'
With a transition almost as startling as the first, the book is closed,
the preacher has left the pulpit, the congregation (excepting a few in
the side chapels) have dispersed; and Caen keeps holiday after the
manner of all good Catholics, putting on its best attire, and disporting
itself in somewhat rampant fashion.
Everybody visits everybody else to-day, and a fiacre is hardly to be
obtained for the afternoon drive in _Les Cours_, the public promenade.
We may go to the Jardin des Plantes, which we shall find crowded with
country people, examining the beautiful exotic plants (of which there
are several thousand); to the public Picture Gallery, established at the
beginning of the present century, which contains pictures by Paul
Veronese, Perugino, Poussin, and a number of works of the French school;
and to the Museum of Antiquities, containing Roman remains, vases,
coins, &c., discovered in the neighbourhood of Dives. There are also
excursions to Bayeux, Honfleur, and Trouville for the day; and many
tempting opportunities of visiting the neighbouring towns.
But we may be most amused by mixing with the crowd, or by listening to
the performance on the _Place royale_ of a company of foreign
musicians--shabby and dingy in aspect, enthusiastic and poor--who had
found their way here in time to entertain the trim holiday makers of
Caen.
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