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The Story of Rouen

First Edition^ March 1899
Second Edition f April 1901

■' I

PREFACE

" Est enlm benignnm et plenum Ingenui pudorii fiteri pu

npHE story of a town must difier from the history
of a nation in that it if conceroed not with
large isniea but with familiar and domeatic details. A
nation has no individuality. No single phrase can
^rly sum up the characteristics of a people. But a
town is like one face picked out of a crowd, a face
that shows not merely the experience of our human
span, but the traces of centuries that go backward into
unrecorded time. In all this slow development a
character that is individual and inseparable is gradually
formed. That character never radea. It is to be
found first En the geographical laws of permanent or
slowly changed surroundings, and secondly in the
outward aapect of the dwellings built by man, for his
. personal comfort or for the good of the materiai com-
munity, or for his spiritual needs.

To these three kinds of architecture I have attached
this story of Rouen, because even in its remotest
syllables there are some traces left that are still visible ;
and these tnces increase as the story approaches
modem times. While moats and ramparts still sever
a dty from it* surrounding territory, the space within
the walls preserves many of those sharply defined
characteristics which grow fainter when town and
country merge one into the other j the modem suburb
graduallv destrmri the pertooality both of what it
•prang from ana of what it meets. Up to the be-
gumiog of the wxtewtb ctatujr I hnt been more

Preface

careful to explain the scattered relics of an earlier
time than during the years when Rouen was filled
with exquisite examples of the builder's art. After
that century there is so little of distinction, and so
much of average merit, that my story languishes
beneath a load of bricks and mortar.

Each chapter in this book which describes an
advance in time or a different phase of life and feeling
will be found to be connected with the buildings that
are either contemporaneous with that phase or most
suggestive of it. I have thus been able to mention
all the important architectural features of the town
without disturbing a fairly even chronological develop-
ment of the tale, in the hope that this method will
appeal not only to the traveller who needs guidance
and explanation in the place he visits, but also to the
reader who prefers to hear my story by his own fire-
side. Working, then, with this double audience in
my mind, I have used to a very large extent, in my
description of the people's life, the documents they
have left behind themselves, so that the best expression
may be given of the vital fact that a town is built and
fashioned and inspired not by a few great men, but by
the many persistent citizens who dwell in it, working
their will from age to age without shadow of changing.

One such manuscript, the work of many hands and
many centuries, I must particularly mention. It is the
record kept by the Cathedral Chapterhouse, from 1 2 1 o
to 1790, of the prisoners pardoned by the Privilege of
St. Romain's Shrine. Forbidden, for reasons of health,
to investigate these ancient parchments for myself, I
have been fortunate enough to find them all printed by
the care of M. A. Floquet, to whom the judicial his-
tory of Rouen owes so much. To his industry and to
that of M. Charles de Beaiu'epaire I owe all the more
astonishing and unknown details which are derived from

original authorities scarcely yet appreciated at their fUl
•••
viu

Preface

value. Both were scholars in the £cole dee Chartes,
the OD]y school of accurate historical instruction in the
world; and for any possibility of usmg fruitfully the
mass of details they have brought to light I am indebted
to my initiation by M. and Madame James Darmesteter
into the same principles of organised research. The
list of Authorities in the Appendix will show rather
more fully a debt to M. de Beaurepaire which can never
be adequately acknowledged.

My stay in Rouen was rendered more profitable and
more pleasant by the kindness of yet others of its
citizens. To M. Georges Dubosc ; to M. le Marquis
de Melandri ; to M. Lafont who, as is but right in
Armand Carrel's birthplace, presides over the oldest
and best French provincial newspaper ; to M. Edmond
Lebel, Director of the Museum ; to M. Noel^ the
librarian, I would here express my heartiest gratitude.
To M. Beaurain I am under an especial obligation.
Not only did he carefidly trace for me the madrigal, set
in its modern dress by the kindly skill of Mr Fuller
Maitland, which English readers may now hear for the
first time since 1 550 ; but he chose out of the vast store
at his command the portrait of ComeiUe by Lasne, and
the View of Rouen in 1620 by Merian. These were
photographed by M. Lambin of 47 Rue de la R^pub-
lique, with whom I left a list of those typical carvings
in wood and stone of which visitors to Rouen would be
likely to desire some accurate and permanent record.

Among those things in this little volume to which I
desire special attention, as being unknown in England,
and in some cases never reproduced before, I would
mention, in addition to the music in Chapter XIII.,the
plan in Chapter IX. by Jacques Lelieur, who also drew
the view of the whole town reproduced in Chapter
XIII. This plan is the only instance of which I am
aware which enables us to see a French town of 1525
exactly as it was, for by a queer but easily intelligible

Preface

mixture of plan and elevation, the architect has drawn
not merely the course of various streets but the fa9ades
of the houses on each side of them. And this leads
me to my last, and perhaps my most striking debt, that
to my illustrators ; not only to my mother, who drew
the arms of Rouen, from a design of 1 5 50, for the first
chapter, and Coustou's charming bas-relief of Com-
merce for the last, but more especially to Miss James ;
of her work I need say nothing ; it is quite able to
make its own appeal ; but for her indefatigable desire
to draw exactly what I wanted and to assist the whole
scheme of the book I cannot sufHciently express my
gratitude. Her drawings of the Crypte St. Gervais,
of the Chapelle St. Julien, and of the Eglise St. Paul,
will be as new as they are valuable to architectural
readers ; her picture of the Cour des Comptes, and of
the old house in the Rue St. Romain were made under
exceptional circumstances which may never recur again ;
and the view of the Chartreuse de la Rose is the first
representation of the headquarters of our Henry V. in
France which has ever, to my knowledge, been pro-
duced in England.

In conclusion I must express the earnest wish that
the pages I have written about the carvings of the
Maison Bourgtheroulde, and the illustrations accom-
panying them, will not have been published in vain.
That the only authentic contemporaneous record of the
Field of the Cloth of Gold, except the one picture at
Hampton Court, should now be mouldering into decay
in a French town is hardly creditable to those who can
act with authority in valuable questions of historical art.
The town of Rouen is aware of the risk, but nothing is
done* In a few years the inaccurate reproductions in
the Crystal Palace will be the only traces left of these
invaluable records, unless an immediate effort is made
to secure the preservation of the originals in the French
house, which they will soon cease to adorn.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGB

Introductory ....•• I

CHAPTER U

The First City . . . • . . 12

CHAPTER lU

Merovingian Rouen . . . « . 24

CHAPTER n

Rouen under her own Dukes . « , 44

CHAPTER V

The Conquest of England and the Fall of

Normandy ..... 72

CHAPTER VI

A French Town ..... 103

CHAPTER VII

La Rue de la Grosse Horloge • , ^ 134

CHAPTER VIll

The Siege of Rouen by Henry V. » s . 1 69

Contents

CHAPTEK a
Jeanne d' Arc and the Englith Occupation loO

A City of Churchet

Jutticc 164

CHAPTER XIU

^f' 3"

LiteriUuri and Commerce .... 369

A MaJrigalof i$^o 362

Appetu^ .,,,,.. 394
Index 4O3

ILLUSTRATIONS

Si. Maclou Frontiipieei

Tie ^rms of Rouen *
The Original Faaiame Croix Je Pii
Cryfl of St. Geroait .
Statue of St. Louit
laitial Letter fi^m an old Manutcripi
The Armt of Rouen * .
Cbapelle di la Fierte de Si. Roma'm
Tht Armi of Normandy * .
Figure fram the Border of tht Bayeux Tapetlry *
Figure from the Border of the Bayeux Tapetiry *
Figure from the Border of the Bayeux Tapeilry *
Horttt for the Army of IVilRam the Conqueror
eroiang the Channel, Bayeux Tapeitry * .
Figure from the Border of the Bajeux Tapeitry *
Interior of the Chapel of St. JuTien
Corbel from the old Church of St. Paul
Apte of the old Church oj St. Paul
The Armt of France *
J Mason at Work * . . .

