a copy of the Livre d’Eglise ou Nouveau Paroissien a l’usage du Diocese de Coutances, or the common prayer book of the diocese.  It is a very thick duodecimo, of 700 double columned pages, printed in a clear, new, and extremely legible character, upon paper of sufficiently good texture.  It was bound in sheepskin, and I gave only thirty sous for it new.  How it can be published at such a price, is beyond my conception.  M. Joubert told me that the compositor or workman received 20 francs for setting up 36 pages, and that the paper was 12 francs per ream.  In our own country, such prices would be at least doubled.

It is impossible not to be struck here with the great number of YOUNG ECCLESIASTICS.  In short, the establishment now erecting for them, will contain, when completed, (according to report) not fewer than four hundred.  It is also impossible not to be struck with the extreme simplicity of their manners and deportment.  They converse with apparent familiarity with the very humblest of their flock:  and seem, from the highest to the lowest, to be cordially received.  They are indifferent as to personal appearance.  One young man carries a bundle of linen to his laundress, along the streets:  another carries a round hat in his hand, having a cocked one upon his head:  a kitchen utensil is seen in the hand of a third, and a chair, or small table, in that of a fourth.  As these Clergymen pass, they are repeatedly saluted.  Till the principal building be finished, many of them are scattered about the town, living quite in the upper stories.  In short, it is the profession, rather than the particular candidate, which seems to claim the respectful attention of the townsmen.

[152] See page 13 ante.

[153] Mr. Cotman has a view of this church, in his work on Normandy.

[154] I suspect that the “peaceful” waters of this stream were frequently
    died with the blood of Hugonots and Roman Catholics during the fierce
    contests between MONTGOMERY and MATIGNON, towards the latter half of
    the sixteenth century.  At that period St. Lo was one of the strongest
    towns in the Bocage; and the very pass above described, was the avenue
    by which the soldiers of the captains, just mentioned, alternately
    advanced and retreated in their respective attacks upon St. Lo:  which
    at length surrendered to the victorious army of the latter; the
    leader of the Catholics.  SEGUIN:  Histoire Militaire des Bocains; p.
    340-384; 1816, 12 mo.

[155] The reader will be doubtless gratified by the artist-like view of
    this cathedral, by Mr. Cotman, in his Architectural Antiquities of
    Normandy.

[156] It cannot fail to be noticed that the following sentences are in fact
    rhyming verse, though printed prose-wise.

LETTER XVII.