CHARLOTTE CORDAY
After the painting by Raffet
But Charlotte did not walk to Paris. She travelled in the diligence, and seems to have had a very good time of it. She is a case in point showing that vanity in women, especially in French women, is strong even in the face of death by violence. We find her smiling upon the artist who sketched her during the trial and turning her face towards him, while, as the executioner waited, she gave a sitting for her portrait in the Conciergerie. In this portrait which still exists she is clothed in the red robe in which she met her death, as she called it, "the toilette of death arranged by somewhat rude hands, but it leads to immortality."
It rained in torrents as she moved out to her doom, and then the sun shone forth. "Its departing rays fell upon her head, and her complexion heightened by the red of the chemise, seemed of an unearthly brilliance. Robespierre, Danton, and Camille Desmoulins watched her on her way, a celestial vengeance appeased and transfigured."
How different the story of the other name which makes Caen famous! Pomp and glitter, the call to arms and a throne! While the girl's grave is unknown her death was attended by a nation, though the King sleeps in the choir of the majestic Church of Saint Étienne and his descendants rule in his stead, his death was neglected and he was buried by charity. But which name stands first in the great court of God?
As the traveller enters Caen the first object which greets his eye is the Church of St. Étienne, the Church of the Abbey of Men, which was founded by the Conqueror in 1036, the same year his Queen Matilda founded the Church of the Abbey of Women,—La Trinité, which one sees over yonder, both as an expiation of the sin they had committed in marrying within the forbidden degree of consanguinity. While singularly majestic, St. Étienne is simple to severity, but what do architects think about its façade and the odd-looking spires? To me they appear as though brought by some giant on a dark night and set upon the wrong church, after which it was not worth while to take them down. Certainly to one who is not an architect, they seem oddly placed on that façade.
THE ABBEY OF MEU AT CAEN
By permission of Messrs. Neurdein
The interior however, the nave that is, satisfies by its dignified simplicity and was a fitting resting-place for a king like the Norman. I say "was" because the tomb under the black marble slab before the high altar is empty. The King formerly slept beneath the great central tower, but both Huguenots and Revolutionists desecrated his grave and his bones have never rested in that tomb or choir.