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Disaster had befallen and some one was to pay for it; but his bent head was unaware of the smile that suddenly grew, a pale wintry smile which matched the devil in her eyes. They camped in the mellow afternoon under the trees upon a rugged mountain that guarded the defile, through which a rushing torrent, one of the tributaries of the Oire, dashed over the rocks on its swift course to Argentan.
There is a good deal more to say about Argentan in later times, from Henry the Second of Normandy and England to Henry the Fourth of Navarre and France. The traveller is most likely to sojourn at the Hôtel des Trois Maries, a resting-place which, in its foundation rather than in its buildings, goes back to the fourteenth century.
Except in the large hotels in Rouen I have only found one which boasts of any sort of room besides the estaminet; it was the Hotel des Trois Marie at Argentan. When this defect has been remedied, I can imagine that English people will tour in Normandy more than they do even at the present time.
Some parts of the wall in this neighbourhood, both inner and outer, are still standing; and near the château is the desecrated chapel of Saint Nicolas, keeping some good windows. The château would attract anywhere; the fragment of the donjon simply peeps over houses. The chief thing in Argentan after all is the great church of Saint German.
When Henry II. married Eleanor of Aquitaine, not only that great province but also Maine and Anjou came under his sway, so that for a time Normandy was only a portion of the huge section of France belonging to the English Crown. During his long reign Henry spent much time in Normandy, and Argentan and Avranches are memorable in connection with the tragedy of Thomas a Becket.
For one very anxious to work out in detail the curious little bit of history with which the two places are chiefly concerned, it might be better, if he could manage it, to take Exmes and Almenèches in a single round. But it is easier to make them the objects of two separate excursions from Argentan. We set out then from that town with a twofold anxiety on the mind.
But the main object at Laigle is not Laigle. The place may be used, like Argentan, as a centre for seeing several objects, and in the case of Laigle the objects to be seen from the centre are certainly of higher interest than the centre itself.
She lifted the cover from the long, satin-covered box and fingered over the laces in it, forcing herself to feel the suitable reaction to their differing physiognomies, to admire the robustness of the Carrick-Macross, the boldness of design of the Argentan, the complicated fineness of the English Point.
We feel that Falaise, looking up to the great keep and to the tower of Talbot, is merely a magnificent Dunster or Richmond we cannot say Windsor; for the sainte chapelle of Saint George has no fellow there. But Argentan is a miniature, a very small miniature certainly, but still a miniature, of Durham and Lincoln and Angers.
Between tall poplars whose stems are splotched with grey lichen and whose feet are grown over with browny-green moss, runs the road from Falaise to Argentan, straight and white, with scarcely more than the slightest bend, for the whole eight miles.
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