From Fecamp to Havre the country is well wooded, and much applied to the cultivation of flax, which flourishes in this neighborhood, and has given rise to considerable linen manufactories.  The trees look well in masses, but individually they are trimmed into ugliness.  Near Havre the road goes through Montivilliers, and, still nearer, through Harfleur.

The first of these is, like Fecamp, a place of antiquity, and derived its name[38] and importance from a monastery which was founded at the end of the seventh century.  Its history is headed by the chapter which begins the records of most of the ecclesiastical foundations of the duchy:  when the invading heathen Normans reached Montivilliers, it shared the common fate of destruction, and when they withdrew, the common piety recalled it to existence.  Richard IInd bestowed it upon Fecamp, but the same sovereign restored it to its independence, at the request of his aunt, Beatrice, who retired hither as abbess, at the head of a community of nuns.  A convent, over which an abbess of royal blood had presided, could not fail to enjoy considerable privileges; and it retained them to the period of the revolution.  The tower of the church still remains, a noble specimen of the Norman architecture of the eleventh century, at which period the building is known to have been erected.  The rest of the edifice, though handsome as a whole, is the work of different aeras.  The archives of the monastery furnish an account of large sums expended in additions and alterations in the years 1370 and 1513.  The interior contains some elegant stone fillagree-work in the form of a small gallery or pulpit, attached to the west end near the roof, and probably intended to receive a band of singers on high festivals.  A gallery of a similar nature, but of wood, and to which the foregoing purpose was assigned by the learned wight, John Carter, is yet remaining at the north-west corner of Westminster Abbey.  You and I, who are sadly inclined to admire ugliness and antiquity, would have been better pleased with the capitals of the pillars, which are evidently coeval with the tower.  Drawings were made of some of these capitals, and I have selected two which appeared to be the most singular.

[Illustration:  Capital with angel]

In this you observe an angel weighing the good works of the deceased against his evil deeds; and, as the former are far exceeding the avoirdupois upon which Satan is to found his claim, he is endeavoring most unfairly to depress the scale with his two-pronged fork.

This allegory is of frequent occurrence in the monkish legends.—­The saint, who was aware of the frauds of the fiend, resolved to hold the balance himself.—­He began by throwing in a pilgrimage to a miraculous virgin.—­The devil pulled out an assignation with some fair mortal Madonna, who had ceased to be immaculate.—­The saint laid in the scale the sackcloth and ashes of the penitent of Lenten-time.—­Satan answered the deposit