It is from this promontory, or rather from what Murray calls 'this dusty
pleasure ground,' that we obtain our best view of the country westward,
towards Avranches; and from whence we can see the bold granite
formation of the rocks in the neighbourhood. We may see where the
manufacturers of cloth and paper have established their mills; and also
where, in some cases, they have had to widen out the valleys, and to cut
roads through the rocks to their works. All the streams turn
waterwheels, and many of the surrounding rocks are disfigured with cloth
'tenters.'
There are some curious half-timbered houses at Vire, and some old
streets tempting to sketch; including the house of Basselin, the famous
originator of 'vaux de Vire'--or, as they are now called, _vaudevilles_.
The inhabitants number about 9000, they are for the most part engaged in
the manufactories of the place, too busy apparently to modernise either
their costume or their dwellings; but the railway is now bringing others
to the town who will work these changes for them. Happily for them and
for us, the hills are of granite and their sides most precipitous, and
the innovators make slow progress in modernisation. At the hotels
everyone drinks cider, rather than _vin ordinaire_; and at night we are
awoke with the clatter of sabots and the voice of the watchman.
The ancient town of FALAISE, to which so many Englishmen make a
pilgrimage, as being the reputed birthplace of William the Conqueror,
can now be reached, either from Caen, Vire, or Paris, by railway; but we
who come from the west, will do well to keep to the old road; and (if we
wish to preserve within us any of the associations connected with the
place) should not have the sound of '_Falaise_' first rung in our ears
by railway porters.
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