This admirable house, in the centre of the town, gabled, elaborately timbered, and much restored, is a really imposing monument. The basement is occupied by a linen-draper, who flourishes under the auspicious sign of the Mère de Famille; and above her shop the tall front rises in five overhanging stories. As the house occupies the angle of a little place, the front is double, and carved and interlaced, has a high picturesqueness. The Maison d'Adam is quite in the grand style, and I am sorry to say I failed to learn what history attaches to its name.
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I remember going around to the church, after I had left the good sisters, and to a little quiet terrace, which stands in front of it, ornamented with a few small trees and bordered with a wall, breast high, over which you look down steep hillsides, off into the air, and all about the neighboring country. I remember saying to myself that this little terrace was one of those felicitous nooks which the tourist of taste keeps in his mind as a picture.
Henry James, A Little Tour in France.
XV
ROCHER-ST.-POL
The Town and the River Merle
A COUNTRY TOWN
They wake you early in this hilly town. It was hardly light this morning when up and down through all its highways went a vigorous drum beat. Reluctantly peeking from the window to see the troops enter our square I was disappointed to find that one regimental drummer, marching unaccompanied and lonely, had done all this mischief. What useful purpose did he serve? After a brief respite and repose the noise of another commotion came in with the morning air; a murmur which grew and became a chatter and at last a din! The next journey to the window showed that the morning market was in full swing. Piles of fresh greens and rich-colored vegetables were tended by gnarled old peasant women sitting under widespread umbrellas of faded colors. But what a pleasant air it was that came through the opened sash; a mountain air with just that faint flavor of garlic tinging it which presages something satisfying to be found later. Strengthened for a time by our coffee and rolls we wandered through these winding streets. We saw the weather-beaten, leaden flèche of the cathedral high on the hill, but for the time were satisfied to study the many ancient houses which still remain. Their fronts framed in dark oak with a filling of amber-colored plaster topple over the public ways until they almost meet. Here and there the oak beams are carved, and grinning man or snarling monster regards you from corbel or boss. In places too there are bits of old Gothic detail and one doorway of true Flamboyant work. There is the true poetry of architecture! In England the Decorated Period gives you what is handsome, the Perpendicular what is stately. In France the cathedrals of Paris and of Rheims are splendidly serious and correct; but if in Gothic work you seek imaginative, unrestrained, carelessly free poetry it is to be found in the flowing lines and exuberant fancy of the work of the Flamboyant period.