Attached to the wall of the choir of this church is still to be seen an
equestrian statue[73], part of the celebrated group supposed to
represent William the Conqueror making his triumphal entry into Caen. A
headless horse, mounted by a headless rider, and a figure, which has
lost all shape and form, beneath the feet of the steed, are all that now
remain; but De Bourgueville, who knew the group when perfect, says, that
there likewise belonged to it a man and woman upon their knees, as if
seeking some explanation for the death of their child, or
rather, perhaps, in the act of imploring mercy.--I have already pointed
out the resemblance between these statues and the bas-relief, of which I
have sent you a sketch from St. Georges. One of the most learned
antiquaries of the present time has found a prototype for the supposed
figure of the Duke, among the sculptures of the Trajan column. But this,
with all due deference, is far from a decisive proof that the statue in
question was not intended for William. Similar adaptations of the
antique model, "mutato nomine," frequently occur among the works of the
artists of the middle ages; and there is at least a possibility that,
had the face been left us, we might have traced some attempt at a
portrait of the Norman Duke. Upon the date of the sculpture, or the
style of the workmanship, I dare not venture an opinion. There are
antiquaries, I know, (and men well qualified to judge,) who believe it
Roman: I have heard it pronounced from high authority, that it is of the
eleventh century, others suspect that it is Italian, of the thirteenth
or fourteenth centuries; whilst M. Le Prevost and M. De Gerville
maintain most strenuously that it is not anterior to the fifteenth. De
Bourgueville certainly calls it "une antiquité de grand remarque;" but
we all know that any object which is above an hundred years old, becomes
a piece of antiquity in the eye of an uncritical observer; and such was
the good magistrate.