Account Of A Tour In Normandy - Volume I
Dawson Turner
LETTERS FROM NORMANDY
ADDRESSED
TO THE REV. JAMES LAYTON, B.A.
OF
CATFIELD, NORFOLK.
UNDERTAKEN CHIEFLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF INVESTIGATING THE ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF THE DUCHY, WITH OBSERVATIONS ON ITS HISTORY, ON THE COUNTRY, AND ON ITS INHABITANTS.
ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS.
LONDON: 1820.
PREFACE.
The observations which form the basis of the following letters, were collected during three successive tours in Normandy, in the summers of 1815, 1818, and 1819; but chiefly in the second of these years. Where I have not depended upon my own remarks, I have endeavored, as far as appeared practicable and without tedious minuteness, to quote my authorities for facts; and I believe that I have done so in most instances, except indeed where I have borrowed from the journals of the companions of my tours,—the nearest and dearest of my connections,—or from that of my friend, Mr. Cohen, who, at almost the same time, travelled through a great part of Normandy, pursuing also very similar objects of inquiry. The materials obtained from these sources, it has been impossible to separate from my own; and, interwoven as they are with the rest of the text, it is only in my power to acknowledge, in these general terms, the assistance which I have thus received.—We were proceeding in 1818, to the southern and western districts of Normandy, when a domestic calamity compelled me to return to England. The tour was consequently abridged, and many places of note remained unvisited by us.
My narrative is principally addressed to those readers who find pleasure in the investigation of architectural antiquity. Without the slightest pretensions to the character either of an architect or of an antiquarian, engaged in other avocations and employed in other studies, I am but too conscious of my inability to do justice to the subject. Yet my remarks may at least assist the future traveller, by pointing out such objects as are interesting, either on account of their antiquity or their architectural worth. This information is not to be obtained from the French, who have habitually neglected the investigation of their national monuments. I doubt, however, whether I should have ventured upon publication, if those who have always accompanied me both at home and abroad, had not produced the illustrations which constitute the principal value of my volumes. Of the merits of these illustrations I must not be allowed to speak; but it may be permitted me to observe, that the fine arts afford the only mode of exerting the talents of woman, which does not violate the spirit of the precept which the greatest historian of antiquity has ascribed to the greatest of her heroes—
"Της τε γαρ ᾽υπαρχουσης φυσεως μη χειροσι γενεσϑαι, ᾽υμιν μεγαλη ᾽η δοξα, χαι δις αν επ᾽ ελαχιστον αρετης περι η ψογου εν τοις αρσεσι χλεος η."
[English. Not in Original: "Great will be your glory in not falling short of your natural character; and greatest will be hers who is least talked of among the men whether for good or for bad." Thucydides' Historiae. (Book 2, Chapter 45, Paragraph 2, Verses 3-5.)]
DAWSON TURNER.
YARMOUTH, 13th August, 1820.
CONTENTS.
LETTER I.
Arrival at Dieppe—Situation and Appearance of the Town—Costume of the People—Inhabitants of the Suburb of Pollet.
LETTER II.
Dieppe—Castle—Churches—History of the Place—Feast of the Assumption.
LETTER III.
Cæsars Camp—Castle of Arques.
LETTER IV.
Journey from Dieppe to Rouen—Priory of Longueville—Rouen-Bridge of Boats—Costume of the Inhabitants.
LETTER V.
Journey to Havre—Pays de Caux—St. Vallery—Fécamp—The precious Blood—The Abbey—Tombs in it—Moutivilliers—Harfleur.
LETTER VI.
Havre—Trade and History of the Town—Eminent Men—Bolbec—Yvetot—Ride to Rouen—French Beggars.
LETTER VII.
On the State of Affairs in France.
LETTER VIII.
Military Antiquities—Le Vieux Château—Original Palace of the Norman Dukes—Halles of Rouen—Miracle and Privilege of St. Romain—Château du Vieux Palais—Petit Château—Fort on Mont Ste. Catherine—Priory there—Chapel of St. Michael—Devotee.
LETTER IX.
Ancient Ecclesiastical Architecture—Churches of St. Paul and St. Gervais—Hospital of St. Julien—Churches of Léry, Pavilly, and Yainville.
LETTER X.
Early Pointed Architecture—Cathedral—Episcopal Palace.
LETTER XI.
Pointed Ecclesiastical Architecture—Churches of St. Ouen, St. Maclou, St. Patrice, and St. Godard.