Portail del Librairet .

ralfrom the Norlb-IVetl

96
99

Illustrations

The Good Shepherd of the Gross e Horloge
The Salt Porter of St. Vincent
La Grosse Horloge and the Town Belfry
Hotel des Bons Enfants
A Cobbler at Work * .
The Rue du Hallage
The Chartreuse de la Rose
The Apse of St, Ouen ,
Maison des Celestins •
Rue St, Romain •
La Cour d^Albane
Central Tower of St, Ouen from the Souths East
Tour Jeanne d'Arc .
The Original West Front of St. Ouen
Nave of St. Ouen
Staircase of St. Maclou
Door of St. Maclou
Tour St. Andre .
Eglise St, Laurent
Western Porch of St. Vincent
Palais de Justice. Tourelle in the Rue St. L6
Courtyard of Palais de Justice
Octagon Room of the Palais de Justice
Bureau des Finances^ from the Parvis
Cour des CompteSy from the Rue des Carmes
The Dead Body of De Bre%ey from his Tomb
in Rouen Cathedra! * . . . .

XIY

PACK

'59
161

165

181

193
196

206

218

222

230

236

239

246

247
249

*57

267

272
278
284
288

292

■:d

Illustrations

FAGB

Entrance to the jittre St. Maclou . . • 299

The Cemetery of St. Maclou , . . .304

Tomb of the two Cardinals d^jimboise^ from

Rouen Cathedral . . . .311

Tomb of Louis de Bre%e in Rouen Cathedral . 313

AMonkfrayingyfrom the Tomb of the Cardinals

d*Amboise . . . . .315

Sir Christopher Lytcot^ from the Brass in

West Hannay Church * . . • 3 ' 9

Des Todes Wappenschild^ after Holbein * . . 320

Rouen in 15259 by Jacques LeHeur . Facing 3«i

The Gallery of the Matson Bourgtheroulde . 323
The Field of the Cloth of Gold . . . 327
A Window in the Maison Bourgtheroulde . 335

Inner Fagade of the Maison Bourgtheroulde . 339
Maison Caradas . . . . • 3+7

Rue de V Eflcerie . . -353

A Window in the Maison Bourgtheroulde* . 361
Rouen in 1620, by Merian . . . Facing 369

Coustou* s Bas-relief of Commerce * . . 369

Pierre Corneillcy by Lasne . . . Facing 376

Eau de Robec . . . • . •381

Courtyard in the Rue Petit Salut . . . 388

The illustrations marked with * are drawn by Jane E. Cook.

MAPS

PAGB

A. The Site of Rouen between the Seine and

the Hills ...... 3

B. Mfiin Streets and Boulevards, showing the

Walls besieged by Henry V. . Facing 5

C. The Gallo^Roman Walls^ and the oldest

Streets in Rouen . . . Facing 7 1

D. Rouen in the Thirteenth Century , Facing 103

E. The Extension of Rouen East^vards at the

end of the Fourteenth Century • Facing 1 69

F. Plan (^and elevation of the Houses) of the

Vieux^Marche and the Marche^aux'
Veaux (^now Place de la Pucelle) drawn
by Jacques Lelieur for his ** Livre des
Fontaines^* in 1525 • • • Facing log

XVI

.■*:k

CHAPTER I
Introductory

Anit, c*eM done Rooeii, la tUIc lux vieillet net,
Anx TleUlei tour), dAHi de ncei diipaiuei,
La ville am cent clochen cuHlonaaC dam I'air,
Le RmKD dn chlCeanx, det hAceb, dei hMtiltu,
DoDt le front h£riu£ de flichei et d'alguillei
Djchlre inceiaamment lei bnimei de la met.

THE three great rivers that flow from the hoit of
France to her three *ea« have each a character
of their own. The grey and rapid current of the
Rhone, swollen with the melting of the glacier-sDowa,
rolli past the impenshable moDuments of ancient
Empire, and through the oliTcyards and vineyards of
ProTcnce, falls into the blue wave* of the aouthem
sea> The sandy stream of Loire goes weatward past
the pabcca of kings and the walled pleasure-gardens of
Touraine, whispering of deid royalty. But the Seine

The Story of Rouen

pours out his black and toil-stained waters northward
between rugged banks, hunying from the capital of
France to bear her cargoes through the Norman cliffs
into the English Channel.

If Paris, Rouen, and Le Havre were but one town,
whose central highway was this great river of the
north, it would be at the vital spot, the very market-
cross, that Rouen has sprung up and flourished through
the centuries, at that dividing line where ships must
stay that sail in from the sea, and cargo boats set out
that ply the upper stream with commerce for the
inland folk ; and this geographical position has affected
every generation of the city's growth and strength.

Rouen that is now '* cheflieu du departement de la
Snne'Inferieure^^ was once the Norman stronghold
which commanded all the basin of the river from the
incoming of the stream of Eiire. The Seine and its
tributaries have cut vast plateaux some four hundred
feet in height, through chalk and debris piled above
the Jurassic bedrock that crops out here and there, as
it does at Bray. On the right bank of the river, at
the summit of a huge curve, the city lies between the
valley of Darn^tal, that is watered by Robec and his
mate Aubette, and the valley of Bapaume. Upon this
northern side the town is guarded from east to west by
the hills of St. Hilaire, Mont Fortin, Mont aux
Malades and Mont Riboudet, and from these the
houses grow downwards to the water's edge. Upon
the plateau above perch the villages of Mont-Saint-
Aignan and of Bois-Guillaume. But between the
valley of Darnetal and the Seine, is yet another
natural buttress, the promontory on whose summit is
Mont Ste. Catherine and the hamlet Bonsecours.
From this magnificent height you may take the best
view of the natural setting of the town. The western
horizon is closed by the plateau of Canteleu and the
forest of Roumare. To the south, within that strong

Introductory

bent elbow of the atream, the bridges bind to Rouen
her faubourg of Sl Sever with it» communeg of Sotte-
▼ille and of Petit Querilly ; and the forest of Rouvray
^reads its shadow to the meeting of the aky.

The first Rothomagus, hke the Roueo of to-day,
was neither a hill city, for then it would have stood
upon the Mont Ste. Catherine, nor an island ctty like
ancient Paris, for the He St. Croix was too small. It
was essentially a river city ; and you may see at once
the extraordinary natural strength of its position on the
outside of the river's curve (see Map A), instead of
on the inside which may have seemed more probable
at lirst but would have left the town defenceless.
Even to-day you can only get into Rouen, as into a
town that has been battered and taken by assault,
through the breach in her fortified lines. If you
enter by the railway from Paris, from Havre, from
Dieppe or from Fecamp, it is by subterraoean tunoels
3

The Story of Rouen

only that approach is possible, and up a flight of steps
that you make your first acquaintance with a ''coin
perdu " of the town, a corner without character, with-
out size, without the least promise of the beauty that
is hidden further off. Of all those great gates through
which the mediaeval city welcomed her dukes or
sallied out against her enemies, but one is left, the
Porte Guillaume Lion close by the quays, at the end
of the Rue des Arpents, which is as faded and
decrepit as its entrance.

