The neighboring church of St. John appears likewise to be the work of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This building and St. Peter's agree in general character: their towers are nearly the counterparts of each other. But, in St. John's, the great tower is placed at the west end of the edifice, the principal portal being beneath it. This is not very usual in the Norman-gothic churches, though common in England. The tower wants a spire; and, at present, it leans considerably out of the perpendicular line, so that some apprehensions are entertained for its safety. It was originally intended that the church should also be surmounted by a central tower; and, as De Bourgueville says, the beginning was made in his time; but it remains to the present day incomplete, and has not been raised sufficiently high to enable us to form a clear idea of the design of the architect, though enough remains to shew that it would have been built in the Romanizing-gothic style.--The inside is comparatively plain, excepting only the arches in the lower open part of the tower. These are richly ornamented; and a highly-wrought balustrade runs round the triforium, uniform in its pattern in the nave and choir, but varying in the transepts.--In the other ecclesiastical buildings at Caen, we saw nothing to interest us.--The chapel of St. Thomas l'Abattu, which, according to Huet, "had existed from time immemorial," and which, to judge from Ducarel's description and figure, must have been curious, has now entirely disappeared. In the suburb of Vaucelles, the church of St. Michael contains some architectural features of great curiosity[75]. The circular-headed arches in the short square tower, and in a small round turret that is attached to it, are unquestionably early Norman, and are remarkable for their proportions, being as long and as narrow as the lancet windows of the following æra. It would not be equally safe to pronounce upon the date of the stone-roofed pyramid which covers this tower. The north porch is entered by a pointed arch, which, though much less ornamented, approaches in style to the southern porch of St. Ouen, and, like that, has its inner archivolt fringed with pendant trefoils. The wall above the arch rises into a triangular gable, entirely covered with waving tracery, the only instance of the kind which I have seen at Caen. * * * * * FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 71: _Huet, Origines de Caen_, p. 12.]