[Footnote 15:  The following are the proportions of the building, in French feet:—­

Length of the church..................265
Ditto of the nave.....................134
Width of ditto.........................62
Length of choir........................43-1/2
Width of ditto.........................31
Length of Lady-Chapel..................63
Width of ditto.........................27
Height of central tower...............124
Ditto of western towers...............150

]

[Footnote 16:  Mr. Cotman has figured this porch, (Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, t. 4) but has, by mistake, called it “An Arch on the West Front of the Abbey Church.”]

[Footnote 17:  See a paper by M. Le Prevost in the Precis Analitique des Travaux de l’Academie de Rouen, 1815, p. 131.]

[Footnote 18:  Histoire de la Haute Normandie, II, p. 260.]

LETTER XVI.

GOURNAY—­CASTLE OF NEUFMARCHE—­CASTLE AND CHURCH OF GISORS.

(Gisors, July, 1818)

We are now approaching the western frontiers.—­Gournay, Gisors, and Andelys, the objects of our present excursion, are disposed nearly in a line between the capitals of France and Normandy; and whenever war broke out between the two states, they experienced all the glory, and all the afflictions of warfare.  This district was in fact a kind of debatable land; and hence arose the numerous strong holds, by which the country was once defended, and whose ruins now adorn the landscape.

The tract known by modern topographers, under the names of the arrondissemens of Gournay and of Andelys, constituted one of the general divisions of ancient Normandy, the Pays de Bray.  It was a tract celebrated beyond every other in France, and, from time immemorial, for the excellence of the products of its dairies.  The butter of Bray is an indispensable requisite at every fashionable table at Paris; and the fromage de Neufchatel is one of the only two French cheeses which are honored with a place in the bill of fare at Very’s at Grignon’s, or at Beauvilliers’.

The females of the district frequently passed us on the road, carrying their milk and eggs to the provincial metropolis.  Accustomed as we are to the Norman costume, we still thought that the many-colored attire and long lappetted cap, of the good wife, of Bray, in conjunction with her steed and its trappings, was a most picturesque addition to the surrounding scenery.  The large pannier on either side of the saddle leaves little room for the lady, except on the hinder parts of the poor beast; and there she sits, perfectly free and degagee, without either pillion or stirrup, showing no small portion of her leg, and occasionally waving a little whip, ornamented in the handle with tufts of red worsted.—­We had scarcely quitted the suburbs of Rouen before we found ourselves in