Normandy Picturesque by Henry Blackburn
page 45 of 171 (26%)
page 45 of 171 (26%)
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the roof have been broken down by rude hands. Nevertheless it is a
church worth going far to see; and it will have exceptional interest for those who believe that their ancestors 'came over with the Conqueror,' for on the western wall there is a list of the names of the principal persons who were known to have accompanied him. Some of these names are very familiar to English ears, such as PERCY, TALBOT, VERNON, LOVEL, GIFFARD, BREWER, PIGOT, CARTERET, CRESPEN, &c.; and there are at least a hundred others, all in legible characters, which any visitor may decipher for himself. There is a small grass-grown church-yard surrounded by a low wall, but the tablets are of comparatively modern date. If, before leaving Dives, we take a walk up the hill on the east side of the town, and look down upon the broad valley, with the river Dives winding southwards through a rich pasture land, flanked with thickly wooded hills--and beyond it the river Orne, leading to Caen--we shall see at once what a favourable and convenient spot this must have been for the collecting together of an army of fifty thousand men, for the construction of vessels, and for the embarkation of troops and horses, and the _matériel_ of war; and, if we continue our walk, through one or two cornfields in the direction of Beuzeval, we shall find, on a promontory facing the sea, and overlooking the mouth of the river, a not very ornamental, round stone pillar placed here by the Archæological Society of France in 1861; 'AU SOUVENIR DU PLUS GRAND ÉVÉNEMENT HISTORIQUE DES ANNALES NORMANDES--LE DÉPART DU DUC GUILLAUME LE BÂTARD POUR LA CONQUÊTE DE L'ANGLETERRE EN 1066;' and, if the reader should be as fortunate as we were in 1869, he might find a french gentleman _standing upon the top of this column_, and (forgetting probably that Normandy was not _always_ part of France) blowing a blast of triumph seaward, from a cracked french horn. |
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