[8] There is a great change in the aspect of Pont Audemer during the last year or two; streets of new houses having sprung up, hiding some of the best old work from view; and one whole street of wooden houses having been lately taken down.
[9] There is one peculiarity about the position of Pont Audemer which is charming to an artist; the streets are ended by hills and green slopes, clothed to their summits with trees, which are often in sunshine, whilst the town is in shadow.
[10] We, human creatures, little know what high revel is held at four o'clock on a summer's morning, by the birds of the air and the beasts of the field; when their tormentors are asleep.
[11] The approach to Lisieux from the railway station is singularly uninteresting; a new town of common red brick houses, of the Coventry or Birmingham pattern, having lately sprung up in this quarter.
[12] There is something not inappropriate, in the printed letters in present use in France, to the 'Haussmann' style of street architecture; some inscriptions over warehouses and shops could scarcely indeed be improved. We might point as an illustration of our meaning to the successful introduction of the word NORD, several times repeated, on the façade of the terminus of the Great Northern Railway at Paris.
[13] We lately saw an english crest, bearing the motto "Courage without fear;" a piece of tautology, surely of modern manufacturer?
[14] The contrast between the present and former states of society might be typified by the general substitution of the screw for the nail in building; both answering the purpose of the modern builder, but the former preferred, because _removable_ at pleasure.
It is a restless age, in which advertisements of 'FAMILIES REMOVED' are pasted on the walls of a man's house without appearing to excite his indignation.
[15] The 'renaissance' work at the east end of this church is considered by Herr Lübke to be 'the masterpiece of the epoch.' 'It is to be found,' he says, 'at one extremity of a building, the other end of which is occupied by the loveliest steeple and tower in the world.'
[16] It is remarkable that with all their care for this building, the authorities should permit apple-stalls and wooden sheds to be built up against the tower.