In respect to the trade of the town, the two principal branches are lace and cap making.  The former trade is divided with Bayeux; and both places together give occupation to about thirty thousand pairs[99] of hands.  People of all ages may be so employed; and the annual gross receipts have been estimated at four millions of francs.  In cap making only, at Caen, four thousand people have been constantly engaged, and a gross produce of two millions of francs has been the result of that branch of trade.  A great part of this manufacture was consumed at home; but more than one half used to be exported to Spain, Portugal, and the colonies belonging to France.  They pretend to say, however, that this article of commerce is much diminished both in profit and reputation:  while that of table linen is gaining proportionably in both.[100] There were formerly great tanneries in Caen and its immediate vicinity, but lately that branch of trade has suffered extremely.  The revolution first gave it a violent check, and the ignorance and inattention of the masters to recent improvements, introduced by means of chemistry, have helped to hasten its decay.  To balance this misfortune, there has of late sprung up a very general and judiciously directed commercial spirit in the article of porcelaine; and if Caen be inferior to its neighbouring towns, and especially to Rouen and Lisieux, in the articles of cloth, stuffs, and lace, it takes a decided lead in that which relates to pottery and china:  no mean articles in the supply of domestic wants and luxuries.  But it is in matters of higher “pith and moment” that Caen may claim a superiority over the towns just noticed.  There is a better spirit of education abroad; and, for its size, more science and more literature will be found in it.

This place has been long famous for the education of Lawyers.  There are two distinct academies—­one for “Science and the Belles-Lettres”—­the other for agriculture and commerce.  The Lycee is a noble building, close to the Abbey of St. Stephen:  but I wish its facade had been Gothic, to harmonise with the Abbey.  Indeed, Caen has quite the air of Oxford, from the prevalent appearance of stone in its public buildings.  The environs of the town afford quarries, whence the stone is taken in great blocks, in a comparatively soft state—­and is thus cut into the several forms required with the greatest facility.  It is then exposed, and every succeeding day appears to add to its white tint and durable quality.  I saw some important improvements making in the outskirts of the town,[101] in which they were finishing shafts and capitals of columns in a manner the most correct and gratifying.  Still farther from the immediate vicinity of Caen, they find stone of a closer grain; and with this they make stair-cases, and pavements for the interior of buildings.  Indeed the stone stair-cases in this place, which are usually circular, and projecting