regarding them as a
comparatively modern invention, while others, on the contrary, believe
that the use of them may be traced to a very remote period. The
semi-circular east end, with a roof of high pitch, the windows separated
by shallow buttresses, or by slender cylindrical pillars, and the
grotesque corbel-table, are, all of them, characteristics of the early
Norman style: a greater peculiarity of the present building, and one
indeed that is found in but few others, lies in the small semi-circular
chapels attached to the sides of the transepts.

The west front (_plate 5_) exhibits a deviation from the general style
of the church, in the two towers with which it is flanked. The shape of
the arches in these plainly indicates a later aera; but they are early
instances of pointed architecture. The grand entrance is displayed upon
a larger scale in the seventh plate. The ornaments to this door-way are
rich and varied, and there are but few finer portals in Normandy. But in
specimens of this description the duchy is far from being able to bear a
comparison with England. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to
assign a satisfactory reason for this circumstance; and yet the fact is
so obvious, that it cannot fail to have occurred to every one who has
paid any attention to the architecture of the two countries.

In the interior of the church there is scarcely an architectural anomaly
to be discovered. The only alterations are those which were rendered
necessary by the injuries done to the building in the religious wars,
during the sixteenth century; and the repairs on that occasion extended
only to a portion of the roof, and of the upper part of the wall on the
south side of the nave. As a satisfactory specimen of the character of
the whole of the inside, the south transept has been selected for the
subject of the eighth plate. In this, however, as well as in the
opposite one, there is a peculiarity which requires to be noticed; that,
within the church, at the distance of a few feet from the end wall, is
placed a column, from which an arch springs on either side, occupying
the whole width of the transept, and thus forming an open screen. The
screen terminates, above, in a plain flat wall, which is carried to but
a very short distance higher than the arches, so as to be nearly on a
line with the triforium. The same arrangement exists also in some other
churches in Normandy; as in that of the royal abbey of St. Stephen at