us.  On entering the town, the road was absolutely solid rock:  and considering what a house we carried behind us (for so the body of the diligence seemed) and the uncertain footing of the horses, in consequence of the rocky surface of the road, I apprehended the most sinister result.  Luckily it was moon-light; when, approaching one of the sorriest looking inns imaginable, whither our conducteur (in spite of the better instructions of the landlord of the Hotel d’Angleterre at Coutances) had persuaded us to go, the passengers alighted with thankful hearts, and bespoke supper and beds.

Granville is fortified on the land side by a deep ravine, which renders an approach from thence almost impracticable.  On every other side it is defended by the ocean, into which the town seems to have dropt perpendicularly from the clouds.  At high water, Granville cannot be approached, even by transports, nearer than within two-thirds of a league; and of course at low water it is surrounded by an extent of sharply pointed rock and chalk:  impenetrable—­terrific—­and presenting both certain failure and destruction to the assailants.  It is a GIBRALTAR IN MINIATURE.  The English sharply cannonaded it a few years since, but it was only a political diversion.  No landing was attempted.  In the time of the civil wars, and more particularly in those of the League, Granville, however, had its share of misery.  It is now a quiet, dull, dreary, place; to be visited only for the sake of the view from thence, looking towards St. Malo, and Mont St. Michel; the latter of which I give up—­as an hopeless object of attainment.  Granville is in fact built upon rock;[158] and the houses and the only two churches are entirely constructed of granite.  The principal church (I think it was the principal) is rather pretty within, as to its construction; but the decidedly gloomy effect given to it by the tint of the granite—­the pillars being composed of that substance—­renders it disagreeable to the eye.  I saw several confessionals; and in one of them, the office of confession was being performed by a priest, who attended to two penitents at the same time; but whose physiognomy was so repulsively frightful, that I could not help concluding he was listening to a tale which he was by no means prepared to receive.

An hour’s examination of the town thoroughly satisfied me.  There was no public conveyance to Vire, whither I intended immediately departing, and so I hired a voiture to be drawn by one sturdy Norman horse.  To a question about springs, the conducteur replied that I should find every thing “tres propre.”  Having paid the reckoning, I set my face towards VIRE.  The day, for the season of the year, turned out to be gloomy and cold beyond measure:  and the wind (to the east) was directly in my face.  Nevertheless the road was one of the finest that I had seen in France, for breadth and general soundness of condition.  It had all the