tan to new quarters at Laigle, we take another look at M.
Vimont's book, and find that we have failed to see a small desecrated
Romanesque church called _Notre-Dame de la Place_. We relieve ourselves
by finding fault with M. Vimont, who certainly does not always put
things in those parts of his book where we should most naturally look
for them.

But we have one point to settle with witnesses nearer home. In the war
between William Rufus and Duke Robert, the Duke, with his ally King
Philip of France, took a castle in which Roger the Poitevin, son of Earl
Roger of Shrewsbury and brother of Robert of Belleme, commanded for
William at the head of 700 knights. Strange to say, they all surrendered
without shedding of blood on the first day of the siege. Our chronicle
calls the place _Argentses_, which Florence of Worcester translates by
_Argentinum castrum_.[51] The name looks like Argences, much nearer to
Caen than Argentan. But one doubts whether Argences could ever have been
a fortress of such importance, perhaps whether it was a fortress at all.
And Robert of Torigny, who must have known the country better than
anybody at Peterborough or Worcester, has _Argentomum_, which certainly
means Argentan, and which may perhaps have the force of a correction. If
so, we have a second visit to Argentan by a French king of the eleventh
century, but not one which made any new building needful.

There is a good deal more to say about Argentan in later times, from
Henry the Second of Normandy and England to Henry the Fourth of Navarre
and France. The traveller is most likely to sojourn at the _Hotel des
Trois Maries_, a resting-place which, in its foundation rather than in
its buildings, goes back to the fourteenth century. It has received many
memorable guests, and its host is said to have purveyed for the last
Henry that we have spoken of. It stands in the main street on the lower
ground. The thought did suggest itself that it might be a trifle too
near the Orne, whose waters at Argentan are not attractively clean, and
that the _Hotel du Donjon_ on the top of the hill might have a better
air. But we can say nothing as to the further merits or demerits of the
Donjon, and the Three Maries sheltered us well enough by the space of
six days.

EXMES AND ALMENECHES

1892

Exmes and Almeneches; one fancies that those names will sound strange to
almost any one save those who have been lately reading the eleventh book
of Orderic t