enter the hall; the golden shells on their mantles make the eyes
blink, as the groups gather about the great chimneys, or wander
through the column-broken space.

Behind this dazzling cortege, up the steep steps of the narrow
streets, swarm other groups--the medieval pilgrim host that rushes
into cathedral aisles, and that climbs the ramparts to watch the
stately procession as it makes its way toward the church portals.

There are still other figures that fill every empty niche and deserted
watch-tower. Through the lancet windows of the abbatial gateways the
yeomanry of the vassal villages are peering; it is the weary time of
the Hundred Years' War, and all France is watching, through sentry
windows, for the approach of her dread enemy. On the shifting sands
below, as on brass, how indelibly fixt are the names of the hundred
and twenty-nine knights whose courage drove, step by step, over
that treacherous surface, the English invaders back to their island
strongholds.




CAEN[A]

[Footnote A: From "A Bibliographical Tour in France and Germany."]

BY THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN


Let us begin, therefore, with the Abbey of St. Stephen; for it is the