To understand something of the origins of the town,
it is far better to come there for the first time by the
river, by the highway that has suffered least change
since Rouen was a town at all. Yet the river itself is
cribbed within far narrower bounds than when the first
huts of savage fishermen were stuck upon the reed-beds
of the marsh ; for the town was first set upon islets
that have long ago been absorbed into the mainland,
and the waters of the Seine once washed the boatmen's
landing stages at a spot that now bounds the Parvis of
the Cathedral. Even now the Seine varies in breadth
at this point from a hundred and thirty-five to two
hundred and fifteen metres, with a depth of five metres
on the quays at lowest tide. These tides are felt as
far as twenty miles above the town. They vary in
height from one metre to as much as three, and a tidal
wave is formed that is one of the greatest dangers of
the downstream navigation. Coming up from the sea
is fairly easy in almost any kind of stout and steady
craft, but it is difficult for all but the best steamers to
get down without being delayed, and sometimes fairly
stopped, by the great tidal wave at Caudebec or
Quilleboeuf. Only when the floods reduce their
strength are the tides unable to turn the current of the
stream; and flood water is not unusual in a country
where the rain blows in so often from the Channel.

There is an average of a hundred and fifty rainy

Introductory

days each year, the late autumn being worst, for the
clouds are attracted by the river, by the forests, and by
the hills thaf stand round about the city. But the
unhealthiness engendered by all this moisture is a thing
of the past. ^ enlightened municipal authority has
widened streets, planted broad boulevards, and cleansed
the water-works which Jacques Lelieur first sketched
in the early years of the sixteenth century. And
much as we may deplore the loss of picturesque sur-
roundings, it was high time that some of the '* Fumier
du Moyen Age" sliould be shovelled out of sight.
What existence meant in those Middle Ages we shall
be better able to realise later on, and it will be possible
as we pass through the streets of Rouen to see what
little has been left of it ; for the vandalism of ignor-
ance has too often accompanied the innocent and
hygienic efforts of the restorer, and undue Haussman-
ism has mined many an inofiPensive beauty past recall.

As you look upon the modern town from the river,
it is difficult to realise that the views of 1525, or of
1620, which I have reproduced in this book, can
represent the same place. The old walls and battle-
ments have disappeared, and all the ancient keeps save
one. But though we cannot tell the towers of ancient
Rothomagus, we can mark well her bulwarks, from
the Church of St. Pierre du Chastel that stands in the
Rue des Cordeliers (see Maps B and C^ where was
the first Castle of Rollo, to the Halles and the
Chapelle de la Fierte St. Romain, where the names
of Haute and Basse Vieille Tour recall the citadel of
later dukes. Within her earliest walls was the site of
the first Cathedral ; outside them was built St. Ouen
to the north-east, and the monastery of St. Gervais to
the north-west where the Conqueror died. Above the
town still rises the Tour Jeanne d'Arc, the donjon of
the Castle of Bouvreuil, which showed that Normandy
was no more an independent Duchy, but a part of

The Story of Rouen

the domains of Philip Augustus. This memory of
bondage still remains ; but of the home of her own
dukes Rouen has not preserved one stone ; nor of the
English palace of King Henry the Fifth near '* Mai
s'y Frotte " is anything left in the Rue du Vieux Palais
near the western quay.

The small compass of the first battlements set on the
swamp grew, by the twelfth century, to the lines of the
modem boulevards on the north and west, but at the
Tour Jeanne d'Arc they turned east and southwards,
round the apse of St. Ouen, down the Rue de I'Epee
and the Rue du Ruisseau by way of the Rue des
E^gnols to the Porte Guillaume Lion and the
quay. The walls besieged by the English under
Henry V. had expanded almost exactly to the lines
of the present boulevards in all directions, for the town
had spread up the stream of Robec in broad lines that
converged past the Place du Boulingrin above, and the
Place Martainville below, upon the Place St. Hilaire to
the east (see map B).

From the Place Cauchoise on the north-west of the
city of to-day two main streets pierce the town. The
Rue Thiers passes the Museum, and comes out at the
Place de THotel de Ville, close to St. Ouen. The
Rue Cauchoise leads straight into the Place du Vieux
Marche where Jeanne d'Arc was burnt. From there
begins the Rue de la Grosse Horloge, the central
artery of old Rouen, in which is the town's focal
point, the belfry with its fountain and its archway.
The other end of this street comes out on the open
space or Parvis before the west door of the Cathedral.
If you will go still further eastward by way of the Rue
St. Romain, past the Portail des Libraires, the most
characteristic thoroughfare is from the Place des Ponts
de Robec, not far south of St. Ouen, along the street
called Eau de Robec to the boulevards. These are
the main lines of lateral division.
6

Introductory

From north to south the town is cut by the Rue
Jeanne d'Arc; further eastwards, by the Rue des
Cannes, which becomes the Rue Grand Pont; and
by the Rue de la Republique, which passes clear from
the Musee des Antiquites at the northern angle of the
town to the Pont de Pierre Corneille on the river.
The quays are crowded with a busy throng of work-
men ; on the stream are ships from every quarter of the
world ; great cranes are hoisting merchsmdise out ot
their holds and distributing it into the iparkets of the
town, or into the barges for Paris and the Ile-de-France.
For this is the limit of the maritime Seine, and here,
where the tide of ocean throbs upon her quays, it was
but natural that the strength and commerce of Rouen
should increase and multiply. '< Uagneau de la ville a
toujour! la patte levee " says the old Norman proverb,
and if you look at the lamb upon the arms of Rouen
you will see her foot is raised in readiness for the travel
that has been always the characteristic of her sons.
From the days when northern rovers sailed here, when
Guiscard's colonists went out to Sicily, when traders
watched the wind for England, the citizens of Rouen
have had their interests hv afield.

But it is with the story of their home-town that I
have now to do. And if it is to be told within the
bounds of your patience and my opportunity, that story
must be limited, if not by the old walls of the city,
then by the shortest circuit of the suburbs round it.
Nor need we lose much by this circumscribing of our
purpose. The life of Normandy was concentrated in
its capital. The slow march of events from the in-
dependence as a Duchy to the incorporation as a part
of France has left footprints upon all the thorough-
fares of the town. The development of mediaeval
Rothomagus into modem Rouen has stamped its traces
on the stones of the city, as the falling tide leaves its
own mark upon the timbers of a seaworn pier It

The Story of Rouen

will be my business to point your steps to these traces
of the past, and from the marks of what you see to
build up one after another the centuries that have rolled
over tide- worn Rouen. Let it be said at once that
the " Old Rouen " you will first see is almost com-
pletely a French Renaissance city of the sixteenth
century. Of older buildings you will find only slight
and imperfect remnants, and as you pass monstrosities
more modern you will involuntarily close your eyes.
But the remnants are there, slight as they are; and
they are worth your search for them, as we try
together to reconstruct the ancient city of which they
formed a part.

Rouen has in its turn been the most southerly
city of a Norman Duke's possessions, then the
central fortress of an Angevin Empire that stretched
from Forth to Pyrenees, then a northern bulwark for
the Kings of Paris against the opposing cliffs of Eng-
land. It has sent out fleets upon the sea, and armies
upon land. It has been independent of its neighbours,
it has led them against a common foe, and it has
undergone with them a national disaster. But no
matter who were its rulers, or by what title it was
officially described, or how it has been formally divided,
eternal bars and doors have been set for its inhabitants
by the mountains and the waters, eternal laws have
been made for them by the clouds and the stars
that cannot be altered. In the natural features that
remain the same to-day, in the labourers of the soil, and
in the toilers of the city, there has been the least change.
For these are the " dim unconsidered populations " upon
whom the real brunt of war falls, the units who com-
pose the battalions, the pieces in the game who have
little or no share in the stakes; who abide in their
land always, blossoming as the trees in summer, endur-
ing as the rocks in snow. Over this deep-rooted heart
of humanity sweeps the living hail and thunder of the
8

Introductory

armies of the earth. These are the warp and first sub-
stance of the nations, divided not by dynasties but by
climates, strong by unalterable privilege or weak by
elemental fault, unchanged as Nature's self.

