A NEW BOOK ON NORMANDY.*
ALL travellers in Normandy, and especially all cyclists, should read Mr. Percy Dearmer's book before they leave England. Possibly they will not regret taking it with them, though we believe that after every kind of information has been swallowed and digested, one's own impressions are the only true mental gain to be brought back from tours like these. But at least a set of very useful notes could be put together from the book as to routes, roads, things really worth seeing, which would not encumber a cyclist's luggage, and yet would provide a kind of knowledge hardly to be found in any guide-book we could mention. For the revolution in guide- books is not finished yet ; the railways still have things mostly their own way. Bits of Normandy here and there among the " byways " have been described by their own lovers and visitors ; but no modern traveller, antiquary, archaeologist, historian, artist, has wandered in the lanes of the old province —among the blossoming orchards that lie about old high. roofed farms or chateaux still older, their history all behind them, but gay to the last—to such good purpose as Mr. Percy Dearmer. He makes the ordinary, old-fashioned tourist feel that Normandy, with which he fancied himself familiar, is almost an unknown country after all, and that the freshest and most delightful experiences lie within an easy day's journey of London.
The likeness between Normandy and England, between the Normans and the English, is often exaggerated. That the original Norman element in our own raze is one of its finest parts we have very little doubt; but the modern Normans are fax more French than English, and any one who expects a contrary experience will be disappointed. Long noses, calculating brains, and deliberate ways ; less excitability, of course, than the Celtic French; yet French to the core, and with no leaning towards the Anglo-Saxon. Keen, careful, prudent, fearless ; not particularly religious in mind or civilised in manners ; such is the Norman. And the country, if it reminds one sometimes of England, does so with a very great difference. It is on a so much larger scale ; its rich and varied beauty has the undefinable touch of ancientness; old French history seems to linger in the twisting, shadowy by-roads and the pic- turesque villages and smaller towns. The Revolution and the whole course of the nineteenth century have done their worst ; but the old Norman churches are the finest in the world, and the fullest of historical and other interest ; such stained glass is to be found nowhere else, and now that French people have learnt to preserve their old monuments, there is not much fear of further destruction, except by an indiscreet restorer here and there.
Mr. Dearmer begins his Norman tour with Gisors ; from there, by Les Andelys and Louviers, he goes to Evreux ; then Bernay, Lisieux, Falaise, Argentan, Domfront, Mortain, Vire ; then striking west and north from that lovely corner, the great vision of Mont St. Michel ; then Granville, Coutances, St. LO, Bayeux, Caen, and so on by the coast to Trouville and Honfleur ; by Pont Audemer to Rouen, turning aside to Bec- Hellouin, the home of Lanfranc and Anselm ; from Rouen by Caudebec and Lillebonne to Havre ; then the coast again, with a short curve inland between Fecamp and St. Valery ; ending with Dieppe and the Chateau d'Eu. All these names are familiar enough, and nearly all accessible to the ordinary railway traveller, but though Mr. Dearmer's detailed and interesting account of the various places, and especially of Chateau Gaillard and Mont St. Michel, and of other far-famed abbeys, castles, and churches, is delightful to read and full of instruction, there are fresher descriptions which charm us more. Beaumont-le-Roger, for instance. "Just one of those
places where one could spend a long summer holiday One of the sweetest places in Normandy." A little country town on the bank of the Risle, clean, quiet, and picturesque, in lovely country, with a wild, irregular, venerable church, and the ruined remains of the great Abbey of Beaumont. One is conscious of doing wrong as one writes about 13eaumont-le- Roger, and Mr. Dearmer must have felt the same. So far, the place is unspoilt; how long will it remain so P Also it will be new to Most people that "one of the most beautifully inamessive things." in Normandy is the _village church at • Highways -and -Byway, tn Normand,: - By'-Percy •-riesirmer, *LA. With
Illustrations by Joseph PennelL London : Macmillan and Co. [6s.] • ,
Ranes, between Ecouche and La Ferte-Mace, in the interest- ing country south of Falaise.
Lisieux goes without saying as one of the most curious old towns in Normandy, but it is pleasant to find that beautiful place, Falaise, treated with full justice in this book. Apart from its natural charms, it ought to be a place of pilgrimage for every Englishman who cares for his Norman origin. After long years a vivid impression still lingers of the old, silent, grass-grown square in front of the Church of the Sainte Trinite, where, in an atmosphere of deep peace and sleepiness, through all the long summer afternoons, the great Conqueror on his prancing horse waves his invisible army forward into battle. He is, of course, the centre figure of Normandy, especially of its western side, which for this and other reasons has always seemed the most attractive to the present writer. There are not, perhaps, two more delightful towns than Caen and Bayeux. This last, especially, might be a place to stay long in, within an easy ride or drive or walk, in the fresh salt air of the high lands, of the cliffs and the sea. "Why should one hurry away from Bayeux P" Mr. Dearmer asks, and we echo his question. It has far more to show than its Cathedral and tapestry.
A study of the map suggests even wider and fresher possibilities to the cyclist than those the book gives him. There are whole tracts in Normandy unexplored here, not, perhaps, containing any special points of historical or archi- tectural interest, but lovely country, we know, and beautiful roads. There are all the upper waters of the Risle and the Charentonne, the Tongues, the Orne, the Seulles, the Drome. There must be village churches, there must be chateaux, well worth seeing in these districts away from the usual round. And then there is the South, the Alencon country, quite as interesting as any part of Normandy and much less known to foreigners, which Mr. Dearmer himself owns to having left out of his book. Now, if never before, all this is easily accessible. It is useful to be reminded that France is the paradise of bicycles, and that a machine can be conveyed any- where for a penny. "Neither lost nor damaged." Experience teaches that the last statement is not quite always true; but by aid of the "Touring Club de France" any damage is very quickly paid for.
Mr. Pamell's illustrations are always interesting, and generally attractive. Sometimes they cause irritation and puzzle. For instance, in the picture of the Tour Talbot at Falaise, that which stands in the foreground might be a captive balloon, an abnormal mass of stone, a gigantic fungus. Reason suggests that it must be a tree. But it is hard to see how even impressionism can be responsible for so strange a monster.
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