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To give the reader any idea of the variety of the wooden houses at Lisieux would require a series of drawings or photographs: we can do little more in these pages than point out these charming corners of the world where something is still left to us of the work of the middle ages. The general character of the houses is better than at Pont Audemer, and the style is altogether more varied.
In the chief place of the arrondissement, and in a rapidly increasing town, containing about six thousand inhabitants; with a reputation for healthiness and cheapness of living, and with a railway from Paris, we must naturally look for changes and modern ways; but Pont Audemer is still essentially old, and some of its inhabitants wear the caps, as in our illustration, which were sketched only yesterday in the market-place.
Let us make the most of the place whilst there is time and let us, before we pass on to Lisieux, add one picture of Pont Audemer in the early morning a picture which every year will seem less real. There are few monuments or churches to examine, and when we have seen the stained-glass windows in the fine old church of St. Early morning at Pont Audemer.
Crossing the Channel from Southampton to Havre by night, or from Newhaven to Dieppe by day, we proceed at once to the town of PONT AUDEMER, situated about six miles from Quillebeuf and eight from Honfleur, both on the left bank of the Seine. From Havre, Pont Audemer may be reached in a few hours, by water, and from Dieppe, Rouen or Paris there is now railway communication.
We must now pass on to the neighbouring town of LISIEUX, which will be found even more interesting than Pont Audemer in examples of domestic architecture of the middle ages; resisting with difficulty a passing visit to Pont l'Evêque, another old town a few miles distant.
Passing by Pont Audemer, he stopped at the house of his father's sister. A passionate love for one of his uncle's daughters kept him there. This love, shared by his cousin, and favoured by his aunt, was opposed by his father. The young girl, in despair, took refuge in a convent. Dumouriez swore to take her thence, and went away.
The forced surrender of a few strongholds, the long siege of seven weeks, long for those days, of Waleran of Meulan's castle, of Pont Audemer and its capture, and the occupation of Amaury of Montfort's city of Evreux, filled the remainder of the year 1123, and in March of 1124 the battle of Bourgtheroulde, in which Ralph, Earl of Chester, defeated Amaury and Waleran and captured a large number of prisoners, virtually ended the conflict.
In short, he would find Pont Audemer, and the neighbouring town of Lisieux, treasure houses of old mysterious 'bits' of colour and form, suggestive of simple domestic usage in one building, and princely grandeur in another strength and simplicity, grace and beauty of design all speaking to him of a past age with the eloquence of history.
Old dwellings, old customs, old caps, old tanneries, set in a landscape of bright green hills. 'Old as the hills, and almost as unchanged in aspect, are the ways of the people of Pont Audemer, who dress and tan hides, and make merry as their fathers did before them.
Pont Audemer is being modernised, and many an interesting old building is doomed to destruction; whilst cotton-mills and steam-engines, and little white villas amongst the trees, black coats and parisian bonnets, all tend to blot out the memories of mediæval days.
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