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Pugin could not resist depicting many of these delightful old houses of Lisieux in his book on Normandy, though, unlike Ruskin, he had no eye for its cathedral; most of us will not have. So much, then, as a plea for a more sincere and thorough appreciation of the charms of western Normandy.
Beljambe, the innkeeper, formerly a chef at Lisieux, was to cook certain dishes; Germaine had engaged the services of the poultry-wench; and Marianne, Madame Bordin's servant-girl, would also come. Since four o'clock the range was wide open; and the two proprietors, full of impatience, awaited their guests. Hurel stopped under the beech row to adjust his frock-coat.
When we got to the top of the last hill and had swirled into the straight broad turnpike leading to Lisieux, the Sculptor spoke in an undertone to the demon, did something with his foot or hand or teeth everything with which he could push, pull, or bite was busy and the machine, as if struck by a lash, sprang into space.
It is generally a wide, hedgeless stretch of country that lies between Lisieux and Falaise, but for the first ten miles there are big farm-houses with timber-framed barns and many orchards bearing a profusion of blossom near the roadside. A small farm perched above the road and quite out of sight, invites the thirsty passer-by to turn aside up a steep path to partake of cider or coffee.
But with two hours' start, and the pursuit spending most of its energy in the wrong direction that is, toward Lisieux and Paris they would be on the deck of the French-Canadian liner to-morrow noon, sailing out of the harbour of Le Havre, with nothing but the Atlantic Ocean between them and the St. Lawrence.
Curiously, too, in quite another direction the same form of argument had been already worked out by Nicole Oresme, a famous Bishop of Lisieux, who first translated into French the Politics of Aristotle, and who helped so largely in the reforms of Charles V of France. His great work was in connection with the revision of the coinage, on which he composed a celebrated treatise.
'It is nightfall, he says, 'before I have walked more than half-way to Caen; to the left of the road I see a number of lights indicative of a small town, but I perceive no road in that direction, and so am compelled to trudge on. I was dreadfully fatigued, for I had walked about Lisieux before starting.
"We have a thousand tickets printed already, and, if the ladies present wish to solicit subscriptions, each has before her the wherewithal to inscribe appropriate notes of appeal." "To be drawn upon at sight," said the Comtesse de Lisieux, taking a pen. "A tax on vanity, I should call it." She wrote rapidly, and then read aloud: "MY DEAR BARON: "Your proverbial generosity justifies my new appeal.
They reached Lisieux at supper-time and slept there. The next day Mme. de Combray took two places under an assumed name, in the coach for Evreux, where they arrived in the evening. The fugitives had a refuge in the Rue de l'Union with an old Chouan named Vergne, who had been in orders before the Revolution, but had become a doctor since the pacification.
The three couples who were to compose this impromptu ball, yielded quickly to the spell of this irresistible accompaniment. "Suppose Monsieur Desvanneaux should hear that we danced on the eve of Palm Sunday?" laughingly pro-tested Madame de Lisieux. "He would report it at Rome," said Madame de Nointel.
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