[11] The approach to Lisieux from the railway station is singularly uninteresting; a new town of common red brick houses, of the Coventry or Birmingham pattern, having lately sprung up in this quarter.
[12] There is something not inappropriate, in the printed letters in present use in France, to the 'Haussmann' style of street architecture; some inscriptions over warehouses and shops could scarcely indeed be improved. We might point as an illustration of our meaning to the successful introduction of the word nord, several times repeated, on the façade of the terminus of the Great Northern Railway at Paris.
[13] We lately saw an english crest, bearing the motto "Courage without fear;" a piece of tautology, surely of modern manufacturer?
[14] The contrast between the present and former states of society might be typified by the general substitution of the screw for the nail in building; both answering the purpose of the modern builder, but the former preferred, because removable at pleasure.
It is a restless age, in which advertisements of 'Families removed' are pasted on the walls of a man's house without appearing to excite his indignation.
[15] The 'renaissance' work at the east end of this church is considered by Herr Lübke to be 'the masterpiece of the epoch.' 'It is to be found,' he says, 'at one extremity of a building, the other end of which is occupied by the loveliest steeple and tower in the world.'
[16] It is remarkable that with all their care for this building, the authorities should permit apple-stalls and wooden sheds to be built up against the tower.
[17] An architect, speaking of the Albert Memorial, now approaching completion, says:—'In ten years the spire and all its elaborate tracery will have become obsolete and effaced for all artistic purposes. The atmosphere of London will have performed its inevitable function. Every 'scroll work' and 'pinnacle' will be a mere clot of soot, and the bronze gilt Virtues will represent nothing but swarthy denizens of the lower regions; the plumage of the angels will be converted into a sort of black-and-white check-work. 'All this fated transformation we see with the mind's eye as plainly as we see with those of the body, the similar change which has been effected in the Gothic tracery of some of our latest churches.'
[18] The old woman is well known at Caen, and her encounter with the 'garçon anglais' it matter of history amongst her friends in the town.
[19] It was lately found necessary to repair the south door; but the restoration of the carved work has been effected with the utmost skill and care: indeed we could hardly point to a more successful instance of 'restoring' in France.