Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 2Turner, Dawson
History
Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 2
Turner, Dawson
Architecture -- France -- Normandy; Normandy (France) -- Antiquities; Normandy (France) -- Description and travel
The suburbs of Pont-Audemer furnish another church dedicated to St.
Germain, which would have been an excellent subject for both pen and
pencil, had it undergone less alteration. The short, thick, square,
central tower has, on each side, a row of four windows, of nearly the
earliest pointed style; many of the windows of the body of the church
have semi-circular heads; the corbels which extend in a line round the
nave and transepts are strangely grotesque; and, on the north side of
the eastern extremity, is a semi-circular chapel, as at St.
Georges.--The inside is dark and gloomy, the floor unpaved, and every
thing in and about it in a state of utter neglect, except some dozen
saints, all in the gayest attire, and covered with artificial flowers.
The capitals of the columns are in the true Norman style. Those at St.
Georges are scarcely more fantastic, or more monstrous.--Between two of
the arches of the choir, on the south side of this church, is the effigy
of a man in his robes, coifed with a close cap, lying on an altar-tomb.
The figure is much mutilated; but the style of the canopy-work over the
head indicates that it is not of great antiquity. The feet of the statue
rest upon a dog, who is busily occupied in gnawing a marrow-bone.--Dogs
at the base of monumental effigies are common, and they have been
considered as symbols of fidelity and honor; but surely the same is not
intended to be typified by a dog thus employed; and it is not likely
that his being so is a mere caprice of the sculptor's.--There is no
inscription upon the monument; nor could we learn whom it is intended to
commemorate.
At but a short distance from Pont-Audemer, higher up the Risle, lies the
yet smaller town of Montfort, near which are still to be traced, the
ruins of a castle,[50] memorable for the thirty days' siege, which it
supported from the army of Henry Ist, in 1122; and dismantled by Charles
Vth, at the same time that he razed the fortifications of Pont-Audemer.
The Baron of Montfort yet ranks in our peerage; though I am not aware
that the nobleman, who at present bears the title, boasts a descent from
any part of the family of _Hugh with a beard_, the owner of Montfort at
the time of the conquest, and one of the Conqueror's attendants at the
battle of Hastings.
From Pont-Audemer we proceeded to Honfleur: it was market-day at the
place which we had quitted, and the throng of persons who passed us on
the road, gave great life and variety to the scene. There was scarcely
an individual from whom we did not receive a friendly smile or nod,
accompanied by a _bon jour_; for the practice obtains commonly in
France, among the peasants, of saluting those whom they consider their
superiors. Almost all that were going to market, whether male or female,
were mounted on horses or asses; and their fruit, vegetables, butchers'
meat, live fowls, and live sheep, were indiscriminately carried in the
same way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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