LETTER XII.
Palais de Justice—States, Exchequer, and Parliament of Normandy—Guild of the Conards—Joan of Arc—Fountain and Bas-Relief in the Place de la Pucelle—Tour de la Grosse Horloge—Public Fountains—Rivers Aubette and Robec—Hospitals—Mint.
LETTER XIII.
Monastic Institutions—Library—Manuscripts—Museum—Academy—Botanic Garden—Theatre—Ancient History—Eminent Men.
INDEX.
LIST OF PLATES.
Plate 01 Head-Dress of Women of the Pays de Caux.
Plate 03 Font in the Church of St. Remi, at Dieppe.
Plate 04 Plan of Cæsar's Camp, near Dieppe.
Plate 05 General View of the Castle of Arques.
Plate 06 Tower of remarkable shape in ditto.
Plate 07 Church at Arques.
Plate 08 View of Rouen, from the Grand Cours.
Plate 09 Tower and Spire of Harfleur Church.
Plate 10 Bas-Relief, representing St. Romain.
Plate 11 Sculpture, supposed Roman, in the Church of St. Paul, at Rouen.
Plate 12 Circular Tower, attached to the Church of St. Ouen, at Rouen.
Plate 13 Interior of the Church at Pavilly.
Plate 14 Monumental Figure of Rollo, in Rouen Cathedral.
Plate 15 Ditto of an Archbishop, in ditto.
Plate 16 Monument of ditto.
Plate 17 Equestrian Figure of the Seneschal de Brezé, in Rouen Cathedral.
Plate 18 Tower of the Church of St. Ouen, at Rouen.
Plate 19 South Porch of ditto.
Plate 20 Head of Christ, in ditto, seen in profile.
Plate 21 Ditto, in ditto, seen in front.
Plate 22 Stone Staircase in the Church of St. Maclou, at Rouen.
Plate 23 Sculpture, representing the Feast of Fools.
Plate 24 Bas-Relief, from the representations of the Champ du Drap d'or.
Plate 25 Initial Letter from a MS. of the History of William of Jumieges.
LETTERS
FROM
NORMANDY
LETTER I.
ARRIVAL AT DIEPPE—SITUATION AND APPEARANCE OF THE TOWN—COSTUME OF THE PEOPLE—INHABITANTS OF THE SUBURB OF POLLET.
(Dieppe, June, 1818)
MY DEAR SIR,
You, who were never at sea, can scarcely imagine the pleasure we felt, when, after a passage of unusual length, cooped up with twenty-four other persons in a packet designed only for twelve, and after having experienced every variety that could he afforded by a dead calm, a contrary wind, a brisk gale in our favor, and, finally, by being obliged to lie three hours in a heavy swell off this port, we at last received on board our French pilot, and saw hoisted on the pier the white flag, the signal of ten feet water in the harbor. The general appearance of the coast, near Dieppe, is similar to that which we left at Brighton; but the height of the cliffs, if I am not mistaken, is greater. They vary along the shores of Upper Normandy from one hundred and fifty to seven hundred feet, or even more; the highest lying nearly mid-way between this town and Havre, in the vicinity of Fécamp; and they present an unbroken barrier, of a dazzling white[1], except when they dip into some creek or cove, or open to afford a passage to some river or streamlet. Into one of these, a boat from the opposite shores of Sussex shot past us this afternoon, with the rapidity of lightning. She was a smuggler, and, in spite of the army of Douaniers employed in France, ventured to make the land in the broad face of day, carrying most probably a cargo, composed principally of manufactured goods in cotton and steel. The crew of our vessel, no bad authority in such cases, assured us, that lace is also sent in considerable quantities as a contraband article into France; though, as is well known, much of it likewise comes in the same quality into England, and there are perhaps few of our travellers, who return entirely without it. On the same authority, I am enabled to state, what much surprised me, that the smuggled goods exported from Sussex into Normandy exceed by nearly an hundred fold those received in return.
