The preacher paused for a moment, and then with another burst of
eloquence, he brought his hearers to the verge of a passion, which was
(as it seemed to us) dangerously akin to human love and the worship of
material beauty; then he lowered our understandings still more by the
enumeration of 'works and miracles,' and ended with words of earnest
exhortation, the burden of which might be shortly translated:--'Pray
earnestly, and always, to Mary our mother, for all souls in purgatory;
confess your sins unto us your high priests; give, give to the Church
and to the poor, strive to lead better lives, look forward ever to the
end; and bow down, oh! bow down, before the golden images [manufactured
for us in the next street] which our Holy Mother the Church has set up.'

With a transition almost as startling as the first, the book is closed,
the preacher has left the pulpit, the congregation (excepting a few in
the side chapels) have dispersed; and Caen keeps holiday after the
manner of all good Catholics, putting on its best attire, and disporting
itself in somewhat rampant fashion.

Everybody visits everybody else to-day, and a fiacre is hardly to be
obtained for the afternoon drive in _Les Cours_, the public promenade.
We may go to the Jardin des Plantes, which we shall find crowded with
country people, examining the beautiful exotic plants (of which there
are several thousand); to the public Picture Gallery, established at the
beginning of the present century, which contains pictures by Paul
Veronese, Perugino, Poussin, and a number of works of the French school;
and to the Museum of Antiquities, containing Roman remains, vases,
coins, &c., discovered in the neighbourhood of Dives. There are also
excursions to Bayeux, Honfleur, and Trouville for the day; and many
tempting opportunities of visiting the neighbouring towns.