Rambles in Normandy. M. F. Mansfield
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England to-day is admirably brought out in the expression of sentiment which was advanced on the occasion of the Norman fêtes held at Rouen in the summer of 1904, when the following address was despatched to King Edward at Buckingham Palace by the society that had the fêtes in charge:
“To His Majesty, Edward VII.:
“With the deepest joy the ‘Souvenir Normand’ respectfully begs your Majesty to accept its greetings from the banks of the Seine, the river whence your glorious ancestor, William, of the stock of Viking Rollo, set out to found the great British Empire under Norman kings. We thank Providence for the happy tokens of your royal efforts to bring about an understanding between the two Normandies, to secure the peace of the world through the Normans. May God preserve your Majesty; may God grant long life and prosperity to the King and Queen of England and to the English Normandy.”
Normandy is by no means limited to the lower Seine valley, but for the purposes of the journeys set forth herein it is the gateway by which one enters. Normandy is the true land of the cider-apple, though there are other places where, if it is not more abundant, it is of better quality, or at least it has more of the taste of those little apples which grow on trees hardly larger than scrub or sagebrush.
All so-called cidre in Normandy is not cider; most of it is boisson Normande. You buy it in little packets, at a comparatively small price, and add water to suit the taste; only you don’t do it yourself—the landlord of your hotel does it to suit his taste, or his ideas of good business.
A little farther south, on the confines of the plain of Beauce, where Normandy ended and the ancient royal domain began, you get another sort of vin du pays.
“Du cidre, ou du vin?” says the garçon, or more likely it is a bonne in these parts. “Du vin, s’il vous plait,” you answer, anxious to see what the new variety may be. When you get it, you find it a peculiar concoction, resembling the wines of Touraine, Bordeaux, Burgundy, or the Midi not a whit. Yet it is not cidre, though it well might be from its look, and somewhat from its taste. “C’est petit cousin de la piquette et certainement cousin du cidre,” volunteered an amiable commercial traveller, in reply to a query.
A small boy was once asked by a patronizing elder what books he used in studying geography and history, and he answered, curtly, “I use no books, I go to places.” That boy was very fortunate.
If the traveller is looking for information and incidental pleasure, he is in a class quite apart from the mere pleasure-seeker; and he ought, if he would profit from his travels to the fullest extent, to be able to increase his power of observation as he widens his horizon. He is often unable to do so, and goes about deploring the absence of pie and buttered toast.
With visitors to Normandy, the case is in no wise different, in spite of the fact that the well-known roads from Havre or Dieppe to Paris, via the Seine valley, are a little better known than any other part of France.
There are still but two wholly unspoiled spots in all the Seine valley, Les Andelys and La Roche-Guyon; and it is doubtful if they ever will become spoiled by tourists within the lives of the present generation. The railway has only recently come to Les Andelys, and the two pretty little towns, with their stupendous Château Gaillard, are even now not popular resorts, though the French, English, and American travellers are coming yearly in increasing numbers, while La Roche-Guyon—a few miles farther up the river—is even less well-known.
Mention is made of this simply because it serves to emphasize the fact that all highroads are not well-worn roads, and that there is a wealth of unlooked-for attraction to be gathered wherever one may roam.
Of the theorists who have attempted to class the Normans with the Danes, the least said the better. To rank the Norman-French and the Dane together, as the pioneers of feudalism, is to ignore the fact that it was the Normans who were the real civilizers of Britain.
The fact stands boldly forth, however, that the ancestors of Norman William, who afterward became England’s king, came direct and undiluted from Scandinavia, while the Norman Frenchman of later times was a distinct development of his own environment.
It is well enough to claim that the English nobility is descended from the Norman barons. At any rate it seems plausible, and one may well agree with those who have said that no Upper House of Lords could ever have been conceived by the Anglo-Saxons. History demonstrates the fact that the idea of the English House of Lords, as an appointment by the Crown, was of Norman conception, and alien to Anglo-Saxon tendencies.
It seems, perhaps, superfluous to reiterate these facts here, but they are so commonly overlooked by the traveller in France that it is well to recall that it was the Norman who governed Britain, and not members of the Saxon hierarchy who afterward became kings of France.
It is with reason that the Norman speaks so fondly of Jersey, Guernsey, and their sister isles. This is explained, of course, by the geographers, and one should, perhaps, be charitable, and allow for the spirit of patriotism, when the Frenchman calls the Channel Islands Les Iles Normandes.
The people there are in many ways as French as French can be. Their laws and their courts make use of the French tongue, and in most, if not quite all, respects the common characteristics are French.
The Frenchman himself, too, is often very fond of them, in spite of their alien allegiance. He calls them “très curieusement pittoresques, féodals, sauvages, en même temps que très civilisées, les Iles Normandes sont un anachronisme, loyales à la couronne anglaise, mais avec une autonomie une véritable paradoxe de l’histoire politique.”
From this he generally goes on to say that “they are the Canada of Europe, a province of France, which continues the life of the French under the Protectorate of the English.”
The law of Jersey is that of the “Coutume Normande.” In Jersey the King of England reigns not; he is Duc de Normandie; the magistrates condemn or acquit “en parler Normand”; the code is Norman; the administration Norman. To London the habitant comes only as a resident, as does a Maltese, or a Canadian.
The Journal Officiel of Jersey is written in Norman. In it one reads such announcements as follows:
“A vendre, une vache, ainsi qu’une piano, les deux en bon état.”
Or again:
“On demande une institutrice, et on céderait un vieux cheval, pour un prix peu élevé.”
Throughout the islands the sentiment is decidedly republican, or if not republican is at least Norman.
It is the English king who is duke, but it is the descendant of Rollon who reigns.
All French provinciaux are patriotic beyond belief to the outsider. The Gascon is always a Gascon, and the Norman is always a Norman.
They were masterful folks, those early Normans and the Northmen before them. Rollon, the first Duke of Rouen; Rurik, the first Czar of Russia; Eric le Roux, the first colonizer of Iceland and Greenland; Leif Ericson, the first discoverer of America and the colonizer of Vineland.
Of the Normans, Guillaume, son of Herleve, Robert le Diable, and Robert Guiscard de Hauteville were kings of Sicily. Cabot of Jersey was the discoverer of Canada, and Jean Cousin of Honfleur was the pilot of Christopher Columbus. Binot Lipaulmier de Gonneville and Jean Denys were the discoverers of Newfoundland, of Brazil, and of the Canaries; the Chevalier de la Salle was the discoverer of the Mississippi; and Champlain was the founder of Quebec.
Among other great discoverers and navigators are Jean de Bethencourt, Jean Ango, Duquesne, Dumé, Tourville de Bricqueville, and Dumont d’Urville.
In letters and art Normandy has held a proud position.
In poesy stand forth the names of Pierre Corneille and his brother Thomas, Alain Chartier, Olivier Basselin, Jean Marot, Jean Bertand, Malherbe—sometimes called “the father of modern poetry,”—Segrais, Malfiatre, Castel, Madeleine de Scudéry, Benserade, the Abbé de Chaulieu,