glish 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 east side, lies the
village of Alleaume where there remain the ivy-grown ruins of the castle in
which Duke William was residing when the news was brought to him of the
insurrection of his barons under the Viscount of the Cotentin. It was at
this place that William's fool revealed to him the danger in which he
stood, and it was from here that he rode in hot haste to the castle of
Falaise, a stronghold the Duke seemed to regard as safer than any other in
his possession.

Still farther southwards lies the town of Carentan, in the centre of a
great butter-making district. It is, however, a dull place--it can scarcely
be called a city even though it possesses a cathedral. The earliest part of
this building is the west front which is of twelfth century work. The spire
of the central tower has much the same appearance as those crowning the two
western towers at St Lo, but there is nothing about the building that
inspires any particular enthusiasm although the tracery of some of the
windows, especially of the reticulated one in the south transept, is
exceptionally fine.

CHAPTER IX

Concerning St Lo and Bayeux

The richest pasture lands occupy the great butter-making district that lies
north of St Lo. The grass in every meadow seems to grow with particular
luxuriance, and the sleepy cows that are privileged to dwell in th