of old furniture, ranged side by side—rich in colour and wonderfully preserved, with their wooden gables, carved in oak of the fifteenth century, supported by massive timbers, sound and strong, of even older date. He would see many of these houses with windows full of flowers, and creepers twining round the old eaves; and long drying-poles stretched out horizontally, with gay-coloured clothes upon them, flapping in the wind—all contrasting curiously with the dark buildings.
But he would also find some houses on the verge of ruin. If he explored far enough in the dark, narrow streets, where the rivers flow under the windows of empty dwellings; he might see them tottering, and threatening downfall upon each other—leaning over and casting shadows, black and mysterious upon the water—no line perpendicular, no line horizontal, the very beau-ideal of picturesque decay—buildings of which Longfellow might have sung as truly as of Nuremberg—
"Memories haunt thy pointed gables,
Like the rooks which round them throng."
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.
Let us look well at these old buildings, many of them reared and dwelt in by men of humble birth and moderate means—(men who lived happily and died easily without amassing a fortune)—let us, if we can, without too much envy, think for a moment of the circumstances under which these houses were built. To us, to many of us, who pay dearly for the privilege of living between four square walls (so slight and thin sometimes, that our neighbours are separated from us by sight, but scarcely by sound)—walls that we hire for shelter, from necessity, and leave generally without reluctance; that we are prone to cover with paper, in the likeness of oak and marble, to hide their meanness—these curious, odd-shaped interiors, with massive walls, and solid oak timbers, are especially attractive. How few modern rooms, for instance, have such niches in them, such seats in windows and snug corners, that of all things make a house comfortable. Some of these rooms are twenty feet high, and are lighted from windows in surprising places, and of the oddest shapes. What more charming than this variety, to the eye jaded with monotony; what more suggestive, than the apparently accidental application of Gothic architecture to the wants and requirements of the age.[7]
We will not venture to say that these old buildings are altogether admirable from an architect's point of view, but to us they are delightful, because they were designed and inhabited by people who had time to be quaint, and could not help being picturesque. And if these old wooden houses seem to us wanting (as many are wanting) in the appliances and fittings which modern habits have rendered necessary, it was assuredly no fault of the 15th-century architect. They display both in design and construction, most conspicuously, the elements of common sense in meeting the requirements of their own day, which is, as has been well remarked, "the one thing wanting to give life to modern architecture;" and they have a character and individuality about them which renders almost every building unique. Like furniture of rare design they bear the direct impress of their maker. They were built in an age of comparative leisure, when men gave their hearts to the meanest, as well as to the mightiest, work of their hands; in an age when love, hope, and a worthy emulation moved them, as it does not seem to move men now; in an age, in short, when an approving notice in the columns of the 'Builder' newspaper, was not a high aspiration.
But in nothing is the attraction greater to us, who are accustomed to the monotonous perspective of modern streets, than the irregularity of the exteriors, arising from the independent method of construction; for, by varying the height and pattern of each façade, the builders obtained to almost every house what architects term the 'return,' to their cornices and mouldings, i.e., the corner-finish and completeness to the most important projecting lines. And yet these houses are evidently built with relation to each other; they generally harmonize, and set off, and uphold each other, just as forest trees form themselves naturally into groups for support and protection.
All this we may see at a distance, looking down the varied perspective of these streets of clustering dwellings; and the closer we examine them, the more we find to interest, if not to admire. If we gain little in architectural knowledge, we at least gain pleasure, we learn the value of variety in its simplest forms, and notice how easy it would be to relieve the monotony of our London streets; we learn, too, the artistic value of high-pitched roofs, of contrast in colour (if it be only of dark beams against white plaster) and of meaning in every line of construction.
These, and many more such, sheaves we may gather from our Norman harvest, but we must haste and bind them, for the winds of time are scattering fast. 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. 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.[8]
There are few monuments or churches to examine, and when we have seen the stained-glass windows in the fine old church of St. Ouen, and walked by the banks of the Rille, to the ruins of a castle (of the twelfth century) at Montfort; we shall have seen the chief objects of interest, in what Murray laconically describes as, 'a prettily situated town of 5400 inhabitants, famed for its tanneries.'
Early morning at Pont Audemer.
That there is 'nothing new under the sun,' may perhaps be true of its rising; nevertheless, a new sensation awaits most of us, if we choose to see it under various phases. The early morning at Pont Audemer is the same early morning that breaks upon the unconscious inhabitants of a London street; but the conditions are more delightful and very much more picturesque; and we might be excused for presenting the picture on the simple ground that it treats of certain hours of of the twenty-four, of which most of us know nothing, and in which (such are the exigencies of modern civilization) most of us do nothing.
OLD HOUSES, PONT AUDEMER.
A storm passed over the town one night in August, which shook the great rafters of the old houses, and made the timbers strain; the water flowed from them as from the sides of a ship—one minute they were illuminated, the next, they were in blackest gloom. In two or three hours it has all passed away, and as we go out into the silent town, and cross the street where it forms a bridge over the Rille (the spot from which the next sketch was taken), a faint gleam of light appears upon the water, and upon the wet beams of one or two projecting gables. The darkness and the 'dead' silence are soon to be disturbed—one or two birds fly out from the black eaves, a rat crosses the street, some distant chimes come upon the wind, and a faint clatter of sabots on the wet stones; the town clock strikes half-past three, and the watchman puts out his lantern, and goes to sleep. The morning is breaking on Pont Audemer, and it is the time for surprises—for the sudden appearance of a gable-end, which just now was shadow, for the more gradual, but not less curious, formation of a street in what seemed to be space; for the sudden creation of windows in dead walls, for the turning of fantastic shadows into palpable carts, baskets, piles of wood, and the like; and for the discovery of a number of coiled-up dogs (and one or two coiled-up men) who had weathered the night in sheltered places.
But the grey light is turning fast to gold, the warmer tints begin to prevail, the streets leading eastward are gleaming, and the hills are glistening in their bright fresh green.[9] The sweet morning air welcomes us as we leave the streets and its five thousand sleepers, and pass over another bridge and out by the banks of the Rille, where the fish are stirring in the swollen stream, and the lilies
