too low. In a great number of cases they
rebuilt the choir after their own fashion, but never carried the work on
to the nave. Here at Exmes the work in the eastern part was never
finished. That seems most likely; but it is possible that the work was
finished and has been pulled down. The apse at least was done, and very
pretty it is; but a tall transept on each side with a large chapel to
the east of each, perhaps built, certainly designed, are not there now.
Within, there is no vaulting, and a mean wooden roof has been thrown
across at about half the proper length. The nave, too, is covered with a
wooden roof, a kind of coved roof with tie-beams. A real barrel-vault
would be best of all; but a good flat ceiling, such as was common in
Romanesque times, would do very well. It is one of the differences
between French and English architecture that the French designers always
meant or hoped to have a vault; the wooden roof in a French church is
always a mere shift. It was the builders of English parish churches who
found out that the wooden roof could be made into an equal substitute
for the vault, preferred to it by a deliberate taste.

For one very anxious to work out in detail the curious little bit of
history with which the two places are chiefly concerned, it might be
better, if he could manage it, to take Exmes and Almeneches in a single
round. But it is easier to make them the objects of two separate
excursions from Argentan. We set out then from that town with a twofold
anxiety on the mind. Shall we find any signs of the abbey of the
persecuted Emma? We do not give up all hope till we shall see with our
own eyes. Shall we find any signs of the "_munitio_" occupied by her
brother Arnulf? Signs we may fairly look for, if not for the thing
itself. Our guidebook describes a church of Almeneches, but it does not
distinctly say whether it is the church of the abbey or a separate
parish church. It speaks of a "beau tumulus" in the "environs" of
Almeneches, and says that the neighbourhood is full of "equestrian
memories," whatever those may be. One of them, to be sure, bears the
name of the "Manoir de la Motte," which has a very tempting sound. On
the ordnance map we can find nothing of this manor; but we do find
"Almeneches" and "le Chateau d'Almeneches" marked as two distinct
_communes_. This is encouraging; we seem to have lighted on what at home
we should call "Abbess Almeneches" and "Castle Almeneches." We see Emma
a