de Ville, in middle of street, built 1512-1537, has fine interior; Chapelle Royale, on hill above town (where are also the ruins of the castle), a burial-place of the Bourbons; Church of St. Pierre, twelfth and fifteenth centuries, with holy-water stoup of twelfth century.
Evreux is a cathedral town, with comparatively wide, but very unassuming, streets of old houses, having their original charm generally hidden under a covering of plaster. Cavalrymen, with horsehair falling from their helmets, and the numerous clergy seem to make up a considerable proportion of the population. In walking through the town one frequently comes to little canals, which take the water of the River Iton in several directions, in a similar fashion to the Stour at Canterbury.
The spacious square in front of the Hôtel de Ville is overlooked by public buildings, whose new appearance might give one a wrong impression of the antiquity of the town, if it were not for the beautiful belfry tower, with a pinnacled spire, standing in one corner. It was built in the latter part of the fifteenth century, and the bell, whose notes are frequently heard, was cast in 1406, and is nearly a century older than the tower, which was built in place of an earlier one. The Museum, in the same square, is interesting, on account of the Roman remains it contains, found at the village of Vieil-Evreux, a Roman site about four and a half miles to the west.
Town Plan No. 6.—Evreux.
From the museum a short street, the Rue de l’Horloge, leads to the Cathedral, whose lately restored spire appears above the roofs from nearly every point of view. From the eleventh right down to the nineteenth century rebuilding or alterations have been taking place on the great church, and now, to the architect, as well as those who are interested in the history of France, there are the records in stone of the changes which those eight centuries have witnessed.
The first Norman cathedral was burnt, in 1119, by Henry I. of England, who rebuilt the nave about twenty-six years later. During the fighting in Normandy in the time of Philippe Auguste the church again suffered, and the triforium of the nave was rebuilt about the middle of the thirteenth century. The present choir followed at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The following summary covers the chief periods of the cathedral:
1076. Consecration of the Norman church.