In the city of to-day, and in such thoroughfares as
the Rue de I'Epicerie, you may look for a moment
into that humbler and less spacious form of habitation
in which the people and the workers lived their days,
making up for the poverty of their own surroundings
by the magnificence of that great Cathedral which rose
above the low horizon of their roofs, and opened its
doors to poor and rich alike. The buildings that have
so long outlived their inhabitants may be taken as the
background — like the permanent stone scenery in a
Greek theatre — to the shifting kaleidoscope of many-
coloured life in the old city.

In the place itself you will see scarcely a trace of
the great personages whose names have glittered in its
list of sieges, battles, massacres, pageants, and triumphal
entries. The story of a town is not a drum-and-
trumpet chronicle of the Kings and Queens. It is the
tale of all those domestic and municipal details which
from their very unimportance have wellnigh dis-
appeared. To hear it you must follow nie from the
Crypte St. Gervais to the Cathedral, from the Hotel-
lerie des Bons Enfants to the Maison Bourgtheroulde,
and it is to the voices of the people that I shall ask you
to listen, and to the life of the people that I shall point
you among the streets they lived m. Thus, and thus
only, may you possibly realise the spirit of the place,
that calls out first to every stranger in the bells that
sound through the silence of his first night in a foreign
town. These you shall know better soon in Rouen,
by name even, " Rouvel " and " Cache- Ribaut, " if
you be worldly-minded, " Georges d'Amboise " and
"Marie d'Estouteville" for your hours of prayer.
Before you pass beyond their sound again, their ancient

The Story of Rouen

voices shall bring to you something of the centuries
that had died when they were young, something of
the individuality of the city above which they have
been swinging for so long.

" Spirit of Place/* writes the most charming of our
living essayists : —

« It is for this we travel, to surprise its subtlety ; and ^^here
it is a strong and dominant angel, that place, seen once, abides
entire in the memory with all its own accidents, its habits, its
breath, its name. It is recalled all a lifetime, having been per-
ceived a week, and is not scattered but abides, one Uving body
of remembrance. The untra veiled spirit of place — not to be
pursued, for it never flies, but always to be discovered, never
absent, without variation — lurks in the byways and rules over
the towers, indestructible, an indescribable unity. It awaits
us always in its ancient and eager freshness. It is sweet and
nimble within its immemorial boundaries, but it never crosses
them. Long white roads outside have mere suggestions of it
and prophecies ; they give promise, not of its coming, for it
abides, but of a new and singular and unforseen goal for our
present pilgrimage, and of an intimacy to be made."

How many a traveller moves from place to place,
not realising anything beyond the transportation of his
body ! Yet in every town there is this fresh acquaint-
ance, this lifelong friendship, that shall last while his
own memory lasts, that is as fresh for him as for a
thousand before him, and for tens of thousands after.
When the bells of an unknown city have given me their
first greeting, my first acknowledgment of that com-
pelling invitation is to see those buildings in the town
that can become alive again beneath their echoes. Of
such churches, of such civic buildings, of private
houses, of monuments by unknown hands for unknown
owners, Rouen is full in almost all her streets.

^ La dans le pass^ tu peux vivre
Chaque monument est un iivre
Chaque pierre un souvenir."

The history of the Middle Ages is written upon

Introductory

magnificent and enduring volumes, and a great responsi-
bility is laid on those who would deface the writing
on the wall. Their virtues and vices, their jests and
indecencies, their follies and their fears, are all writ
large upon the pages of a book that was ever open to
every passer-by, and that remains for us to read. It
is no rhetorical exaggeration, that ^< Ceci tuera cela "
of Victor Hugo. Our smaller doings are recorded in
the perishable print of fading paper, and we have
no care to stamp what little we have left of character
upon our buildings. No one, at least it may be
fervently hoped, will try in the future to reconstruct
the ideals or the life of the Victorian Era from its
architecture. Yet we are the heirs of all that is noblest
in that greatest of all arts ; and if you would test that,
you need only look at any mediaeval French Cathedral
with a seeing eye. You will find no meaningless mass
of bricks and mortar, but the speaking record of the
age that built them. <* The stone shall cry out of the
wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer
it-''

CHAPTER II

the First City

" Latera aquilonis civitas regis magni
Deus in domibus eius cognoscetur cum suscipiet earn."

COLLOW the Rue de la Republique past the
Abbey of St. Ouen and up the hill to the Place
Sainte Marie. On your left you will find the Mus^
des Antiquites which contains the earliest traces of
the inhabitants of Rouen. There are so few of them
that they are easily contained in a few glass cases;
and this Museum is itself an excellent place with
which to begin your visitation of the town. Few
travellers go there, yet it is well worth the while,
for here are collected many relics of an age that
has left few traces anywhere, and here can be filled
up many gaps in that story of Rouen which you can
never read completely in what is left of the old town.
In the courtyard that faces the Rue de la Republique
are several of the ancient gateways that have given
way before the press of. modern traffic, and a few
fagades of carved and timbered houses rest like empty
masks against the wall, looking forlorn enough, yet
better here than lost. One of the best of these emp^
shells was taken in 1842 from No. 29 Rue Damiette.
Dating about 1 500, its overhanging storeys are carved
with statues of St. John and of St. Romain with his
Gargouille. It probably belonged to the Professional
(Pellottier or Racquettier) of the Tennis Court near
it, the Jeu de Paume St. Jacques. In this same court-

Tbe First City

vard of the Museum ia a row of aacieot weather-
beaten atatuet, and, best relic of them all, the exquinte
original of the fountaui Croix de Pierre which is
reprcBeoted by a more modera imitation oa the spot
it once adorned.^

The ianer quadrangle,
which you reach thrangh
the roomsof the Museum,
is the best thing it has
to show. Remote from
the dust and bustle of
the highway the little
cloistered square is gay
with flowers upon the
turf, and statues from
various churches are set
here and there, like

Snsioners in Chelsea
ospital, after their
active service in re-
ligious wars has left
them mutilated and use-
less, but not without
hwour in the dayv of
their old age. From
the walls and windows
sculptured saint* and •''x^■^^-^
angels look down with """ '>"<!™"j
an air of gentle ap- ^iT^is

probation on tbe scene,
and in the very middle a litde bishop r:

■ Butlc In I J15, iu nunc ii mltleidlng, for It was nude by
Cardlnil d'Amboiie not to hold > crm9 but to cany a fbontalu
irtiich happened to be placed near the itone crou erected by
ArthbUhop Gauthler to commemoration of the profitable
eschangea made when Richard Coeur de Lion bulll hii
Chlteao Galllanl In 1197 on land belonging to the Cathedral.
When the CrOM dlnppeared the Fonnt^n took lt> name.

ts his hand ii

The Story of Rouen

beoediction over pious strangers from the centre of
a rosebed.

