ancient mound without doing the least harm; and a tunnel might
in the same way have connected the modern town with the Sarthe without
doing the least damage either to Roman walls or Romanesque houses. But
there are minds to which mere havoc gives a pleasure for its own sake. A
great part of Saint Julian's is more than seven hundred years old, and
in the eyes either of Bishop or of Prefect it may be ugly. The vast
_menhir_ which rests against one of its walls has seen many more than
seven centuries, and the most devoted antiquary can hardly call it
beautiful. When the Roman walls of Le Mans are not spared, nothing can
be safe. All that can be done is for those in whose eyes antiquity is
not a crime to run to and fro over the world as fast as may be, and see
all that they can while anything is left.

MAINE

1876

We have already spoken of the capital of the Cenomanni, and some mention
of the district naturally follows on that of the capital. In no part of
Gaul, in the days at least when Le Mans and Maine stand out most
prominently in general history, are the city and the district more
closely connected. Maine was not, like Normandy, a large territory,
inhabited to a great extent by a distinct people--a territory which, in
all but name, was a kingdom rather than a duchy--a territory which,
though cumbered by the relations of a nominal vassalage, fairly ranked,
according to the standard of those times, among the great powers of
Europe. Maine was simply one of the states which were cut off from the
great duchy of France, and one over which Anjou, another state cut off
in the like sort, always asserted a superiority. Setting aside the great
though momentary incident of the war of the _Commune_, the history of
Maine during its life as a separate state consists almost wholly of its
tossings to and fro between its northern and its southern neighbours,
Normandy and Anjou. The land of Maine, in short, is that of the district
of a single city, forming a single ecclesiastical diocese. In old times
it contained no considerable town but the capital; and even now, when
the old county forms two modern departments, with Le Mans for the
_chef-lieu_ of Sarthe and Laval for the _chef-lieu_ of Mayenne, the more
modern capital is still far from reaching the size and population of the
ancient one. Normandy, with its seven ancient dioceses, its five modern
departments, cuts quite another figure on the map. With so many local
centres,