Lo in their quiet, dull way; they paint the names of their streets on
the cathedral walls, and they make a post-office of one of its
buttresses; they paste the trees all over with advertisements in the
principal squares, and erect images of the Virgin on their warehouses.
The master at our hotel calls to a neighbour across the street to come
and join us at table, and the people at the shops stand outside,
listlessly contemplating their own wares. There are at least 10,000
inhabitants, but we see scarcely anyone; a carriage, or a cart, startles
us with its unusual sound, and every footstep echoes on the rough
pavement. The arrival of the train from Paris; the commercial travellers
that it brings, and the red liveries of the government grooms, leading
out their horses, impart the only appearance of life to the town.

Nowhere in France does the military element seem more out of place,
never did 'fine soldiers' seem so much in the way as at St. Lo. There is
a parade to-day, there was a parade yesterday, and to-morrow (Sunday)
there will be a military mass for a regiment leaving on foreign duty. It
is all very right, no doubt, and necessary for the peace of Europe, the
'balance of power,' the consumption of pipe-clay, and the breaking of
hearts sometimes; but, in contrast to the natural quiet of this place,
the dust and noise are tremendous, and the national air (so gaily played
as the troops march through the town) has, as it seems to us, an
uncertain tone, and does not catch the sympathy of the bystanders. They
stand gazing upon the pageant like the Venetians listening to the
Austrian band--they are a peace-loving community at St. Lo.

But let us look well at the cathedral, at the grandeur of its spires,
at its towers with open galleries, at the rich 'flamboyant' decoration
of the doorways; at its monuments, chapels, and stained glass, and above
all at the _exterior_ pulpit, abutting on the street at the north-east