The first approach to Dieppe is extremely striking. To embark in the evening at Brighton, sleep soundly in the packet, and find yourself, as is commonly the case, early the next morning under the piers of this town, is a transition, which, to a person unused to foreign countries, can scarcely fail to appear otherwise than
Dieppe is situated on a low tongue of land, but from the sea appears to great advantage; characterized as it is by its old castle, an assemblage of various forms and ages, placed insulated upon an eminence to the west, and by the domes and towers of its churches. The mouth of the harbor is narrow, and inclosed by two long stone piers, on one of which stands an elegant crucifix, raised by the fathers of the mission; to the other has lately been affixed a stone, with an inscription, stating that the Duchess d'Angoulême landed there on her return to her native country; but here is no measure of her foot, no votive pillar, as are to be seen at Calais, to commemorate a similar honor done to the inhabitants by the monarch. A small house on the western pier, is, however, more deserving of notice than either the inscription or the crucifix: it was built by Louis XVIth, for the residence of a sailor, who, by saving the lives of shipwrecked mariners, had deserved well of his sovereign and his country. Its front bears, "A J'n. A'r. Bouzard, pour ses services maritimes;" but there was originally a second inscription in honor of the king, which has been carefully erased. The fury of the revolution could pardon nothing that bore the least relation to royalty; or surely a monument like this, the reward of courage and calculated to inspire only the best of feelings[2], might have been allowed to have remained uninjured. The French are wiser than we are in erecting these public memorials for public virtues: they better understand the art of producing an effect, and they know that such gratifications bestowed upon the living are seldom thrown away. We rarely give them but to the dead. Capt. Manby, to whom above one hundred and thirty shipwrecked mariners are even now indebted for their existence, and whose invention will probably be the means of preservation to thousands, is allowed to live in comparative obscurity; while in France, a mere pilot, for having saved the lives of only eight individuals, had a residence built for him at the public expence, received an immediate gratification of one thousand francs, enjoyed a pension during his life, and, with his name and his exploits, now occupies a conspicuous place in the history of the duchy.
Within the piers, the harbor widens into a stone basin, capable of holding two hundred vessels, and full of water at the flow of the tide; but at the ebb exhibiting little more than a sheet of mud, with a small stream meandering through it. Round the harbor is built the town, which contains above twenty thousand inhabitants, and is singularly picturesque, as well from its situation, backed as it is by the steep cliff to the east, which, instead of terminating here abruptly, takes an inland direction, as from the diversity in the forms and materials of the houses of the quay, some of which are of stone, others of grey flint, more of plaster with their timbers uncovered and painted of different colors, but most of brick, not uncommonly ornamented, with roofs as steep as those of the Thuilleries, and full of projecting lucarnes. This remark, however, applies only to the quay: in its streets, Dieppe is conspicuous among French towns for the uniformity of its buildings. After the bombardment in 1694, when the English, foiled near Brest, wreaked their vengeance upon Dieppe, and reduced the whole to ashes, the town was rebuilt on a regular plan, agreeably to a royal ordinance. Hence this is commonly regarded as one of the handsomest places in France, and you will find it mentioned as such by most authors; but the unfortunate architect who was employed in rebuilding it, got no other reward than general complaints and the nickname of M. Gâteville. The inconveniences arising from the arrangements of the houses which he erected must have been serious; for we find that sixty years afterwards an order of council was procured, allowing the inhabitants to make some alterations that they considered most essential to their comfort. Upon the quay there is occasionally somewhat of the activity of commerce; but elsewhere it is as I have observed before, as well with the people as the buildings. As far as the houses are concerned, a little care and paint would remove their squalid aspect: to an English eye it is singularly offensive; but it cannot possibly be so to the French, among whom it seems almost universal.
To a painter Dieppe must be a source of great delight: the situation, the buildings, the people offer an endless variety; but nothing is more remarkable than the costume of the females of the middle and lower classes, most of
But nothing connected with the costume or manners of the people at Dieppe is equally interesting as what refers to the inhabitants of the suburb called Pollet; and I will therefore conclude my letter, by extracting from the historian of the place[3] his account of these men, which, though written many years ago, is true in the main even in our days, and it is to be hoped will, in its most important respects, continue so for a length of time to come. "Three-fourths of the natives of this part of the town are fishermen, and not less effectually distinguished from the citizens of Dieppe by their name of Poltese, taken from their place of residence, than by the difference in their dress and language, the simplicity of their manners, and the narrow extent of their acquirements. To the present hour they continue to preserve the same costume as in the XVIth century; wearing trowsers covered with wide short petticoats, which open in the middle to afford room for the legs to move, and woollen waistcoats laced in the front with ribands, and tucked below into the waistband of their trowsers. Over these waistcoats is a close coat, without buttons or fastenings of any kind, which falls so low as to hide their petticoats and extend a foot or more beyond them. These articles of apparel are usually of cloth or serge of a uniform color, and either red or blue; for they interdict every other variation, except that all the seams of their dress are faced with white silk galloon, full an inch in width. To complete the whole, instead of hats, they have on their heads caps of velvet or colored cloth, forming a tout-ensemble of attire, which is evidently ancient, but far from unpicturesque or displeasing. Thus clad, the Poltese, though in the midst of the kingdom, have the appearance of a distinct and foreign colony; whilst, occupied incessantly in fishing, they have remained equally strangers to the civilization and politeness, which the progress of letters during the last two centuries has diffused over France. Nay, scarcely are they acquainted with four hundred words of the French language; and these they pronounce with an idiom exclusively their own, adding to each an oath, by way of epithet; a habit so inveterate with them, that even at confession, at the moment of seeking absolution for the practice, it is no uncommon thing with them to swear they will be guilty of it no more. To balance, however, this defect, their morals are uncorrupted, their fidelity is exemplary, and they are laborious and charitable, and zealous for the honor of their country, in whose cause they often bleed, as well as for their priests, in defence of whom they once threatened to throw the Archbishop of Rouen into the river, and were well nigh executing their threats."
