Le Mans, where the East end of the cathedral cascades down a hillside in a vast exuberance of buttresses and pinnacles. The nave, on the other hand, remains Romanesque, lower and darker, with small round-headed windows filled with exquisite glass. The medieval streets of Le Mans are well worth a visit; when we passed through, they were being used as a set for the Film of Cyrano de Bergerac. They were old already in Cyrano’s time, the early eighteenth century.

The statue reaching for the sky is a memorial to the Wright brothers, who came here a hundred years ago to found the French aircraft industry.