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"What villain hath done this?" cried the vicomte, in hot anger. "With my men will I scour the land till I track him." "Ah, my lord vicomte," I said, "this is the work of Maugher, that I saw lurking in Coutances. And I grieve that thy good Sieur de Norrey should thus die by a stroke that was aimed at me."
See, Beachy Head recedes; anon thou shalt see the towers of Coutances Cathedral across the deep." Thirty years had passed away since the events recorded in our last chapter, and the mighty Conqueror himself had gone to render an account of his stewardship to the Judge of all men.
Next the abbot sat Geoffrey of Coutances; amidst the brethren was Father Kenelm. But on the other side sat William's principal nobles and courtiers, to whom reference has been made in former chapters De la Pole, Arundel, Clyfford, Fitz-Maurice, Hastings, Maltravers, Peverill, Talbot, Harcourt, and many others some of then grey-headed in arms.
The united garrisons of London, Winchester, and Salisbury, were sent against them, under the command of the martial Bishop of Coutances; while a second force advanced along the Tamar, under Brian, heir of the Earl of Brittany, who routed them with a loss of 2,000 men, English, Welsh, and Irish.
The hill of Coutances is not a hill simply rising from a plain; there are valleys on two sides, and we ask for a stream at the bottom of them as naturally as we do at Edinburgh. At Saint-Lo, the Vire, with the rocky hill rising high above it, is the chief feature of the landscape.
They were allowed to go to Cherbourg where they took ship to England about the same time as the garrisons from Vire, Avranches, Coutances, and many other strongholds which were at this time falling like dead leaves.
Louis XI, that mystic wearing the warrior's helmet, set his seal of approval on the hill, by sending the famous glass yonder in the cathedral, when the hill and the St. Lo people beat the Bretons who had come to capture both. Like saint, and kings, and monks, and warriors, we in our turn crept down the hill. For we also were done with the town. The way from St. Lo to Coutances is a pleasant way.
The hill is of no extraordinary height; but it is thoroughly isolated, not forming part of a range like the hills of Avranches and Le Mans. And, saving the open place before the cathedral perhaps the forum of Constantia there is not a flat yard of ground in Coutances. The church itself is on a slope; you walk up the incline of one street and see the houses sloping down the incline of the other.
At last the perambulation is finished the dazzling sunshine is once more all around you as you come out to the steep steps that lead towards the ramparts. Concerning Coutances and Some Parts of the Cotentin When at last it is necessary to bid farewell to Mont St Michel, one is not compelled to lose sight of the distant grey silhouette for a long while.
From the western side there is a beautiful view of the town with the great western towers of the cathedral rising gracefully above the quarries in the Bois des Vignettes. Another feature of Coutances is the aqueduct. It unfortunately does not date from Roman times when the place was known as Constantia, for there is nothing Roman about the ivy-clad arches that cross the valley on the western side.
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