Brittany Its Byways | Page 6

to understand when offered for sale--by the
monks.
Regaining the railroad, we went on to Valognes, which has been styled
the St. Germain of Normandy; a dull town, with worn-out houses,
occupied by worn-out aristocratic families. The grass grows in the
streets.
Here we left the rail and proceeded to Saint Sauveur-le-Vicomte. On
entering the town, the castle is on the right of the road, the Abbey
church on the left. The large demesne of Saint Sauveur-le-Vicomte

passed by marriage into the Harcourt family, and belonged, in the time
of Edward III., to Geoffrey d'Harcourt, whose fortress was one of the
most formidable in Normandy. Banished from France, he went over to
England and persuaded Edward III. to make a descent upon Normandy
instead of Gascony, assuring him he would find rich towns and fair
castles without any means of defence, and that his people would gain
wealth enough to suffice them for twenty years to come. The King
landed at La Hogue, or Saint Vaast-la-Hogue, as it is now called, where
he knighted the Prince of Wales and made Warwick and Harcourt
marshals of his army. They advanced in three divisions--the King and
the Prince in the centre, the two marshals on the right and left--ravaging
all before them, and not stopping in their victorious course till the great
victory at Crecy. Harcourt subsequently met a traitor's fate. A force was
sent against him, his army was routed, and, preferring death to being
taken, he fought most valiantly until he was struck to the ground by
French lances, when some men-at-arms dispatched him with their
swords. He had sold the reversion of his castle to King Edward III., to
whom it was confirmed by the treaty of Bretigny. Edward bestowed the
barony upon that pride of English chivalry, Sir John Chandos, in
recompense for his great services in the wars. The square donjon and
inner gate were built by Chandos. The castle is well preserved, and is
now used as a hospice for orphans and aged women. The rooms are
kept beautifully clean, and on a tablet in one of the corridors is written
up "Dortoirs restaurés par la munificence de M. le Comte Georges
d'Harcourt en mémoire de ses illustres ayeux, anciens Seigneurs de ce
château, en 1838."
The Benedictine convent also belonged to the Harcourts until the revolt
of Geoffrey. It is now the property of the Soeurs de la Miséricorde, who
have rebuilt the fine Abbey church according to its former model.
Originally built in the eleventh century, it was partly burnt in the
fourteenth, and reconstructed in the fifteenth. The columns and arches
of the nave are of the first period; the form of the church is a Latin
cross, having an apse ornamented with a double row of lancet windows,
richly sculptured. The sculptures are all executed by an untaught
workman of the place, who died before he had completed the pulpit. To
collect the funds necessary for the undertaking, the foundress travelled

throughout Europe. Her tomb is in the church. "Julie Françoise
Catherine Postel, née à Barfleur, 1756. Soeur Marie Madelaine,
Fondatrice et première Superieure Générale de l'Institut des Ecoles
Chrétiennes de la Miséricorde, morte en odeur de Sainteté 16 Juillet
1846, à l'Abbaye de St. Sauveur-le-Vicomte." The badge of the
sisterhood is a cross inscribed with their motto "L'obéissance jusqu'à la
mort." Some of the party made an attempt at fishing in the little river
Douve, but without success, though rewarded for their walk by a pretty
view of the apse of the Abbey church, with its delicately-sculptured
lancet windows, from the opposite side of the river.
[Illustration: 5. L'OBÉISSANCE JUSQU'À LA MORT.]
We hired a private carriage (voiture à volonté) to Périers. After passing
over a hilly road we crossed a marsh which extends from Carentan to
the sea, and reached a town called La Haye-du-Puits--a singular name
derived from the custom in the middle ages of surrounding the "motte"
or enclosure upon which the donjon was built, with a wooden palisade,
or sometimes with a thick hedge formed of thorns and branches of trees
interlaced: hence La Haye-du-Puits, La Haye-Pesnel, and others. Here
is a Norman church restored: all the capitals of the columns are of the
same pattern.
The Abbey church at Lessay, where next we stopped, is of the twelfth
century, and considered, with Coutances and Périers, to be the finest
examples of Romanesque in the Cotentin. The arches are round, and all
the architecture of the church, which has been restored, is of the same
period. The Abbey of Lessay had transmarine jurisdiction and the right
of presentation to the Priory of Boxgrove and other endowments in the
diocese of Chichester. The Abbey house, now inhabited, is a fine
modernised habitation. At Lessay we saw the manner of washing