waterwheels, and many of the surrounding rocks are disfigured with cloth
'tenters.'

There are some curious half-timbered houses at Vire, and some old
streets tempting to sketch; including the house of Basselin, the famous
originator of 'vaux de Vire'--or, as they are now called, _vaudevilles_.

The inhabitants number about 9000, they are for the most part engaged in
the manufactories of the place, too busy apparently to modernise either
their costume or their dwellings; but the railway is now bringing others
to the town who will work these changes for them. Happily for them and
for us, the hills are of granite and their sides most precipitous, and
the innovators make slow progress in modernisation. At the hotels
everyone drinks cider, rather than _vin ordinaire_; and at night we are
awoke with the clatter of sabots and the voice of the watchman.

The ancient town of FALAISE, to which so many Englishmen make a
pilgrimage, as being the reputed birthplace of William the Conqueror,
can now be reached, either from Caen, Vire, or Paris, by railway; but we
who come from the west, will do well to keep to the old road; and (if we
wish to preserve within us any of the associations connected with the
place) should not have the sound of '_Falaise_' first rung in our ears
by railway porters. Both the town and castle of Falaise are situated on
high ground; and the latter, being on the side of a precipitous
eminence, may be seen for a long distance before we approach it by the
road. At Falaise, as at Lisieux, the traveller who arrives in the town
by railway, is generally surprised and disappointed, at first sight,
with its modern aspect.

'The castle of Falaise,' says M. Leduc, 'consists of a large square