n A v 



B A V 



library consists of 5000 volume*, the remains of a much 

 : collection, which, bavin;: l en kept shut up in the 

 chtipter-house for ten years during tho revolution. n- in a 

 ;.\ tin- wet. which penetrated to them 

 after the nx>f of tlie chapter-house had been stripped of its 

 There are now four churches ; heforc the revolution, 

 there were in Buycux and its suburbs fourteen, or, accord- 

 ing to others, eighteen parish churches, two priories, three 

 convents for men, and four for women : the bishopric was 

 very rich. 



The chief articles of trade at Bayeux are cloth, linen, 

 serge, hosiery, and other woven fabrics, grain, hemp, cider, 

 and especially butter and lace ; the best butter is made 

 during winter and spring, put up into small pots, and car- 

 ried in large panniers to the adjacent parts of the country, 

 and even to Puris. It U shipped also in large qnanliii. s to 

 the French colonies. About three thousand females are. 

 constantly employed in the manufacture of lace. Il.ii-. 

 stout muslins, and especially porcelain, are also manufac- 

 tured here. The population, in 1832, was 9954 for the 

 town, or 10,303 for the whole commune. 



Bayeux possesses a rnllfgf or high school, of considerable 

 reputation; there is a tribunal de commerce: a building 

 formerly occupied by the Lazarists as a seminary for the 

 clergy, is now used as a barrack. Bayeux is the capital of an 

 MTOndiMement containing 390 square miles, or 249,600 

 acres; the population, in 1832, was 60,414. There are se- 

 ! paper-mills in the arrondissement. 



Bayeux was, according to some, the native place of Alain 

 Chartier, one of the old French poets, who lived early in the 

 fifteenth century. 



The country of Bessin, of which Bayeux was the capital, 

 was a subdivision of Normandy. It is productive in apples, 

 from which the inhabitants make a great quantity of cider, 

 partly for home consumption, partly to be sent to Rouen 

 and Paris. Towards the sea there is some rich pasture 

 land ; but the district generally is not fertile. Slate is quar- 

 ried in several places ; poultry and game, especially quails 

 and red-legged partridges, are plentiful ; and butter forms 

 a considerable article of trade, as already noticed. Fish is 

 also abundant, and the shad, the sole, and the oyster? of 

 the river Yire, are in good repute. The forest of( Vnsy, the 

 largest in the territory, shelters the wild boar, and nume- 

 rous foxes. The churches of the district are remarkable tor 

 their handsome steeples. 



BAYKUX TAPKSTRY, a web or roll of linen cloth or 

 canvass, preserved at Bayeux in Normandy, upon which a 

 continuous representation of the events connected with the 

 imasion anil conquest of England by the Normans is 

 worked in woollen thread of different colours, in the form of 

 a sampler. It is twenty inches wide, and two hundred and 

 fourteen feet long ; and is divided into seventy-two cotn- 

 pai tinents, each bearing a superscription in Latin which indi- 

 cates its subject, or the person or persons represented. It is 

 edged on its upper, as well as its lower part, by a border re- 

 preseniiiiL' chiclly quadrupeds, birds, sphinxes, minotaurs, 

 and other similar sni 



Attention was first directed to this singular monument by 

 M. Lancelot, in a memoir presented to the Academy of In- 

 scriptions and Belles I.ettivs, in 1~'2J, in consequence of his 

 discovering an illuminated drawing from a portion of it. 

 among the manuscripts in the library of M. Foucault, who 

 had lifen Intendantof Normandy. At the time of finding 

 it be did not know what it actually represented : whether 

 the original was a sculpture round the choir of a church, 

 upon a tomb, or on a frieze ; whether it was a painting in 

 fresco, or on glass; or, lastly, whether it might not be a 

 tapestry. He saw that it was historical, and that it related to 

 William Duke of Normandy and the conquest of England ; 

 and he wrote to Caen respecting it, but got no information. 



Pere Mmitfaueon, upon reading Lancelot's memoir, saw 

 the value of this curious representation, and left no stone 

 unturned till he had discovered tho original. He wrote 

 to Caen and Bayeux, and sent a copy of the drawin<_' for 



when, at last, (he canons of Bayeux reco^ 

 it as a portion of the tapi-stry in their possession, which 

 tradition said had Iron worked by, or under the super- 

 intendence of, Matilda, the Conqueror's queen, which she 

 hud herself given to the cathedral, of which O.lo. th. 

 queror's hall-lir ither, was bishop, and which they, the canons 

 of Bayeux, were accustomed to exhibit to the inhabitants of 

 the city, in the nave of their church, at a particular season 

 of the year. M. Lancelot, in a second memoir, says it was 



at that time traditionally called la Toilette de Due Guil- 

 liiiiiiir. Montfautoii sent an able arti.-t, of the name of Au- 

 toinc lie n in, to copy it; and at the opening of the second 

 volume ol hi- Mmiumriu </<' Ai JfaMfMM 1'ranfoise, pub- 

 lished in 1730, engraved the whole in a reduced form, ac- 



.Mcd with a commentary u; .'in insciip' 



which, throughout, explain the intention of the figures re- 

 presented in the ditVcient compartments. 



