with white-wash, that it is not easy to make out the details; and a
friend of mine was not quite certain whether the bearded figure riding
on the lion, was not a youthful Cupid. No other of the capitals has at
present any basso-relievo of this kind; but I suspect they have been
chopped off. The church suffered much from the Calvinists; and
afterwards, during the revolution, when most of the bas-reliefs of the
portal were destroyed.

[Illustration: Tower of St. John's Church, at Caen]

The neighboring church of St. John appears likewise to be the work of
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This building and St. Peter's
agree in general character: their towers are nearly the counterparts of
each other. But, in St. John's, the great tower is placed at the west
end of the edifice, the principal portal being beneath it. This is not
very usual in the Norman-gothic churches, though common in England. The
tower wants a spire; and, at present, it leans considerably out of the
perpendicular line, so that some apprehensions are entertained for its
safety. It was originally intended that the church should also be
surmounted by a central tower; and, as De Bourgueville says, the
beginning was made in his time; but it remains to the present day
incomplete, and has not been raised sufficiently high to enable us to
form a clear idea of the design of the architect, though enough remains
to shew that it would have been built in the Romanizing-gothic
style.--The inside is comparatively plain, excepting only the arches in
the lower open part of the tower. These are richly ornamented; and a
highly-wrought balustrade runs round the triforium, uniform in its
pattern in the nave and choir, but varying in the transepts.--In the
other ecclesiastical buildings at Caen, we saw nothing to interest
us.--The chapel of St. Thomas l'Abattu, which, according to Huet, "had