OCR Text |
Show ! IN NORMANDY III, , - , "V "-' .?. . - A Norman Family Takes a Stroll in Cherbourg. Prepared by National Geographic Society, I WashinRton, D. C. WNU Service. WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, CONQUER-OR, cider, omelets, Mont St. Michel these are features fea-tures of Normandy that come to mind with the name of that old province of France. You accent, thus unconsciously, history, art, and refreshment. Cherbourg, the port where Normandy Nor-mandy seems to thrust its nose im-j im-j pudently upward what does it mean to the ocean traveler? So much weariness of the flesh in connection con-nection with embarking and debarking de-barking that one is glad to be off. But things are to be seen there, and Cherbourg is a gentle introduction introduc-tion to the heady sights farther on. It is here that one becomes aware of the value of the fishing industries as a social center. The chatter, both shrill and thunderous, that goes with the business is by no means the least of the interest. It is not perfunctory, this fish selling sell-ing by the men of the boats and their wives. Emotion turns the card in many a sale, for if Jean, the seller, sell-er, takes offense at the low offer of a retailer, he growls a refusal to trade; and if Ginette displays her wares with enticing good nature, na-ture, she laughingly reaps a big handful of coins for the deep pocket concealed in her ample wool skirt. And of course there is the exchange ex-change of local gossip. Where a few white-capped women gather the talk runs highest, for the woman wom-an who retains the bonnet of her ancestors is usually one who prefers word-of-mouth to newsprint or radio. ra-dio. It is a pity the caps are passing. pass-ing. The faces, ruddy and perhaps too irregular, look better when topped with picturesqueness than when frankly unadorned. In Cherbourg, too, one comes upon up-on the sight of women washing at a public fountain. That is a matter that always interests. How can they work in cold water? What a boon it would be to these hard-working women if a little hot water were supplied! If you have ever watched them at work you have seen grim courage. In Apple Blossom Time. In the very first miles out of Cherbourg Cher-bourg the charm of Normandy begins be-gins to assert itself. Suppose it be May, what is the enchantment? The apple trees. They are everywhere, every-where, like the maids dressed in sprigged muslins. The country is full of little hills, so that each farm has its slopes and its brooks, among which stand the blooming trees. And all this loveliness produces the cider which is the wine of the Norman country and one of its big products. The farmhouses themselves are approached by these saucy trees which flaunt sprays of pink against the old gray stones. You get an impression that all farmhouses are near cousins of old castles. Their size is often prodigious to American eyes, accustomed as we are to the wooden farmhouse. The wide sweep of well-cut gray stone walls has a dignity of other days. A round tower, which seems to be set on some part of the building, build-ing, rises from the ground, a separate sep-arate entity, yet an indispensable part of the whole. It may be intensely in-tensely agrarian in its intent in its interior uses, but it vividly suggests the old story of the castle tower in which a fair damsel was confined in cautious protection, a protection naughtily defeated by the maiden's , letting down her hair as a ladder to a waiting lover. Even the livestock of the Norman country is conspicuously different from the accustomed. The gait of the immense Percherons sets a pace for the work of the farmer, who is ever shouting to them a strange sound, "Hue!" delivered with reproach or scorn. Magnificent Magnifi-cent animals they are, but never to be hurried, whether at the plow or along the roads. As a farmer can go no faster than his horse, his life is regulated by the Percheron. Will he some day exchange this placid power for a hurrying Ford or Citroen'; A light horse built for speed, perhaps per-haps five miles an hour, is used for the high-wheeled hooded carts which take folks to market on a market day. Sometimes real beauty beau-ty hides in these excluding hoods. At Honfleur one sees it often. Buckwheat, But No Cakes. The Norman Celds are red and white with buckwheat. It is an important im-portant crop, but raised for local sustenance. To Americans, the word "buckwheat" means just one thing griddlecakes, light and brown, eaten with a bit of savory sausage or drenched with melting butter and sweetened witi that divine di-vine essence of the woods, maple sirup. But in Normandy the buckwheat cake is unknown. Some missionary mission-ary from the North Woods should teach its mixture, or make a pile of "stacked griddles" such as old Adirondack guides can cook. The way buckwheat is used in Normandy Norman-dy is to make of it a sort of bread, soggy, putty-colored. The call of Mont St. Michel is a call to the heart. You may go hither and yon through France, seeing see-ing castles and monuments, flowered flow-ered lanes and bewitching rivers, but always is felt the tug toward Mont St. Michel, often called, less formally, "the Mount" or "the Rock." Unresisting, you at last find yourself your-self straight down the coast from Cherbourg at the little town of Av-ranches, Av-ranches, from which the happy pilgrim pil-grim gets his first glimpse of the Mount. Avranches is set on a sudden hill, and to reach its gems of interest the road sweeps upward on the steeps. In so doing it passes a library. That seems prosaic until un-til into one's mind flashes the remembrance that it is here that great treasures of the Mount have found safe harbor after disturbing conflicts. Here are parchments written writ-ten in the twelve hundreds. Here, too, is the work of the monk, Abelard, whose love for Heloise is even better remembered than his treatise, "Sic et Non" such is the delight one takes in romance. Up the hill is the Plate-forme, a name which sounds dull enough until, un-til, as one stops to survey it, its history comes back from some pigeonhole of the mind. What an astounding chapter of history it commemorates, this simple stone platform ringed about with chains! It is all that is left of the great cathedral which was taken down in 1799 as it began to collapse. This spot, the Plate-forme, was just before the cathedral door, and it was here in 1172 that the King of England, Henry II, knelt before the prelates and emissaries of the pope, to atone for the murder of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. The king, having been excommunicated, was not allowed to prostrate himself before the gorgeous gor-geous company from the Vatican within the building, but had to remain re-main outside until their absolution was given him; and on his royal knees, which ached miserably. The Sands of Mont St. Michel. The time to see Mont St. Michel is at any time when you find yourself your-self near. If a chance to see it is given, even if it be midnight or winter, the sight should not be missed. But if a choice of times can be made, then the time of high tides is that time. And if there is a moon, and one can spend the night on the Rock, then sightseeing sightsee-ing has reached its ultimate. From Avranches the view resolves re-solves itself into a map of the Bay of Mont St. Michel and that great space of sand from which the tide recedes. For 22 miles, from Avranches Av-ranches to Cancale on the Brittany side, extend these tidal sands; and ir. the middle of all this flatness, as if floating in the sky like a mirage, mi-rage, rises the granite rock of Mont St. MicheL Two hundred and fifty feet it towers, and man-made structures struc-tures have increased its height to 498 feet. The curious and seeking observer observ-er can also note from afar tl.e three distinct tiers on the Rock. First above the waters are the ramparts, splendid in their medieval strength; next, the band of clustered houses, "clinging like limpets to a rock;" and then the buttressed Merveille and the crown of towers and turrets tur-rets resting on that marvel of masonry. ma-sonry. And just as the Rock has three tiers of architectural interest the three tiers represent three purposes fortress, prison, and abbey. Pontorson, lying on the little river Couesnon, is the place of departure for the Mount There one would take to the sea, were it not for the causeway of approach, built across sand and water. In olden times it can be done now if the traveler likes risk of wetting the only way to reach the Rock was to walk or ride across the exposed wet sand. Even kings and bishops came that way, risking tides and quicksands. Fancy Louis XI snatching up his long gray robes and picking his way among the salt puddles! After centuries of wet feet and floundering horses, energy was expended ex-pended to bank high a causeway and on this to run a little train from Pontorson. And now motor cars by hundreds and even airplanes air-planes alight like butterflies on the sands by the ramparts. |