ure is the huge square tower which forms
the main feature of the building, and which has thoroughly the air of a
Norman keep of the eleventh or twelfth century. But when we come nearer,
there is hardly a detail--round arches of course alone prove
nothing--which does not suggest a later time. And the tower is
attributed to Sir John Chandos, who held the castle in Edward the
Third's time. Did he most ingeniously recast every detail of an elder
keep, or did he choose to build exactly according to the type of an age
long before his own? Anyhow, as far as general effect goes, the tower
thoroughly carries us back to the days of the earlier fame of Saint
Saviour. The view from its top stretches far away over the peninsula of
which it was once the citadel to the backs of the hills which look down
on Cherbourg and the sea, the sea which, if we believe the tale, bore
the fleet of AEthelred when the elder Neal drove back English invaders
more than three hundred years before Sir John Chandos.

[Illustration: Abbey of Lessay, S.W.]

The visitor to Saint Saviour may perhaps manage to make his way straight
from that place to Coutances without going back to Valognes. In any case
his main object between Saint Saviour and Coutances will be the great
Romanesque abbey of Lessay; only, by going back to Valognes and taking
the railway to Carentan, he will be able to combine with Lessay the two
very fine churches of Carentan and Periers. Of these, Carentan has
considerable Romanesque portions, the arches of the central lantern and
the pillars of the nave which have been ingeniously lengthened and made
to bear pointed arches. Lessay, we fancy, is very little known. It is
out of the way, and the country round about it, flat and dreary, is
widely different from the generally rich, and often beautiful, scenery
of the district. But few churches of its own class surpass it as an
example of an almost untouched Norman minster, not quite of the first
class in point of scale. We say untouched, because it is so practically,
though a good deal of the vaulting was most ingeniously repaired after
the English wars, just as Saint Stephen at Caen was after the Huguenot
wars. Some miles over the _landes_ bring us again into the hilly region
round the episcopal city, and Coutances is seen on its hill, truly a
city which cannot be hid. Of its lovely minster we once spoke in some
detail;[30] of the city itself we may add that none more truly bespeaks
its origin