since the first Gallic confederations were formed, certainly since the
organization of the Empire. It is equally typical of the local life of a
French province that, thus dependent, Normandy should have strictly
preserved its manner and its spirit, and should have readily made war
upon the Crown and resisted, as it still resists and will perhaps for
ever, the centralizing forces of the national temper.

If you will travel day after day, and afoot, westward across the length
of Normandy, you will have, if you are a good walker, a fortnight's
task ahead of you; even if you are walking for a wager, a week's. It is
the best way in which to possess a knowledge of that great land, and my
advice would be to come in from the Picards over the bridge of Aumale
across the little River Bresle (which is the boundary of Normandy to the
east), and to go out by way of Pontorson, there crossing into Brittany
over the little River Couesnon, which is the boundary of Normandy upon
the west and beyond which lie the Bretons. In this way will you be best
acquainted with the sharp differentiation of the French provinces
passing into Normandy from Picardy, brick-built, horse-breeding, and
slow, passing out of Normandy into the desolation and dreams of
Brittany, and having known between the one and the other the chalk
streams, the day-long beechen forests, the valley pastures, and the
flamboyant churches of the Normans. You will do well to go by
Neufchatel, where the cheese is made, and by Rouen, then by Lisieux to
Falaise, where the Conqueror was born, and thence by Vive to Avranches
and so to the Breton border, taking care to choose the forests between
one town and another for your road, since these many and deep
woods--much wider than any we know in England--are in great part the
soul of the country.

By this itinerary you will not have taken all you should into view; you