From the Chapter I went to the COLLEGE LIBRARY. In other words, there is a fine public school, or Lycée, or college, where a great number of lads and young men are educated "according to art." The building is extensive and well-situated: the play-ground is large and commodious; and there is a well-cultivated garden "tempting with forbidden fruit." Into this garden I strolled in search of the President of the College, who was not within doors. I found him in company with some of the masters, and with several young men either playing, or about to play, at skittles. On communicating the object of my visit, he granted me an immediate passport to the library--"mais, Monsieur, (added he) ce n'est rien: il y avoit autrefois quelque chose: maintenant, ce n'est qu'un amas de livres très communs." I thanked him, and accompanied the librarian to the Library; who absolutely apologized all the way for the little entertainment I should receive. There was indeed little enough. The room may be about eighteen feet square. Of the books, a great portion was in vellum bindings, in wretched condition. Here was Jay's Polyglot, and the matrimonial Sanctius again! There was a very respectable sprinkling of Spanish and French Dictionaries; some few not wholly undesirable Alduses; and the rare Louvain edition of Sir Thomas More's Works, printed in 1566, folio.[146] I saw too, with horror-mingled regret, a frightfully imperfect copy of the Service of Bayeux Cathedral, printed in the Gothic letter, UPON VELLUM. But the great curiosity is a small brass or bronze crucifix, about nine inches high, standing upon the mantlepiece; very ancient, from the character of the crown, which savours of the latter period of Roman art--and which is the only crown, bereft of thorns, that I ever saw upon the head of our Saviour so represented. The eyes appear to be formed of a bright brown glass. Upon the whole, as this is not a book, nor a fragment of an old illumination, I will say nothing more about its age. I was scarcely three quarters of an hour in the library; but was fully sensible of the politeness of my attendant, and of the truth of his prediction, that I should receive little entertainment from an examination of the books.
It is high time that you should be introduced in proper form to the famous BAYEUX TAPESTRY. Know then, in as few words as possible, that this celebrated piece of Tapestry represents chiefly the INVASION OF ENGLAND by WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, and the subsequent death of Harold at the battle of Hastings. It measures about 214 English feet in length, by about nineteen inches in width; and is supposed to have been worked under the particular superintendance and direction of Matilda, the wife of the Conqueror. It was formerly exclusively kept and exhibited in the Cathedral; but it is now justly retained in the Town Hall, and treasured as the most precious relic among the archives of the city. There is indeed every reason to consider it as one of the most valuable historical monuments which France possesses. It has also given rise to a great deal of archaeological discussion. Montfaucon, Ducarel, and De La Rue, have come forward successively--but more especially the first and last: and Montfaucon in particular has favoured the world with copper-plate representations of the whole. Montfaucon's plates are generally much too small: and the more enlarged ones are too ornamental. It is right, first of all, that you should have an idea how this piece of tapestry is preserved, or rolled up. You see it here, therefore, precisely as it appears after the person who shews it, takes off the cloth with which it is usually covered.
The first portion of the needle-work, representing the embassy of Harold, from Edward the Confessor to William Duke of Normandy, is comparatively much defaced--that is to say, the stitches are worn away, and little more than the ground, or fine close linen cloth, remains. It is not far from the beginning--and where the colour is fresh, and the stitches are, comparatively, preserved--that you observe the PORTRAIT OF HAROLD.[147]
You are to understand that the stitches, if they may be so called, are threads laid side by side--and bound down at intervals by cross stitches, or fastenings--upon rather a fine linen cloth; and that the parts intended to represent flesh are left untouched by the needle. I obtained a few straggling shreds of the worsted with which it is Worked. The colours are generally a faded or bluish green, crimson, and pink. About the last five feet of this extraordinary roll are in a yet more decayed and imperfect state than the first portion. But the designer of the subject, whoever he was, had an eye throughout to Roman art--as it appeared in its later stages. The folds of the draperies, and the proportions of the figures, are executed with this feeling.
I must observe that, both at top and at bottom of the principal subject, there is a running allegorical ornament;[148] of which I will not incur the presumption to suppose myself a successful interpreter. The constellations, and the symbols of agriculture and of rural occupation, form the chief subjects of this running ornament. All the inscriptions are executed in capital letters of about an inch in length; and upon the whole, whether this extraordinary and invaluable relic be of the latter end of the XIth, or of the beginning or middle of the XIIth century[149] seems to me a matter of rather a secondary consideration. That it is at once unique and important, must be considered as a position to be neither doubted nor denied, I have learnt, even here, of what importance this tapestry-roll was considered in the time of Bonaparte's threatened invasion of our country: and that, after displaying it at Paris for two or three months, to awaken the curiosity and excite the love of conquest among the citizens, it was conveyed to one or two sea-port towns, and exhibited upon the stage as a most important materiel in dramatic effect.[150]
I think you have now had a pretty good share of Bayeux intelligence; only that I ought not to close my despatches without a word or two relating to habits, manners, trade, and population. This will scarcely occupy a page. The men and women here are thoroughly Norman. Stout bodies, plump countenances, wooden shoes, and the cauchoise--even to exceedingly tall copies of the latter! The population may run hard upon ten thousand. The chief articles of commerce are butter and lace. Of the former, there are two sorts: one, delicate and well flavoured, is made during winter and spring; put up into small pots, and carried from hence in huge paniers, not only to all the immediately adjacent parts of the country, but even to Paris--and is shipped in large quantities for the colonies. They have made as much as 120,000 lb. weight each season; but Isigny, a neighbouring village, is rather the chief place for its production. The other sort of butter, which is eaten by the common people, and which in fact is made throughout the whole of Lower Normandy, (the very butter, in short, in which the huge alose was floating in the pot of the lively cuisiniere at Duclair[151]) is also chiefly made at Isigny; but instead of a delicate tint, and a fine flavour, it is very much the contrary: and the mode of making and transporting it accords with its qualities. It is salted, and packed in large pots, and even barrels, for the sake of exportation; and not less than 50,000 lb. weight is made each week. The whole profit arising from butter has been estimated at not less than two millions of francs: add to which, the circulation of specie kept up by the payment of the workmen, and the purchase of salt. As to lace, there are scarcely fewer than three thousand females constantly employed in the manufacture of that article.
The mechanics here, at least some of them, are equally civil and ingenious. In a shop, in the high or principal street, I saw an active carpenter, who had lost the fore finger of his right hand, hard at work--alternately whistling and singing--over a pretty piece of ornamental furniture in wood. It was the full face of a female, with closely curled hair over the forehead, surmounted by a wreath of flowers, having side curls, necklace, and platted hair. The whole was carved in beech, and the form and expression of the countenance were equally correct and pleasing. This merry fellow had a man or two under him, but he worked double tides, compared with his dependants. I interrupted him singing a French air, perfectly characteristic of the taste of his country. The title and song were thus:
TOU JOURS.
TOUJOURS, toujours, je te serai fidèle;
Disait Adolphe à chaque instant du jour;
Toujours, toujours je t'aimerai, ma belle,
Je veux le dire aux échos d'alentour;
Je graverai sur l'écorce d'un hètre,
Ce doux serment que le dieu des amours,
Vient me dieter, en me faisant connaître;
Que mon bonheur est de t'aimer toujours. Bis.