But we are in good company; three tall mugs of cider are on the next
table to our own, a dark, stout figure, with shaven crown, is seated
with his back to us--it is the preacher of the morning, who with two lay
friends for companions, also keeps the feast.
_DIVES._
Before leaving the neighbourhood of Caen, the antiquary and historically
minded traveller will naturally turn aside and pay a visit to the town
of DIVES, about eighteen miles distant, near the sea shore to
the north-east, on the right bank of the river Dives. It is interesting
to us not only as an ancient Roman town, and as being the place of
embarkation of the Conqueror's flotilla, from whence it drifted, with
favourable winds, to St. Valery--but because it possesses the remains of
one of the finest twelfth-century churches in Normandy. We find hardly
any mention of this church in 'Murray,' and it stands almost deserted by
the town which once surrounded it, and by the sea, on the shore of which
it was originally built. At the present time there are not more than
eight or nine hundred inhabitants, but we can judge by the size of the
old covered market-place, and the extent of the boundaries of the town,
that it must have been a seaport of considerable importance. Dives was
once rich, but no longer bears out the meaning of its name; in
comparison to the thriving town of Cabourg (which it joins), it is more
like Lazarus sitting at the gate.
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