le port
contrives to carry on a considerable export trade of farm produce, most of
it being consumed in the Channel Islands.
The railway goes on to its terminus at Cartaret, a nicely situated little
seaside village close to the cape of the same name. Here, if you tire of
shrimping on the wide stretch of sands, it is possible to desert Normandy
by the little steamer that during the summer plies between this point and
Gorey in Jersey. Modern influences have given Cartaret a more civilised
flavour than it had a few years ago, and it now has something of the aspect
of a watering-place. Northwards from Cartaret, a road follows the
coast-line two or three miles from the cliffs to Les Pieux. Then one can go
on to Flamanville by the cape which takes its name from the village, and
there see the seventeenth century moated manor house.
Cherbourg, the greatest naval port of France, is not often visited by those
who travel in Normandy, for with the exception of the enormous breakwater,
there is nothing beyond the sights of a huge dockyard town that is of any
note. The breakwater, however, is a most remarkable work. It stands about
two miles from the shore, is more than 4000 yards long by 100 yards wide,
and has a most formidable appearance with its circular forts and batteries
of guns.
The church of La Trinite was built during the English occupation and must
have been barely finished before the evacuation of the place in 1450. Since
that time the post has only been once attacked by the English, and that was
as recently as 1758, when Lord Howe destroyed and burnt the forts, shipping
and naval stores.
Leaving Cherbourg we will take our way southwards again to Valognes, a town
which suffered terribly during the ceaseless wars between England and
France. In 1346, Edward III. completely destroyed the place. It was
captured by the English seventy-one years afterwards and did not again
become French until that remarkable year 1450, when the whole of Normandy
and part of Guienne was cleared of Englishmen by the victorious French
armies under the Count of Clermont and the Duke of Alencon.
The Montgommery, whose defeat at Domfront castle has already been
mentioned, held Valognes against the Catholic army, but it afterwards was
captured by the victorious Henry of Navarre after the battle of Ivry near
Evreux.
Valognes possesses a good museum containing many Roman relics from the
neighbourhood. A short distance from the town, on the
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