appears in dense masses, which blacken the surface of the water, the individual fish being packed so closely together that on one occasion a single shot from a revolver killed three. These shoals were most frequently seen near the shore of Gennesareth-perhaps not far from that place where the disciples let down their net into the sea, and 'inclosed a great multitude of fishes; and their net brake.""

CHAPTER XXXVI.

BAYEUX AND ITS TAPESTRY.

BAYEUX is a small city in Normandy, containing about 10,000 inhabitants. It is pervaded by a quietness and repose which are almost startling to us in this busy nineteenth century; and yet it has seen pillage and massacre, and has been more than once destroyed by fire and sword. There are a few paved streets, with cafés and shops; but the most industrious inhabitants appear to be the lacemakers,-women seated in the doorways of old houses, wearing the quaint horseshoe comb and white cap with fanlike frill which are peculiar to Bayeux. Every building of importance has a semiecclesiastical character, religious feeling seeming to have especially pervaded the designers of the thirteenthcentury houses. . . . The visitor may sometimes see a little stone spire on a roof-top, the architects appearing to have aimed at expressing in this way their love and admiration for the cathedral, and to have emulated the Gothic character of its decorations.

A silence sometimes falls upon the town of Bayeux, as if the world were deserted by its inhabitants-a silence which is noticed to the same extent in no other cathedral city. The stranger looks round, and wonders where all the people are-whether there is really anybody to buy

and sell and carry on business in the regular worldly way, or whether the town is peopled only with the strange memories and histories of the past. On every side there are landmarks of cruel wars, and the sites of battles. Nearly every old house has a legend or history attached to it. The silence of Bayeux is peopled with so many memories of wars so terrible, and of legends so wild and weird, that a book might be written about Bayeux and called "The Past."

To an Englishman, the most interesting object in the town is the famous Tapestry-a record both of the conquest of our own land by William of Normandy, and also of the conjugal attachment and affectionate veneration of Matilda his wife. This world-renowned relic is preserved with the greatest care under a glass-case. It is 227 feet long, and about 20 inches wide, and is divided into seventy compartments. The scenes, which represent the principal events of the Norman Conquest, are arranged in fifty-eight groups. The legend of the first runs thus, in the French tongue :-" King Edward orders Harold to inform Duke William that he will be one day King of England."

After the interview between Edward and Harold, the latter starts on his mission to Duke William; and in the next group we see Harold on his journey, with a hawk on his wrist; then he is represented as entering the ancient church of Bosham, in Sussex, with the clergy praying for his safety before embarking; and next, he is seen on his passage. Harold is shown as captured, on landing, by Grey de Ponthieu, and afterwards as surrounded by the ambassadors whom William sends for his release. Then he is received in state at Rouen by Duke William, with whom he sets out for Mont St. Michael, Dinan, &c. Harold is next depicted in England, at the funeral of Edward the Confessor, and a curious. view is given of Westminster Abbey, in red-and-green worsted. Then follows the great historical event,

...

"THE INVASION OF ENGLAND BY THE CONQUEROR;" and all the details are portrayed of the felling of trees, the constructing of ships, and the transporting of cavalry. . . The figures on the tapestry are coloured greenand-yellow, and the chain-armour is left white. The borders on the latter part of the tapestry consist of incidents connected with the battle. Some of the earlier scenes are very amusing, having evidently been suggested by the fables of Æsop and Phædrus: there are griffins, dragons, serpents, dogs, elephants, lions, birds, and monsters, that suggest a knowledge of pre-Adamite life, interspersed with representations of ploughing and hunting, and killing birds with a sling and a stone.*

The forty-third compartment has an inscription, "Here they draw a car with wine and arms." After a compartment which shows William on horseback, comes the fleet on its voyage. The inscription to this recounts that he passes the sea with a great fleet, and comes to Pevensey. Three other compartments show the disembarkation of horses, the hasty march of cavalry, and the seizure and slaughter of animals for the hungry invaders. The forty-ninth compartment bears the inscription, "This is Wadard." Who this personage on horseback thus honoured could be was a great puzzle, till the name was found in Domesday Book as a holder of land in six English counties, under Odo Bishop of Bayeux, the Conqueror's half-brother. This is one of the circumstances exhibiting the minute knowledge of the designers of this needlework.

The fiftieth and fifty-first compartments represent the cooking and feasting of the Norman army. We have then the dining of the chiefs, with the Duke sitting under a canopy, whilst Odo blesses the food. The fiftyfifth shows him holding a banner, and giving orders for the construction of a camp at Hastings.

Six other compartments show us the burning of a *From 'Normandy Picturesque,' by Henry Blackburn.

house with firebrands, the march out of Hastings, the advance to battle, and the anxious questioning by William of his spies and scouts as to the approach of Harold's army. The sixty-third compartment represents the announcement to William that the army of Harold is near at hand. The sixty-fourth bears an inscription, explaining that Duke William addresses his soldiers, commanding them to prepare themselves boldly and skilfully for the battle. We have then six more compartments, each exhibiting some scene of the terrible conflict. The seventy-first shows the death of Harold. The tapestry abruptly ends with the figures of flying soldiers.

*

"Often as I had heard of it," says a lady who visited France in 1870, "I had never thought much about it, and expected to see something quite different from that narrow strip of linen, scarcely more than a foot and a half broad, extended on a frame the whole length, up and down, of a very long room, upon which were sewn figures, of the style of art exhibited in a boy's chalk designs on a wall, or a girl's of the last century on her sampler.

"Yet Queen Matilda, if she executed this piece of needlework at all-which there is no reason to doubt —must have been a clever woman in her generation. Its exceeding variety-for, as the canvas extends 214 feet, the scenes or pictures must be quite 150 in number-the spirited conception of some of them, and the persistent care in the execution of the whole, do great credit to this queenly Norman wife. The way in which she always depicts her William, front-face, while everybody else is in profile, and the care with which his followers are drawn, armed and clothed, while our poor ancestors are represented as mere barbarians, sufficiently indicate that, like most historians, the fair chronicler was not as unbiassed as she might have been, and knew well enough how to accommodate facts to opinions. Throughout, William is

*Half-Hours of English History,' by Charles Knight.

put forth as Britain's rightful heir (the first scene being his acknowledgment as such by Edward the Confessor), and Harold as a mean usurper.

6

"As the story goes on, the designer warms into enthusiasm, and the landing at Pevensey is quite an artistic success. True, the horses are blue and red alternately, and the men have a slight monotony of attitude; still the whole performance is interesting and intelligible, even to our modern eyes. Then, it must have been counted magnificent. The death of Harold, rude as the figures are, has a sort of pathos in it, which the numerous Findings of the Body of Harold,' that have tormented us in late exhibitions, do not all possess ; and the Gallic cock in the corner, crowing and flapping his wings in celebration of the event, is quite a stroke of genius. So too is the border, which at this point of the history changes its style, and instead of being composed of irrelevant animals-imagined from Æsop's Fables'—is made up of slain men in all sorts of possible and impossible attitudes.

Altogether, no one can examine this curious work without interest, especially where it breaks off abruptly -doubtless where the cunning of brain and fingers ceased, and the repose either of sickness or death fell upon a life that must have been anxious above most women's, even in those rough times. No one can think of Matilda in her individuality, which this labour of hers puts so strongly before one, without wondering what kind of lady she was; how she spent her days; whether she had a real heart-warm love for that huge hero of hers, whose deeds she so carefully recordsspeculations idle enough, but almost as interesting as the tapestry."*

» Fair France,' by the author of 'John Halifax.'