[45] For a detailed description of the monuments in this Cathedral, and
of the church of St. Ouen, we cannot do better than refer the reader to
the very accurate account in Murray's 'Handbook;' and also to Cassell's
'Normandy,' from which we have made the above extracts.
[46] We must record an exception to this rule, in the case of the church
at Dives, which a kept closely locked, under the care of an old woman.
[47] Just as the words of our Baptismal service, enrolling a young child
into the 'church militant,' lose half their effect when addressed to men
whose ideas of manliness and fighting fall very short of their true
meaning.
It has a strange sound (to say the least that could be said) to hear
quiet town-bred godfathers promise that they will 'take care' that a
child shall 'fight under the banner' of the cross, and 'continue
Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end;' and it is
almost as strange to hear the good Bishop Heber's warlike imagery--'His
blood-red banner streams afar; who follows in his train?' &c., &c.--in
the mouths of little children.
[48] The incongruity strikes one more when we see him afterwards in the
town, marching along with a flat-footed shambling tread, holding an
umbrella in front of him in his clenched fist (as all french priests
hold it),--a figure as unromantic-looking as ungraceful.
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