[1] The chalk in the cliff, in the immediate vicinity of Dieppe, is divided at intervals of about two feet each by narrow strata of flint, generally horizontal, and composed in some cases of separate nodules, which are not uncommonly split, in others of a continuous compressed mass, about two or three inches thick and of very uncertain extent, but the strata are not regular.
[2] Goube Histoire de Normandie, III. p. 188.—In Cadet Gassicourt Lettres sur Normandie, I. p. 68, the story of Bouzard is given still more at length.
[3] Histoire de Dieppe, II. p. 56.
LETTER II.
DIEPPE—CASTLE—CHURCHES—HISTORY OF THE PLACE—FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION.
(Dieppe, June, 1818.)
The bombardment of this town, alluded to in my last, was so effectual in its operation, that, excepting the castle and the two churches, the place can boast of little to arrest the attention of the antiquary, or of the curious traveller. These three objects were indeed almost all that escaped the conflagration; and for this they were indebted to their insulated situations, the first on an eminence unconnected with the houses of the place, the other two in their respective cemeteries.
The hill on which the castle stands is steep; and the building, as well from its position, as from its high walls, flanked with towers and bastions, has an imposing appearance. In its general outline it bears a
Of the churches here, that of St. Jaques is considerably the finest building, and is indeed an excellent specimen of what has been called the decorated English style of architecture, the style of this church nearly coinciding in its principal lines with that which prevailed in our own country during the reigns of the second and third Edward. It was begun about the year 1260, but was little advanced at the commencement of the following century; nor were its nineteen chapels, the works of the piety of individuals, completed before 1350. The roof of the choir remained imperfect till ninety years afterwards, whilst that of the transept is as recent as 1628[5]. The most ancient work is discernible in the transepts, but the lines are obscured by later additions. A cloister gallery fronted by delicate mullions runs round the nave and choir, and the extent and arrangement of the exterior would induce a stranger, unacquainted with the history of the building, to suppose that he was entering a conventual or cathedral church. The parts long most generally admired by the French, though they have always been miserable judges of gothic architecture, were the vaulted roof, and the pendants of the Lady-Chapel. The latter were originally ornamented with female figures, representing the Sibyls, made of colored terra cotta, and of such excellent workmanship, that Cardinal Barberini, when he visited this chapel in 1647, declared he had seen nothing of the kind, not even in Italy, superior to them for the beauty and delicacy of their execution; but they are now gone, and, according to Noel[6], were destroyed at the time of the bombardment. The state, however, of the roof does not seem to warrant this observation; and, contrary also to what he says, the pendants between the Lady-Chapel and the choir are still perfect, and serve, together with numerous small canopies in the chapel itself, to give a clear idea of what the whole must have been originally. One of the most elegant of the decorations of the church is a spirally-twisted column, elaborately carved, with a peculiarly fanciful and beautiful capital, placed against a pillar that separates the two south-eastern chapels of the choir. The richest object is a stone-screen to a chantry on the north side, which is divide into several canopies, whose upper part is still full of a profusion of sculpture, though the lower is sadly mutilated. I could not ascertain its history or use; but I do not suppose it is of earlier date than the age of Francis Ist, as the Roman or Italian style is blended with the Gothic arch. The Chapel of the Sepulchre, is not uncommonly pointed out as an object of admiration. There is certainly some, handsome sculpture round the portal; but it is not this for which your admiration is required: you are told that the chapel was made in 1612, at the expence of a traveller, then just returned from Palestine, and that it offers a faithful representation of the Holy Sepulchre itself at Jerusalem; by which if we are to understand that the wretched, grisly, painted, wooden figures of the three Maries, and other holy women and holy men, assembled round a disgusting representation of the dead Saviour, have their prototype in Judea, I can only add I am sorry for it: for my own part, putting aside all question of the propriety