SCENES FROM HOME.

No. V.

THE CHAPEL OF GRACE.

HAVRE DE GRACE is a name probably well known to most of my readers; but perhaps the Côte de Grace, with its little maritime chapel, is not so familiar to them, although it is one of the most beautiful and interesting spots in Normandy.

The scenery of that noble and ancient province is, indeed, well worthy the attention of the tourist in search of the picturesque. It is a varied, fertile, and finely wooded country, and though not so wildly romantic as some scénes nearer home, it has yet a breadth and grandeur which we do not see in island scenery.

The north-eastern corner of Brittany, where we entered France, is, on the contrary, one of the flattest and dullest portions of this earth's surface. The long, level, cream-coloured roads; the dismal, swampy sands of the sea-shore, without a pebble to break their uniformity; the bare, wide fields, displaying only the reddish stems of the newly-reaped black wheat; the squalid, shattered cottages, encrusted with dirt, and hung with a dismal tapestry of withered tobacco-leaves, drying in the sun; the ragged peasants, winnowing their corn-heaps by the

way-side, in broad wicker dishes, which served for sieves; all these doleful objects conspired to render my first impressions of French pastorals very unfavourable.

The dirty, queer little town of Dôl, which might well be translated Dull, stands in the midst of all this desolation; but on quitting it, the scene changed as by enchantment. Even before we reached the boundary of Normandy, woods and hills began to arise, and rocks skirted the winding road. The contrast was one not soon to be forgotten; the opposite side of the long sweeping valley, along which we passed, was now skirted by an enormous forest, which exhibited a broad boundary of unvaried, dark, massive foliage, reaching for miles, as far as the eye could see, before and behind us, following every curve of the wide vale, and frowning, in all the grandeur of huge and ancient dominion, from the tops of the high, but gradually sloping hills. The red setting sun gilded but could not penetrate it; it looked as if a tempest could not have shaken its undulating mass. I never saw any object but the ocean which gave me so complete an idea of boundless extent as this old Norman forest; it was a magnificent spectacle, and only the darkness of night prevented us at last from seeing it; it had not ceased to accompany us, but we could no longer discern its outlines.

The noble Seine, whose scenery is so celebrated as to give it rank with the Meuse and Rhine, as one of the three finest rivers in Europe, flows through vales, woods and hills of ample extent. Every natural object in Normandy is on a grand scale; and it seems as if the architects of olden times had there sought to rival nature by the splendid creations of

art; the cathedrals, the forests, the vallies-are all in the same style of large beauty.

One peculiarity in the Seine scenery we could not but observe; this was the frequent repetition of similar objects; I counted no less than six dome-topped, down-looking hills in one range; each so like the others as hardly to be identified from them; the same thing is observable in the rocks; range after range of grey limestone crags, like "the apostles" of the Wye, followed each other; so did woody knolls, four or five of a sort, and white chalky caves in the same manner. It looked as though the same pattern had served for the formation of two or three miles of scenery at once.

But I must return from my white square caves, which are not far from Rouen, back to the estuary of the Seine, where, facing Havre, and backing the romantic old town of Honfleur, rises the stately, verdant Côte de Grace. The road leading to the top runs parallel with the water's edge; and being a steep ascent, bordered with trees and brushwood, it affords beautiful dioramic peeps of the broad, noble river, with the full swelling hills opposite; where, in their woody coves, lie Havre de Grace and Harfleur, whose noble church stands among the houses like a giant among pygmies. At the top of the Côte de Grace is an enormous crucifix, perhaps twenty feet or more in height, with a figure upon it, the full size of life. This is visible from the waters below, and no doubt forms a chief object of devotion to mariners.

Across the hill top are two or three houses, and among them a high, gable-ended building, with an arched window-this is the chapel of Nôtre Dame de Grace, from whom the hill takes its name. Close to

the door we saw a little shop, where fruit and cakes were sold. But these were not the only articles of trade: wax dolls, sprays and wreaths of artificial flowers, principally made of white or silvered paper, and quantities of candles, of all sizes, were exhibited at the door and window.

To inexperienced Protestant eyes like mine, it appeared to be a toy and chandlery warehouse; it required a little acquaintance with Popery to know that it was, in reality, a devotion-shop. The cakes and fruit were of course intended as bodily consolations to weary pilgrims; but the dolls were-saints,— the flowers were ornaments for their altars, and the candles were offerings for the same.

We had a good opportunity of seeing the use made of these latter; two women and a child had followed us up the hill, and after kneeling awhile on the steps of the huge crucifix at the top, and murmuring there, they entered the shop. One of them purchased a candle, and the dealer in pieties carried it into the chapel, where she lighted it, from a little dark lantern, and then placed it among some others which were burning before the image of the virgin.

The chapel is a small and ugly building, in the form of a capital T; the chancel is represented by the stem of the letter, and at the outer corner of it is perched, upon a bracket, the said virgin image. It is a dirty-faced, wax doll, about the size of a child of six years old; on its head is a tawdry silveredpaper crown, while sundry stars of the same material spangle a dirty white petticoat, partly shaded by a dirty white muslin robe. Such a compound of dust and rubbish I have never seen in any toy-shop in England. The candles were stuck upon pegs on a

tin ledge in front of the image; there were five, all burning at noon, and the women who had brought the last of these lights were kneeling before it, upon those high-backed wicker chairs, which abound in continental churches.

The chapel contained many altars, decked with paper flowers and other trumpery; but before each of them, and from the roof, and in every part of the building, hung little wooden ships, or pictures of ships in stormy seas. To every one of these was appended some such inscription as this-' Voué à N. D. de Grace, par Jean Lebeau, dans un ôrage, le 10 Janvier, 1828.' Many of them were worn out with age, but others were new and gaudily coloured; and in one corner of the tempestuous scene was usually painted a scarlet and yellow virgin, appearing in the sky.

As we were leaving the place, two comely, greyhaired, weather-beaten mariners came up the hill, and entered the chapel. We followed them; each took a chair, and knelt devoutly before the great tawdry doll, crossing himself with much earnestness; they had probably just returned from a voyage. The women were still praying where we had left them.

We much regretted that we had no tracts with us that day; it would have been a good opportunity of giving some to these simple and, no doubt, well meaning though deceived people. We always found the Normans willing to receive those little witnesses of truth; and we generally gave them without any remark on the difference of our religions. As soon as we said they were 'pétits livres religieux, they thankfully accepted them.