_With a few notes on Rome, and the exquisite drawing of a living acanthus leaf at Paestum, the book dies away into a sort of Journal, that records talks with the Bishop of Gibraltar and Père Hyacinth_,--“I found him very pleasant and intelligent.” NOTES ON FRENCH CHURCHES III SOME FRENCH CHURCHES CHIEFLY IN THE ROYAL DOMAIN (From a notebook of 1855) _June 13._ Somer has lost much of its original interest by the destruction wantonly in 1830 of nearly the whole of the abbey of S. Bertin. It is wicked, but I did not lament this so much as I should have done, had the church been of rather earlier date. From what now remains it appears to have been entirely in one style, and that an early phase of flamboyant--much more like some of our English late middle-pointed than flamboyant, and really very effective in its mouldings and sculpture, the two great tests of all architecture. The west front and the north wall of the nave are all that now remains of the once magnificent church, and the latter has lost all its window tracery and is in a sad state of decay. The west doorway of the tower (which is central at the west end) is fine, and has cut in the lintel stone of its door an inscription:--“_Castissimum Divi Bertini templum caste memento ingredi._” The tympanum had a painted subject and much of the rest of the stone work still retains traces of decorative colour. The west window of the south aisle is an unhappy example of the worst kind of flamboyant, the tower is covered all over with vertical lines of panelling but is nevertheless, from its great size, imposing, and indeed gives S. Omer all the character it has when seen from the railway. A sentinel keeping watch warned me off as I was measuring the aisle: I suppose having lost so much they were nervously alive to the chance of architects’ hacking off what remains! A long winding street leads from S. Bertin at one end of it to the cathedral of Notre Dame at the other. This is a church well worthy of a visit for several peculiarities and not less for its generally fine effect, especially in the interior.