M. Lancelot, upon the publication of the tapestry bv Mont- 

 f.uicon, senl a second memoir to Ihe Acadi in\ ol' inserip- 

 tiorts and Belles litres (as has been just mentioned), which 

 i.l 111 17. in, and published in the same year, in the 

 eighth volume of their transactions, in which he - 

 the earlii-t mention of this tajx-.tr) among the archn 

 the cathedral is in an inventory of jewels and i nuu. 

 belonging to the church, taken in 1J7G, where il is 

 ' uno tente tics tongue- et rlroite de tellu a brodci.. 

 villages et c-erpteanlx faisans representation du conquest 

 d 'Anu'leleire, laquelle- cst tcndtle environ la net' do 1'K 

 le jour et par les octaves des reliques." 



Dr. Ducarel is the next who gives us an account of this 

 tapestry, in the appendix to his Aiiglo-Snrman .-(////'<// 

 (folio, London, 17f>7), where he has printed an eluli 

 description of it, which had lieen drawn up sme 

 before, during a residence in Normandy, by Sma' f 

 thieullier, Ksq., an able English antiquary. Ducarel tells us 

 that when he was in Normandy it was annually hung up 01 

 St. John's day, and wpnt exactly round the nave of the. 

 church, where it continued eight days. At all other times 

 it was carefully kept locked up in a strong wainscot pr 

 a chapel on the south side of the cathedral. 



From this time till the autumn of 1S03, it received but 

 little further notice, when Bonaparte, then First Consul of 

 France, contemplating the immediate invasion of England, 

 ordered it to be brought from Bayeux to the National Mu- 

 seum at Puris, where it was deposited during some months 

 for public' inspection. The First Consul himself went ' 

 it, and affected to be struck with that particular part which 

 represents Harold on his throne at the moment when he was 

 alarmed at the appearance of a meteor which presaged his 

 defeat : affording an opportunity for the inference that the 

 meteor which had then been lately seen in the south o. 

 France was the presage of a similar event. (Grntlr>n<iti'fi 

 Magazine, 1830, vol. Ixiii., pt. ii. p. 1136.) The exhibition 

 was popular : so much so, that a small dramatic piece v. as 

 got up at the Theatre du Vaudeville, entitled La 7<i/</> 

 tie la 'fine Mathildf, in which Matilda, who had retired to 

 her uncle Roger during the contest, was represented passing 

 her time with her women in embroidering the exploits i.t 

 her husband, never leaving their work, except to put up 

 prayers for his success. (Millin, M i^tizin Kticyi-l'i) iiliquc, 

 1803, torn. iv. p. 541.) After having been exhibited in 

 Paris, and in one or two large towns, the tapestry \\ 

 turned to Bayeux, and lodged with the municipality. Mr. 

 Daw son Turner, in his Tour in Normanili/, written in I - 1 s, 

 says, the bishop and chapter of Bayeux had then recently 

 applied to the government for the tapestry to be restored (o 

 their cathedral, but without effect. (Tour in Normandy, 

 8vo. Lond. 1820, vol. ii. p. 242.) 



It was most fortunate that this curious monument escaped 

 destruction during the Revolution. Its surrender at that 

 lime was demanded for the purpose of covering the guns : 

 a priest, however, succeeded in concealing and prescn ini: it 

 from destruction. 



The new decree of publicity given to the tapestry by its 

 exposure in the Frencli capital, again made it a subject of 

 discussion; and the Abbe de la Rue, professor of history in 

 the Academv of Caen, endeavoured, in a memoir, afterwards 

 translated by Francis Douce, Esq. and printed in the seven- 

 teeiith \cilnme ol the Archtfolngia of the' Society of Anti- 

 quaries, to show that a mistake' had been committed by 

 tradition in the selection of the Matilda, and that its origin 

 ought not to have been ascribed to Matilda the Conqut 

 queen, but to Matilda the empress, the daughter of King 

 Henry I. 



The next memoir on this curious-subject is comprised in a 

 slmrt letter from Mr. Hudson Giirney, printed in the 

 eighteenth volume of the ArrhrrotvffiafNlw saw the tapestry 

 at Bayeux in 1814, where it then went by the appellation of 

 the Toiledf Xt. .!> nn. which is explained by what Ducarel has 

 said, that it was formerly exhibited upon St. John's day. 

 Lancelot, Montfaucon, Ducarel, and Do la Rue, appear all 

 t<> have considered the tapestry as a monument of the Con- 