or effect of symbolical worship, and meaning nothing offensive to the Romish faith, I must be allowed to say that most assuredly I can conceive nothing less qualified to excite feelings of devotion, or more certain to awaken contempt and loathing, than the images of this description, the tinselled virgins, and the wretched daubs, nick-named paintings, which abound in the churches of Picardy and Normandy, the only catholic provinces which I have yet visited; so that, if the taste of the inhabitants is to be estimated by the decoration of the religious buildings, this faculty must be rated very low indeed. The exterior of the church is as richly ornamented as the inside; and not a buttress, arch, or canopy is without the remains of crumbled carving, worn by time, or disfigured by the ruder hand of calvinistic or revolutionary violence. Tradition refers the erection of this edifice to the English. From the certainty with which a date may be assigned to almost every part, it is very interesting to the lover of architecture. The Lady-Chapel is also perhaps one of the last specimens of Gothic art, but still very pure, except in some of the smaller ornaments, such, as the niches in the tabernacles, which end in escalop shells.
The other church is dedicated to St. Remi, and is a building of the XVIIth century; though, judging from some of its pillars, it would be pronounced considerably more ancient. Those of
In the letters one looks naturally for a date: the figures that alternate with them are probably mitres, and, like those on the roof, indicate the supreme jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Rouen in the place.
Dieppe itself is, by its own historians[7], said to boast an origin as early as the days of Charlemagne[8], who is reported to have built a fortress on the scite of the present town, and to have called it Bertheville, in honor of the Berthas, his mother and his daughter. Bertheville was one of the first places taken by the Normans, by whom the appellation was changed to Dyppe or Dieppe, a word which in their language is said to signify a good anchorage. Other writers[9], however, treat the whole of the early chronicle of Dieppe as a fiction, and maintain, that even at the beginning of the XIth century the town had no existence, and the place was only known as the port of Arques, within whose territory it was comprehended; nor was it till the end of the same century that the inhabitants of Arques were, partly from the convenience of the fisheries, and partly from the advantages of the salt trade, induced to form this settlement. Whatever date may be assigned to the foundation of Dieppe, it is frequently contended that William the Conqueror embarked here for the invasion of England, and it seems undoubted that he sailed hence for his new kingdom in the next year, agreeably to the following passage from Ordericus Vitalis, (p. 509) by which you will observe, that the river had at that time the same name as the town, "Deinde sextâ nocte Decembris ad ostium amnis Deppæ ultra oppidtim Archas accessit, primâque vigiliâ gelidæ noctis Austro vela dedit, et mane portum oppositi littoris, (quem Vvicenesium vocitant) prospero cursu arripuit." In 1188, our Henry II built a castle upon the same hill on which the present fortress stands. This strong hold, however, afforded little protection; for we find that, in 1195, Philip Augustus of France, entering Normandy with an hostile army, laid siege to Dieppe, and set fire not only to the town, but also to the shipping in the harbor. Two years subsequently to this event, Dieppe ceased to form a part of the demesne of the Sovereign of the Duchy. Richard the Ist had given great offence to Walter, Archbishop of Rouen, by persisting in the erection of Château Gaillard, in the vicinity of Andelys, which belonged to the archbishop in right of his see; and though our lion-hearted monarch was not appalled either by the papal interdict or by the showers of blood that fell upon his workmen, yet at length he thought it advisable to purchase at once the forgiveness of the prelate and the secular seignory of Andelys, by surrendering to him, as an equivalent, the towns and lordships of Dieppe and Louviers, the land and forest of Alihermont, the land and lordship of Bouteilles, and the mills of Rouen. This exchange was regarded as so great a subject of triumph to the archbishop, that he caused the memory of it to be perpetuated by inscriptions upon crosses in various parts of Rouen, some of which remained as late as 1610, when Taillepied wrote his Recueil des Antiquitéz et Singularitéz de la Ville de Rouen. The following lines are given as one of these inscriptions in the Gallia Christiana[10]: