The whole of the precincts of the castle, the walls, ramparts, and the
principal towers, are (at the time we write, August, 1869) strewn with
mason's work, as if a new castle of Falaise were being built; everything
looks fresh and new, it is only here and there we discover anything old,
the remnants of a carved window, and the like. But, as a Frenchman
observed to us, if it had not been for all this nineteenth-century work,
the present generation would never have seen the castle of Falaise. The
work of restoration appears to be carried on in rather a different
spirit from the ecclesiastical restorations at Caen and Bayeux; here the
prevailing idea seems to be, 'prop up your antique _any how_' (with
timber beams, and a zinc roof to Talbot's tower, such as we might put
over a cistern), so long as devotees will come and worship, with
francs, at the shrine; whilst at Bayeux, as we have seen, the old work
is handled with reverence and fear, and the nineteenth-century mason
puts out all his power to imitate, if not to excel, the work of the
twelfth.
The churches at Falaise should not pass unnoticed; but we will not weary
the reader with any detailed description. Artists will especially
delight in the view of a fourteenth-century church close to the castle,
with its chancel with creepers growing over it, and peeping out between
the stones; and historians will be interested in the laconic inscription
on its walls, 'rebuilt in 1438, a year of war, death, plague, and
famine.
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