It abounds with their votive tablets. From the roof and walls
"Pendono intorno in lungo ordine i voti,
Che vi portaro i creduli divoti."
Among the pictures, we counted nineteen, commemorative of escape from
shipwreck, all of them painted after precisely the same pattern: a
stormy sea, a vessel in distress, and the Virgin holding the infant
Savior in her arms, appearing through a black cloud in the corner,--In
the Catholic ritual, the holy Virgin, is termed _Maris Stella_, and she
is I?I+-I"' I muI3/4I?I‡I.I1/2 [English. Not in Original: pre-eminently, especially,
above all] the protectress of Normandy.
Honfleur is still a fortified town; but it does not appear a place of
much strength, nor is it important in any point of view. Its trade is
inconsiderable, and its population does not amount to nine thousand
inhabitants. But in the year 1450, while in the hands of our countrymen,
it sustained a siege of a month's duration from the king of France; and,
in the following century, it had the distinction, attended with but
little honor, of being the last place in the kingdom that held out for
the league.
From Honfleur we would fain have returned by Sanson-sur-Risle and
Foullebec, at both which villages M. Le Prevost had led us to expect
curious churches; but our postillion assured us that the roads were
wholly impassable.
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