Rambles in Normandy

Rambles in Normandy By M. F. Mansfield Rambles In Normandy PART I. RAMBLES IN NORMANDY CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY “ONE doubles his span of life,” says George Moore, “by knowing well a country not his own.” is a good friend, indeed, to whom one may turn in time of strife, and none other than Normandy—unless it be Brittany—has proved itself a more safe and pleasant land for travellers. When one knows the country well he recognizes many things which it has in common with England. Its architecture, for one thing, bears a marked resemblance; for the Norman builders, who erected the magnificent ecclesiastical edifices in the Seine valley during the middle ages, were in no small way responsible for many similar works in England. It is possible to carry the likeness still further, but the author is not rash enough to do so. The above is doubtless sufficient to awaken any spirit of contention which might otherwise be latent. Some one has said that the genuine traveller must be a vagabond; and so he must, at least to the extent of taking things as he finds them. He may have other qualities which will endear him to the people with whom he comes in contact; he may be an artist, an antiquarian, or a mere singer of songs;—even if he be merely inquisitive, the typical Norman peasant makes no objection. One comes to know Normandy best through the real gateway of the Seine, though not many distinguish between Lower Normandy and Upper Normandy. Indeed, not every one knows where Normandy leaves off and Brittany begins, or realizes even the confines of the ancient royal domain of the kings of France. Rouen, however, the capital of the ancient province, is, perhaps, better known by casual travellers from England and America than any other city in France, save Paris itself. This is as it should be; for no mediæval city of Europe has more numerous or beautiful shrines left to tell the story of its past than the Norman metropolis. Some will remember Rouen as a vast storehouse of architectural treasures, others for its fried sole and duckling . , , or goes well with either. How many Englishmen know that it is in the tongue of the ancient Normans that the British sovereign is implored to approve or reject the laws of his Parliament? This is beyond dispute, though it appears not to be generally known; hence it is presumed that the land of the Conqueror is not wholly an overtilled field for Anglo-Saxon tourists. The formula for the approval of the laws promulgated by the British Parliament to-day is: for the laws of finance, “”; for laws of general purport, “”; for a law of local interest, “” And finally, when the royal endorsement is withheld, the formula is, “” In the House of Commons, only within the last year (1905), the First Lord of the Treasury rose to abolish this inexplicable usage, the employment of a foreign tongue. Mr. Balfour replied with a refusal based on historical tradition: “French was the language of state in England by right of the Norman Conquest.” It was in 1706 that the House of Lords forbade the use of French in parliamentary and judicial debates. The only chief of state in England who used the English tongue exclusively was Cromwell. The full significance of the spirit of relationship between Normandy and England to-day is admirably brought out in the expression of sentiment which was advanced on the occasion of the Norman fêtes held at Rouen in the summer of 1904, when the following address was despatched to King Edward at Buckingham Palace by the society that had the fêtes in charge: “TO HIS MAJESTY, EDWARD VII.: “With the deepest joy the ‘Souvenir Normand’ respectfully begs your Majesty to accept its greetings from the banks of the Seine, the river whence your glorious ancestor, William, of the stock of Viking Rollo, set out to found the great British Empire under Norman kings. We thank Providence for the happy tokens of your royal efforts to bring about an understanding between the two Normandies, to secure the peace of the world through the Normans. May God preserve your Majesty; may God grant long life and prosperity to the King and Queen of England and to the English Normandy.” Normandy is by no means limited to the lower Seine valley, but for the purposes of the journeys set forth herein it is the gateway by which one enters. Normandy is the true land of the cider-apple, though there are other places where, if it is not more abundant, it is of better quality, or at least it has more of the taste of those little apples which grow on trees hardly larger than scrub or sagebrush. All so-called in Normandy is not cider; most of it is . You buy it in little packets, at a comparatively small price, and add water to suit the taste; only you don’t do it yourself—the landlord of your hotel does it to suit his taste, or his ideas of good business. A little farther south, on the confines of the plain of Beauce, where Normandy ended and the ancient royal domain began, you get another sort of . “” says the , or more likely it is a in these parts. “,” you answer, anxious to see what the new variety may be. When you get it, you find it a peculiar concoction, resembling the wines of Touraine, Bordeaux, Burgundy, or the Midi not a whit. Yet it is not , though it well might be from its look, and somewhat from its taste. “,” volunteered an amiable commercial traveller, in reply to a query. A small boy was once asked by a patronizing elder what books he used in studying geography and history, and he answered, curtly, “I use no books, I go to places.” That boy was very fortunate. If the traveller is looking for information and incidental pleasure, he is in a class quite apart from the mere pleasure-seeker; and he ought, if he would profit from his travels to the fullest extent, to be able to increase his power of observation as he widens his horizon. He is often unable to do so, and goes about deploring the absence of pie and buttered toast. With visitors to Normandy, the case is in no wise different, in spite of the fact that the well- known roads from Havre or Dieppe to Paris, via the Seine valley, are a little better known than any other part of France. There are still but two wholly unspoiled spots in all the Seine valley, Les Andelys and La Roche-Guyon; and it is doubtful if they ever will become spoiled by tourists within the lives of the present generation. The railway has only recently come to Les Andelys, and the two pretty little towns, with their stupendous Château Gaillard, are even now not popular resorts, though the French, English, and American travellers are coming yearly in increasing numbers, while La Roche-Guyon—a few miles farther up the river—is even less well-known. Mention is made of this simply because it serves to emphasize the fact that all highroads are not well-worn roads, and that there is a wealth of unlooked-for attraction to be gathered wherever one may roam. Of the theorists who have attempted to class the Normans with the Danes, the least said the better. To rank the Norman-French and the Dane together, as the pioneers of feudalism, is to ignore the fact that it was the Normans who were the real civilizers of Britain. The fact stands boldly forth, however, that the ancestors of Norman William, who afterward became England’s king, came direct and undiluted from Scandinavia, while the Norman Frenchman of later times was a distinct development of his own environment. It is well enough to claim that the English nobility is descended from the Norman barons. At any rate it seems plausible, and one may well agree with those who have said that no Upper House of Lords could ever have been conceived by the Anglo-Saxons. History demonstrates the fact that the idea of the English House of Lords, as an appointment by the Crown, was of Norman conception, and alien to Anglo-Saxon tendencies. It seems, perhaps, superfluous to reiterate these facts here, but they are so commonly overlooked by the traveller in France that it is well to recall that it was the Norman who governed Britain, and not members of the Saxon hierarchy who afterward became kings of France. It is with reason that the Norman speaks so fondly of Jersey, Guernsey, and their sister isles. This is explained, of course, by the geographers, and one should, perhaps, be charitable, and allow for the spirit of patriotism, when the Frenchman calls the Channel Islands . The people there are in many ways as French as French can be. Their laws and their courts make use of the French tongue, and in most, if not quite all, respects the common characteristics are French. The Frenchman himself, too, is often very fond of them, in spite of their alien allegiance. He calls them “.” From this he generally goes on to say that “they are the Canada of Europe, a province of France, which continues the life of the French under the Protectorate of the English.” The law of Jersey is that of the “.” In Jersey the King of England reigns not; he is Duc de Normandie; the magistrates condemn or acquit “”; the code is Norman; the administration Norman.

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