n the morning, or even as late
as six in the evening, one finds classes of boys or girls being catechised
and instructed by priests and nuns. The visitor on pushing open the swing
door of an entrance will frequently be met by a monotonous voice that
echoes through the apparently empty church. As he slowly takes his way
along an aisle, the voice will cease, and suddenly break out in a simple
but loudly sung Gregorian air, soon joined by a score or more of childish
voices; then, as the stranger comes abreast of a side chapel, he causes a
grave distraction among the rows of round, closely cropped heads. The
rather nasal voice from the sallow figure in the cassock rises higher, and
as the echoing footsteps of the person who does nothing but stare about him
become more and more distant, the sing-song tune grows in volume once more,
and the rows of little French boys are again in the way of becoming good
Catholics. In another side chapel the confessional box bears a large white
card on which is printed in bold letters, "M. le Cure." He is on duty at
the present time, for, from behind the curtained lattices, the stranger
hears a soft mumble of words, and he is constrained to move silently
towards the patch of blazing whiteness that betokens the free air and
sunshine without. The cheerful clatter of the traffic on the cobbles is
typical of all the towns of Normandy, as it is of the whole republic, but
Caen has reduced this form of noise by exchanging its omnibuses, that
always suggested trams that had left the rails, for swift electric trams
that only disturb the streets by their gongs. In Rouen, the electric cars,
which the Britisher rejoices to discover were made in England--the driver
being obliged to read the positions of his levers in English--are a huge
boon to everyone who goes sight-seeing in that city. Being swept along in a
smoothly running car is certainly preferable to jolting one's way over the
uneven paving on a bicycle, but it is only in the largest towns that one
has such a choice.

Although the only road that is depicted in this book is as straight as any
built by the Romans and is bordered by poplars, it is only one type of the
great _routes nationales_ that connect the larger towns. In the hilly parts
of Normandy the poplar bordered roads entirely disappear, and however
straight the engineers may have tried to make their ways, they have been
forced to give them a zig-zag on the steep slopes that breaks up the