Caen possesses many fine churches, especially that of Saint Pierre, also the "Trinité" or "Abbaye aux Dames" founded by the Queen of the Conqueror; but while that church is fine, its crypt is unique.
LA TRINITÉ, ABBEY OF WOMEN, AT CAEN
By permission of Messrs. Neurdein
Our way through Normandy is as though driving through a beautiful park. The long highways stretch off into the smiling country like great white ribbons turning and twisting on a bed of delicate green satin and the brooks bubble and sing along happy in the ever increasing life of spring. Tall poplars clothed in the pale green which seems peculiar to France in this season, march away in stately procession, while the quaint thatched cottages are all a-blossom with the flowers of peach and pear trees trained over their faces, and through which the windows twinkle out at you like the eyes of a maiden from under the frills of a white sunbonnet. There are many Evangelines abroad in this smiling country, still wearing their Norman caps and kirtles of homespun. Ancient dames sit by the open doors thankful that they may bask in the sunshine of another year, and that they will not as yet add another cross to the many on the hillside yonder. One with whom a black-robed priest is talking is evidently so old that she must say farewell to all this brightness before very long. We pass many curious groups. Here comes one on a make-shift of a wagon, evidently of home construction. It is hauled by three poor dogs, one on each side and one underneath it. A stolid-looking girl pushes behind, and in it sits enthroned a beast of a man, evidently a cripple in his legs, but with bestiality written on every feature; such a man as Quilp must have been. A wretched baby completes the party, but such groups of misery are the exception, most of the people of Normandy look happy.
Our route lies through Lisieux, a prosperous little city, earnestly engaged in its own affairs, and having no time to waste on a passing show like ourselves. But we note as we glide by that Lisieux possesses a church and many bits of curious architecture that would interest, but to-day is one of those days when it is good to be alive, when there is great joy in motion, so we sail onward almost like the flight of a great flamingo, onward and onward, until from the top of a hill the Seine comes into view, winding through its fair valley on the way to the sea; and, off in the other direction, with her spires glittering in the sunlight, sits Rouen, the pride of all this region which would appear to have placed the town in its centre, and arranged its hills like a vast amphitheatre all around it, that the looker-on might the better observe the pageant of history as it swept through the ancient city. As we move onward and into her streets we discover that the Rouen of to-day, while evidently a "member of one of our oldest families" is not a dead town. The Seine sweeping through her midst bears on its waters ships from all over the world as well as the quaint barges and puffing little steamers which come down from Paris. The old walls have vanished, giving place to wide boulevards, which encircle the ancient town and are in turn surrounded by far-spreading suburbs. Light and life is everywhere and the cafés over-flow far into the streets with their little tables and merry throngs. Evidently the fortune of the ancient city was great, for its heir of to-day is certainly in affluent circumstances,—so that there is nothing of the sadness which envelops so many of the ancient towns of the Republic, and yet few, if any, of them preserve intact so much that belongs to the Middle Ages.
Leave the wide, gay boulevard by the river and enter any of the adjoining streets and you slip at once backward for hundreds of years,—large sections stand unchanged by the flight of time,—ancient mansions gaze down upon you still bearing their coats of arms in stone,—still showing the high peaked roofs and heavy carving of a distant age.
Moving on, you will pass the exquisite Church of St. Maclou and at last pause with a feeling of satisfaction before the majestic façade of the great cathedral. This temple holds perfect beauty in its plan, is a poem in stone, which satisfies the mind and the eye ever more and more. When the traveller passes into the shadowy interior he is forced to pause in deepest admiration. The majestic pillars of its nave stretch away hundreds of feet before him until merged in one of the most beautiful choirs in Europe; centuries old all of it, and never having been restored it possesses that mellow beauty which only the passage of the years can bestow, and the artist lingers long in its shadows drinking in the charm around him, with scarcely a desire to enter into an examination of details,—nor shall I attempt such descriptions here.
