For, in a certain sense, I know no other medieval mass of buildings as peopled as are these.  The dead shapes seem to fill the vast halls.  The Salle des Chevaliers is crowded, daily, with a brilliant gathering of knights, who sweep the trains of their white damask mantles, edged with ermine, over the dulled marble of the floor; two by two they enter the hall; the golden shells on their mantles make the eyes blink, as the groups gather about the great chimneys, or wander through the column-broken space.

Behind this dazzling cortege, up the steep steps of the narrow streets, swarm other groups—­the medieval pilgrim host that rushes into cathedral aisles, and that climbs the ramparts to watch the stately procession as it makes its way toward the church portals.

There are still other figures that fill every empty niche and deserted watch-tower.  Through the lancet windows of the abbatial gateways the yeomanry of the vassal villages are peering; it is the weary time of the Hundred Years’ War, and all France is watching, through sentry windows, for the approach of her dread enemy.  On the shifting sands below, as on brass, how indelibly fixt are the names of the hundred and twenty-nine knights whose courage drove, step by step, over that treacherous surface, the English invaders back to their island strongholds.

CAEN[A]

[Footnote A:  From “A Bibliographical Tour in France and Germany.”]

BY THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN

Let us begin, therefore, with the Abbey of St. Stephen; for it is the noblest and most interesting on many accounts.  It is called by the name of that saint, inasmuch as there stood formerly a chapel, on the same site, dedicated to him.  The present building was completed and solemnly dedicated by William the Conqueror, in the presence of his wife, his two sons Robert and William, his favorite, Archbishop Lanfranc; John, Archbishop of Rouen, and Thomas, Archbishop of York—­toward the year 1080; but I strongly suspect, from the present prevailing character of the architecture, that nothing more than the west front and the towers upon which the spires rest remain of its ancient structure.  The spires, as the Abbe De La Rue conjectures, and as I should also have thought, are about two centuries later than the towers.

The outsides of the side aisles appear to be of the thirteenth, rather than of the end of the eleventh, century.  The first exterior view of the west front, and of the towers, is extremely interesting from the gray and clear tint, as well as excellent quality, of the stone, which, according to Huet, was brought partly from Vaucelle and partly from Allemagne.  One of the corner abutments of one of the towers has fallen down and a great portion of what remains seem to indicate rapid decay.  The whole stands indeed greatly in need of reparation.  Ducarel, if I