But it is in the galleries within that we must seek
for those records of primitive habitation that we hate
come to see. Hatchets of silex or of bronze, nide
clay vases that were found nine yards beneath the soil,
bear witness to the remotest ages of humanity in
Rouen. The town grew very slowly, for its name
was unknown in any form to Csesar, and it is not
till the second century that Ptolemy mentions Roto-
magos as the capital of the tribe of Velocasses who
have left their name to the Vexin. The unhealthy
marshes in the valley between the hills and the
river were not likely to be tenanted by the first
Roman conquerors who fixed their centre at Julia
Bona, and their amphitheatre may still be seen, near
the ruins of a Norman castle, in the midst of the
manufactories of Lillebonne. But as the importance
of Lutetia grew upon the upper waters of the Sein^
the value of this elbow of the stream grew greater
every year; and by the days of Diocletian, Roto-
magus had become the sea-gate of the capital, and
the chief town of the province. Already Strabo
speaks of its commerce with the English ports, and
it appears as the natural point of exchange between
soudiem civilisation and the barbarism of the north,
the gate through which goods came from Italy,
travelling by Rhone, by Saone, or Seine, to England.

Its first fortifications found a natural southern base
upon the river's bend ; to east, to west, and north it wa&
protected by hills and by the marshes, and unhealthy as it
was, the Roman colonists were compelled, when danger
came, to leave the Julia Bona they preferred in peace,
and fty for safety to the fine strategical position Nature
had marked out at Rouen. Here, too, was the home
of the Provincial Governor, and of his military captain ;
and of the walls they built the eye of faith can still see

ne First City

traces at the Fonts de Robec, at the Abbaye de St
Amamdy near the Hotel de France, close to the Priory
St. Lo, and in the Place Verdrel in front of the Palais
de Justice. I have marked out the limits of this earliest
castrum on Map C ; and in the Rouen of to-day
you may see ai strange confirmation of the fact that
Roman Rotomagus was a far more watery place than
may be realised at first. For if you stand anywhere
about the level of the Cathedral foundations and look
in the direction of the river, you will notice that all
the streets slope upwards. Go nearer still, and at the
angle where the Rue^ du Bac meets the Rue des
Tapissiers, the upward slope becomes even more pro-
nounced, for though the river is not so far away, there
is even less of it to be seen. A great embankment has
been slowly built ; and upon what was once marshland
and islands and the tidal mud, has grown up nearly all
that part of Rouen which lies between the Cathedral
and the river.

This gradual consolidation of the land which was
reclaimed slowly from the Seine must have gone on
from the time when the Roman walls stopped at the
Rue aux Ours on one side, and at the Rue Saint
Denis on the other. Their northern boundary was
very slightly farther than the Rue aux Fosses Louis
VIII. The Rue Jeanne d'Arc runs just outside them
to the west, and the stream of Robec forms their natu-
ral boundary to the east, flowing into the Mala Palus
that has left its name in the Rue Malpalu which leads
from the west front of St. Maclou towards the Seine.
Robec himself is well-nigh hidden now, though once
his southern turn formed one of the defences of the
town. Now he gropes underground his way into the
Seine, and even when his waters can be traced, in the
Rue Eau de Robec, their muddy waves were almost
better hidden.

There is a striking likeness to all this in the early

The Story of Rouen

days of the history of London. Apart from all legends
of the Troy Novant, of Lud and Lear and that King
Lucius who sanctified Cornhill, legends which have
their counterpart in all the old histories of Rouen,
there are almost as few relics of the fortified barrack
on the Thames, or of the more pretentious << Augusta "
which followed, as there are of Roman Rouen.
The same mud flats along the river bank remained
until, in 982, after the first great fire, Cnut made a
canal for his boats round Southwark. Into the marsh
fell the Fleet river, just as Robec into Mala Palus ;
the English stream like the French one, formed the
first natural line of defence on that side ; and both are
now little better than built-in sewers, one flowing into
Thames at Blackfriars Bridge, the other through its
smaller tunnel into Seine near the Pont de Pierre
Comeille.

In the Museum of the Place Sainte Marie are the few
Roman tombs that have survived all other relics of their
occupants, and some of the money that they brought
here, coins of Posthumus, of Tetricus, of Gordian, of
Commodus. It is said, too, that when the foundations
of vanished St. Herbland were being dug, some rusty
iron rings for mooring boats and mouldering ship timbers
were discovered, which were supposed to have been
traces of the Roman quay. But the word "Port
Morant" is probably not derived from Portus Morandiy
but from Postis, and refers to the far more modern
" avant soliers ** or jutting balconies, which were sup-
ported on stout beams, and ran round the Parvis when
Jacques Lelieur was making his sketches of the town in
1525. With such mere conjectures we must leave all
that the Roman occupation has to tell. Their story
was a short one ; for the town was outside that circle
where Roman influence was chiefly felt ; and it ended
with the Prankish invasions from beneath the Drachen-
fels. From being the head of a Roman province, Rouen
16

7be First City

became one of the fourteen cities of the Armorican Con-
federation, through the influence of the churchmen who
now begin to appear in the dim records of the city-
chronicles as the defenders of these earliest citizens.

The Romans laid foundations here, as they did in so
many places in Europe, and then passed away. But
before they disappeared there had been time for the first
missionaries of the Christian faith to sow the seeds that
were to grow into the Church. The legions left the
city, but the faith of Rome stayed on. As early as the
second century (and some say earlier still) came St.
Nicaise. After him arrived St. Mellon of Cardiff,
who is said to have converted the chief Pagan temple
into a Christian church. St. Sever was the third
<< Bishop." In 400, St. Victrice had laid the founda-
tions of the first church on the site of the Cathedral,
and tradition puts the beginning of what became St.
Ouen as one year earlier. Strangely enough there
remains a record of the ecclesiastical architecture of
these early days that is of the highest interest, for it
is the oldest building of its kind to be found north of
the Alps.

To reach it you must pass out of the town to the
north-west, going by the Kue Cauchoise where it starts
from the Place du Vieux March6 towards the hill of
St. Gervais. All Roman burials took place outside
their walls, and the tombs generally lined the great
roads that \e6, out of the towns. There is no doubt
that many such monuments stood on either hand of the
road that you must follow now, beyond the Place Cau-
choise and into the Rue Saint Grervais. Go straight
on up the hill and at the turn into the Rue Chasseli^vre^
upon the left, you will see an uncompromisingly new
Norman church standing alone upon some high ground.
This is a modem building on the site of the old Priory
of St. Gervais, to which William the Conqueror was
carried in his last illness, when he could no longer bear

B 17

The Story of Rouen

the noise and traffic of the town. At the west end, on
the outside wall of this third and newest church, is
placed a tablet that records his death. Of the second
church you can trace the apse, with its RomaQesqiiie
pillars and carved capitals of birds and leaves, beneath
the choir at the east end of the third one.

Look lower still. Beneath the second choir is a
still older window that barely rises high enough above
the soil to catch the light at all. That is the wiadow
of the oldest crypt in France. Down thirty steps
from the inner pavement of the new church you cai
descend with lighted candles to see the first building
in which the Church of Rouen met. The only
accurate drawing that has ever been published of it
was made for these chapters, and it is worth while
taxing your patience with rather more detail than
usual in describing a subterranean chamber that has
no parallel save in the Catacombs of Rome. It was
no doubt after his visit to the Holy City in 404 that
St. Victrice built this shrine for the saie-keefHng of
the first relics of his church in a pagan land. The
friend of St. Martin of Tours, and of St. Ambrose
at Milan, St. Victrice had probably obtained from
them the sacred fragments which were to be so care-
fidly preserved for the strengthening of the faith among
the infidels. But the little community of Christians*
at Rouen had its own relics that needed safe disposal
too. For in this crypt on the left hand as you enter
is the tomb of St. Mellon who died in 31 1, to whom
a church is dedicated that still exists in Monmouth-
shire, and on the right lies St. Avitien who died in
325. The saint to whose name and memory the
crypt was dedicated lies buned beneath the high altv
of the Church of St. Ambrose at Milan. The body
of St. Victrice, its builder, after lying in this sane
vault for nearly four centuries after his death, was
transferred elsewhere.
18

7 be First City

The cold ' and gloomy little [lit ia eleven im tree
forty lODg, by five metres forty broad, and five metre!
thirty high, and m the rece»Bed arches above the
ttmibs roay atiU be traced the thm red bncki of the
Roman builder* and their strong cemeM between In
the circular apse opposite the tiny aquare-beaded eo-
traoce is the high window, set m the east, that we
saw from the outside, and in the wall on each side
are two square re-
cesses m which the
sacred vessels were
locked up The
altar on its raued
platform stands upon
two rude upnght
stones, and is marked
with five small
crosses tncised npon
Its upper suT&ce
Behind it, on the
rounded wall, are
faint traces of carv-
ing and of fresco
All round the walls,
except at the altar
and the entrance,
runs a law stone
■eat after the true
type of the Christian Catacomb A flat projecting
nb of stone divides the barrel roof of the nave from
the circular vault of the apse which slopes up-
wards to the rounded summit of the tiny window
A &w skulls he m a shadowed hollow near the
altar, but the State has fortunately put a atop to
any further grubbmg m the floor for corpses that
should never have been disturbed

Tlwre u aa absolute and elenwMal ain^hcity m
>9

The Story of^ Rouen

this tiny crypt, with its stone bench and tombs of
stone, that appeals far more strongly to the imagination
than any bespangled ecclesiasticism above it. This
is the true service of God and of His poor. The
cold austerity of a faith that stood in no need of
external attractiveness lays hold upon the senses at
the reticent syllables of that first gospel, spelt oat
from its original sentences, must have gripped the
Jiearts of those who heard it first. The Latin phrases
of a long drawn litany, set to complicated tunes, rolled
overhead with an emptiness of barren sound, among
the clouds of incense and the glitter of the painted walk
and all the service of " the clergyman for his rich.*' i

More beautiful places of worship we shall see in
many parts of Rouen. But in all France there is
nothing more sincere than the small crypt of St
Gervais.

So the only remnant that is left of " Roman " Rouen
is not Roman at all, but a type of that strong, naiVe,
and sincere Christianity which invigorated the Gothk
captains who overthrew Rome. It is but fitting that
there should be so litde left. For the Romans weie
not so much a nation as an empire. They were not so
much a people, as the embodiment of a power. When
their work of spreading law and order, of diffusing Greek
imagination through the channels of their strength wai
over, they split asunder at the vigorous touch of the
truth that came against them. They left no personal
traces in a town so far removed as Rouen fi'om the
centres of their civilisation.

It was the same in London, which was still farther
off. For if you believe that any *< Roman " wall was
built round Augusta before 400 a.d., there is little left
of it to point to now, save at that south-eastern comer
on which the Norman Conqueror built his tower, at the
New Post Office buildings in St. Martin's le Grand,
and in the churchyard of St. Giles's, Cripplegate. In
30

The First City

the British Museum and at Guildhal] are some scanty
relics of domestic life, some fragments of mosaic, shreds
of pavement, and the like.

At Rouen it is the same. The legions left the
stamped impression of their armoured feet, impersonal
and strong, a hallmark as it were, to guarantee the local
strength and value of the first Rothomagus. But it was
the Christian worshippers who left the only building that
remains of those first centuries, to testify to what some
men and women in that early time could really feel and
think and do.

It is by another priest that the story of the town is
carried on from ** Roman " times to the next period of
transition. St. Godard appropriately enough, a Frank
by descent himself and bom of a Roman mother, is the
link between this shadowy twilight of early church
history and the stronger colouring of the Prankish story
that is to come. In 488 he was elected as the four-
teenth bishop of Rouen by the unanimous vote of clergy
and people together, and eight years afterwards he re-
presented the diocese when Hlodowig or Clovis was
baptised at Rheims, from which we may gather that
the Prankish power had definitely embraced his town
within its grasp some time before. He died about 525
and his body, which was first buried in the crypt of the
church which bears his name, was afterwards removed
to Soissons. It was at that same Soissons that the
Romans were driven out of " Prance," and Hlodowig
with his Pranks took possession of the country to the
Loire, and then pushed on the boundaries of their
kingdom to the Pic du Midi. The profession of
Chnstianity by Hlodowig was not a mere matter of
policy. It was another expression of that Prankish
quality of sincerity and truth, which has been already
noticed, in the Gaul that was shaking off the bonds of
Rome. It was perhaps the chief quality of that band
of nations north of Tiber which stretched from English

The Story of Romoi

hUb, acran fimettone {Jite&uz of Nordiem Fnncet
trough GemuB foreUa, to the vales of the Carpad^
ans. Theae were the fint wave
of the "barbarian" iiiTaaion aftcf
Rome bad £illeD. Bduod tbem,
furriwr to the north and eai^
drifted a piratica] band of rosB*
ing warriors, who for the next fin
centuries preas and harry the
boundaries of the Idngdoma, Vni-

foths and Ostrogoths, SaxoM,
)anet, and Scandinaviaas, of
whom we shall hear mora taXa.
The Christian bi^ops were the
shield after Rome fell, betweea
the trembling conquered races and
the first wave of conquering bar-
barian invasion. The stj-ength ol
their &idi we have teen almtdy
in the crypt of St. Gervaia. Thu
little altar, and the tiny shrine of
St. Godard watched infant Rouen from beyond its
walls. An edict in 399 had destroyed the rurd
temples of the old Pagan faith. About 4^0 a new
law recommended the converuon of the old temples
within the towns into churches. So in these years
we may suppose that the first building had risen on the
site of the Cathedral, with St. Herbland's earliett
church in front, and upon other eyots in the S«ne
the shrines of St. Martin de la Roquetie, St. Clement,
and St. EloL When Julia Bona was finally deserted,
Rouen became the home of a count, who held,
under Clovit, adminiatrative, judicial and military
power. By the next century the town must have
grown to a connderable size and impoitance. Yet
there is absolutely nothing of Merovingian Rouen
kft except the few poor ornaments in the glau caaea of

The First City

the Mu86e des Andauit^. Here you will see some
of the characteristically shaped bronze axe-heads of the
period ; but by far the larger part of what is left is
woman's gear* Beside the axes there are a few lance
and arrow-heads; but the finger rings (still on the
bones that wore them) are mimeroos ; there are neck-
laces too, and bracelets ; nails and buttons, styles for
writing, pins, needles, combs, and pottery. By such
pitiful trifles that have survived the pride and strength
of all their owners, you may be fidy introduced to the
next chapter in the pageant of historic Rouen, the tale
of Fredegond and Brunhilda*

»3

CHAPTER III
Merovingian Rouen

PTERALLY doI one stone remalna in Rouen
to which I can point you as a witDCBS of
the tragedy Id which the names of FredegoDd
and Brunhilcia will always live. Yet the part
of their tragedy which was played in Rouen
must be told, if you are clearly to fashioit for
yourself that web of many faded colours which
is to be the background for the first figure*
recognisable as flesh and blood, the northern
I pirates. It is a story which points a« clearly to
the downfall of Merovingian society and
; coining of a new race, as ever any
: of Rome's decline and &1I pointed
o the coming of the barbarians.
After the death of King
. Hlothair, the last man of the
■ Uood of the great Hlodowig,
^ or Clovis, whose Prankish
warriors had driven Uie Romans out of Caul, and
who himself became the "eldest son of the Church,"
his kingdom had been divided among his four sons, of
whom the eldest died ic possession of the lands of
Bordeaux ; and left his treasure to be taken by the
next brother, Gunthram, and his lands to be divided

Merovingian Rouen

among all three of the surviying heirs. Mutual sus-
picion defeated its own ends, and the ridiculous prin-
ciples on which the division was made were the
mainspring of nearly all the quarrelling that followed.
Sigebert, the youngest brother, reigned over Austrasia,
which stretched eastward from the north of Gaul through
Germany towards the Slavs and Saxons. Gunthram
had the central land of Orleans and Burgundy. Hil-
perik reigned north and westward of the Loire in
Neustria. But each of the three owned towns and
lands in various parts of France without regard to the
broad lines of division which have just been indicated.
Of them all Hilperik, the King of Neustria, was the
most uxorious and effeminate. By his wife, Audowere,
he had had three sons, Hlodowig, Theodobert and
Merowig, who was held at the font of Rouen Cathedral
by the Bishop Pretextatus. Among the royal waiting
women was a young and very beautiful Frank called
Fredegond, on whom the King had already cast a too-
favourable eye ; and the opportunity of his absence on
an expedition to the North was seized by the girl in a
way which showed at once the unscrupulous and subtle
treachery which was the keynote of her character. The
Queen was brought to bed of her fourth child, a daugh-
ter, while the King was still from home. By Frede-
gond's suggestion, the infant was held at the font by
Audowere herself and christened Hildeswinda. Hilpe-
rik at once took advantage of the trap into which the
innocent and unsuspecting mother had fallen. As
soon as he returned he sent away Audowere and
her baby to a monastery at Le Mans, on the pre-
text that it was illegal for the godmother of his own
daughter to be his wife. He then made Fredegond
his queen.

The conduct of the younger brother Sigebert was at
once more dignified and more politically secure. At
Metz in 566 he married Brunhilda, the younger daughter

The Story of Roaett

of Athanagild, King of the Goths, whose capital was at
Toledo, a woman whose courage, beauty, aod resource,
have remained a byword in history and song. The
splendour and success of this alliance roused Hilperik's
jealousy, and he lost no time in sending an embaaay to
Spain asking the hand of Galeswintha, the elder sister
of his brother's wife. After much negotiation, the girl
left the palace of Toledo on her long march to the north.
Her own presentiment of coming evil was strengthened
by the tears of her reluctant mother, who could with
difficulty be persuaded to leave the procession that
escorted the princess across the Pyrenees. By way
of Narbonne, Carcassonne, Poitiers, and Tours,
Galeswintha moved slowly across France towards
her husband, with all her Goths and Franks behind
her, and a train of baggage waggons groaning beneath
the treasures of her dowry. She made her entry into
Rouen on a towering car, set with plates of glittering
silver, and all the Neustrian warriors stood in a great
circle round her with drawn swords, crying aloud the
oath of their allegiance. Before them all, the Eling
swore constancy and faith to her, and on the morning
following he publicly made present to her of the five
southern cities that were his wedding gift.

Fredegond had disappeared. In the general pro-
scription of immorality that had followed the embassy
to Spain, she was swept away like the rest, and she knew
when to yield. Like the viper in the grass she lay
hidden, gathering up her venom for a more deadly
blow. So harmless did she seem that she was soon
allowed to return to her former humble post as one of
the waiting women of the palace. It was not long
before she struck. The sensual and shallow nature of
the King had soon wearied of his new bride, whose
chief charm was not, it would appear, her beauty. A
moment came when weariness became disgust. The
sight of Fredegond recalled his former passion, and the
96

Merovingian Rouen

proud princess of the Goths soon had the mortificatioii
of seeing the afiections of her husband transferred to her
waiting woman. But this was not enough. A few
days afterwards Queen Galeswintha was found strangled
in her bed, in 568. Hilperik was not long in adding
the dignity of queen to the position of wife which he had
already given to the triumphant Fredegond.

The sad young figure of this Spanish princess,
brought up against her will from sunnier courts into
the midst of Merovin^n brutality in the dark palaces
of Nenstria, is one that aBPected many minds with com-
passion for her fete. The story of the crystal lamp
that hung above her tomb in Rouen, which fell upon
the marble pavement, yet was neither broken nor extin-
guished, was but a poetical expression of the universal
pity.^ In the heart of her sister Brunhilda pity flamed
rapidly into revenge. Sigebert was enlisted on the
side of justice, and Gunthram quickly followed him,
with the object of making peace between his brothers.
The King of Neustria was condemned to forfeit certain
cities as punishment for the murder of his queen.

But the blood of Galeswintha still cried out for
vengeance from the ground, and the horrible series of
murders that filled die century began with Hilperik's
unwarranted aggressions on the territory of his brother
Sigebert. Long months passed in pillage, in in-
effectual attempts at reconciliation, in perpetual re-
prisals. At last Brunhilda rose and insisted that her
husband should make an end with the murderer of
her sister. So Sigebert and his army moved forward
to a combined attack and chased Hilperik to the walls

I Gregory of Tours, H. P., iv. 2S. ^Post cuius obitum
Deus virtutem magnam ostendit Lichinus enim ille, qui fiine
•ntpensus coram sepulchrum eius ardebat, nullo tangente, dis-
rnpto fune, in pavimentum conruit, et fugientem ante earn
duriciam pavimenti, taoquam in aliquod molie aelimentum
discendit, atque medius est suflfusns nee omnino contritus."

«7

..J

I'be Story of Rouen

of Paris. Thither, when Fredegond and her husband
had fled to Rouen and then to Toumai, Brunhilda
came southwards to meet the conqueror who soon
marched north again to be crowned at Vitry, leaving
his wife behind to guard the capital in triumph. Now
came Fredegond's opportunity. For when Hilperik
was besieged by Sigebert in the city of Toumai and
sore pressed, Fredegond saw her enemy delivered into
her hand. ''La femme/' say the chronicles of St.
Denis (III. 3 and 4) ^^pensa de la besogne la oil le
sens de son seigneur faiJlait, qui selon la coutume de
femme, moult plus est de grand engieng a mal&ire que
n'est homme.'' By some diabolical trick of &scination
she persuaded a pair of assassins to penetrate into
Sigebert's camp, armed with a ^' scramasax '' she had
herself provided. They murdered him as he sat at
table, and were instandy cut to pieces by the courtiers.^
Fredegond always managed to get inconvenient
witnesses out of the way. Hilperik at once took
advantage of the confusion to march on Paris, and
the horror of Brunhilda may be imagined as she
realised that the murderer of her husband and of
her nster was approaching the city in which the
widow and her three orphans were defenceless. Mer
son (afterwards the second Hildebert), was then but
five years old, and by the help of Gundobald she was
able to contrive his escape, lowering him in a basket
through an opening in the city walls.

Then began another act in this dark drama, which
ended very differendy to the expectations of Frede-
gond. For with his &ther had come young Merowig
to Paris, and whether from fascinations that had some
deep ulterior design, or whether as is more probable

^ Gregory of Tours, iJ. 51. *<Tunc duo pueri cum cultris
validis, quos vulgo scramasaxos vocant, infectis veneno, male-
ficati a Predegundae Regina, cum aliam causam suggerere
simularent, utraque ei latent feriunt."

Merovingian Rouen

from the natural attraction felt by the young warrior
for a lovely princess in distress, Merowig fell hope-
lessly in love with the fair Brunhilda, who was but
twenty-eight and could have been very little older
than her second husband. He saw^ however, the
danger of prematurely confessing his passion, and
quietly went off on a foraging expedition to Berri
and Touraine at the bidding of his father. But, no
doubt, he was aware before starting of Hilperik's
intention to send Brunhilda to Rouen ; for it was not
long before he marched northwards (after a visit to
his mother Audowere in her prison at Le Mans),^
and came to Rouen himself. The meeting cannot have
been a surprise to the daughter of the Spanish Goths,
and whatever may have been her intentions, she proved
80 willing to console herself that a very short time elapsed
before she was the wife of Merowig. Strangely enough
the Bishop of Rouen at the time was the same Pretextatus
who had been Merowig's godfather at his baptism.
"Proprium mihi," he says (in the history of Gregory of
Tours) ^'esse videbatur, quod filio meo Merovecho
erat, quem de lavacro regeneratione excepi." This
kindly and somewhat weak prelate, whose natural
sympathies seem invariably to have proved too strong
for his political prudence, was prevailed upon to per-
form the ceremony of marrying to Merowig the widow
of his Other's murdered brother. But it was not
merely canonical law, or even certain sentimental pre-
cepts, that were offended by a union that was later
on to cost its celebrant his life. The suspicions of
Hilperik were instantly aroused. Brunhilda's young
son had already been accepted as their King by the
Austrasian warriors at Metz. Now Brunhilda herself
had taken what was evidently the second step in a

^ But ** Ipse veroi timuUuu ad matrem suam ire velle/' says
Gregory (H. F. V. s), <* Rothomago petiit et ibi Bninecbildae
reginae conjungitur. ..."

The Story of Reuen

deep-laid plot to reassert her own superiority and
ruin Neustria. It can have scarcely needed the
hatred of Fredegond, both for her natural rival and
for the son of Audowere, to urge Hilperik to speedy
action. He hastened to Rouen with such swiiFtiiess
that the newly-married pair were entirely taken by
surprise in the first few months of their new hap|»»
ness. They fled for sanctuary to the little wooden
church of St. Martin, whose timbers rested on the
very ramparts of the town. No entreaties nor cajol-
eries at first availed to make them leave their refuge.
At last, they agreed to come out if the King would
swear not to separate them. His oath was a crafty
one as it is given by Gregory of Tours : ** Si, inqutt,
voluntas Dei fuerit, ipse has separare non conaretur,"
and, of course, the " will of God *' happened to be
the wish of Hilperik, and they were safely separated
as soon as possible. For after two or three days of
feasting and apparent reconciliation he hurried off with
the unwilling bridegroom in his train, and left Brunhilda
under a strict guard at Rouen.

The very first incident that followed this unhappy
marriage was the siege of Soissons by the men of
Neustria, and in this coincidence the King saw further
confirmation of the plots of Brunhilda in which she
had so nearly secured the assistance of Merowig against
Fredegond and his father. He at once ordered his
miserable son, whose intellect was incapable of am-
bitious schemes, and whose only fault had been an
unconsidered passion, to be stripped of his arms, and
to have the long hair cut from his head that was a
mark of royal blood. The later adventures of the
wretched Merowig, an exile and an oudaw, hunted
through his father's kingdom, are too intricate to
follow. After a long imprisonment in the sanctuary
of Tours Cathedral, he escaped only to be murdered
by the emissaries of the implacable Fredegond in a
30

£^

Merovingian Rouen

farmhouse north of Arras. Meanwhile his wife, Brun-
hilda, had long ago been set free to go from Rouen to
Austrasia. She was safer across the border, while the
follies of another Merowig might make her dangerous.
Her flight, at this unexpected opportunity of freedom,
was so rapid that she le^ the greater part of her baggage
and treasure with the Bishop of Rouen, who was once
more unwise enough to compromise himself in order to
be of service to his godchild's wife. For Pretextatus
not only supplied Merowig with money in his various
efforts to escape, but was so careless in his demands
upon the friendship of the surrounding nobles, and in
scattering bribes to gain them over, that his treasonable
practices soon came to the ears of Hilperik. That
avaricious and perpetually needy ruler was not long in
securing the remainder of the treasure of which tidings
had so opportunely reached him, and he then immedi-
ately summoned Pretextatus to answer before a solemn
ecclesiastical council in Paris, as to his relations with
Brunhikla, and his disposition of the money she had left
with him. The celebrated trial that followed, of which
Gregory of Tours was at once the historian and the
noblest figure, was ended by the brutal interference of
Fredegond, who could not be patient with the law's
delays, and forced the Bishop of Rouen to fly for
refuge to the island of Jersey where he lived in exile
for some years, until the time arrived for Fredegond's
full vengeance to be consummated.

That time was marked, as was every crisis in the
blood-stained career of Fredegond, by a murder. The
weak and effeminate King himself fell a victim, and was
slain (in 584) by unknown assassins as he was out
hunting. In the confusion and lawlessness that ensued,
Pretextatus returned firom exile to Rouen, and Frede-
gond, who had placed herself under the protection of
Gunthram, was sent to Rueil, a town in the domain of
Rouen, near the meeting of the Eure and Seine. Leav-

The Story of Rouen

ing for awhile in peace the old ecclesiastic who had had
the insolence to come back to the dignities from which
she had driven him, Fredegond turned at once to plot
the destruction of her lifelong enemy, Brunhilda, who
was now in a position of far greater security and hoDOur
than herself. But her emissary was obliged to retorn
unsuccessful, and had his feet and hands cut off for his
pains. A second attempt upon both mother and aon
feiled equally, and then Fredegond, balked of her
higher prey, took the victim that was nearest, and
went out from Rueil to Rouen. It was not long
before the quarrel that she sought was occasioned by
the bishop, who seems to have added to his usoal
unwisdom a courage bom of the hardships of seven
years of exile. Answering a taunt flung at him by the
deposed queen, he bitterly drew the contrast between
their present positions, and their former relation to each
other, and bade Fredegond look to the salvation of her
soul and the education of her son, and leave the wicked-
ness that had stained so many years of her life with
blood.

She left him on the instant and without a word,
"felle fervens," says Gregory; and indeed it was not
long before her vengeance broke out in the usual way.
As the bishop knelt in prayer soon afterwards before
the altar of the Cathedral, her assassin drove his knife
beneath his armpit, and Pretextatus was carried bleeding
mortally to his chamber. Thither came the queen to
gloat over her latest victim, begging him to say whose
hand it was had done the deed, that so due punishment
might be at once exacted. But he knew well who was
the real murderess. **Quis haec fecit," replied the
dying prelate, ^^nisi qui reges interemit, qui sepius
sanguinem innocentium effudit, qui di versa in hoc regno
mala commisit I "

_ *

The whole town was cast into distress and bitter
mourning by this pitiless assassination, and Fredegond

Merovingian Rouen

had accomplished her will with so much cunning that
the crime could with the greatest difficulty be legally
traced to its true origin. For she had taken adrantage
of the ecclesiastical jealousy which unfortunately existed
side by side with the popular reverence and love. Melan*
tins, who had for seven years enjoyed the privileges
of office and dispensed his favours in the bishopric, had
seen himself deposed with very mingled feelings by the
exile from Jersey. His own nominees were doubtless
not unwilling to emphasise his grievance, and Frede-
gond found in his disappointed ambition a soil only too
ready to receive the poisonous seed she was so anxious
to implant. Among the inferior clergy was an arch-
deacon whose hatred of Pretextatus was as great,
and more reckless in its expression. By him a slave
was easily discovered ready to commit this or any
other crime on the promise of freedom for himself
and his family. A guarantee of favours to come was
provided in some ready money paid beforeliand, and
the blow was struck while Pretextatus prayed. Romans
and Franks alike were horrified at the dastardly outrage.
The former could scarcely act outside the city walls,
but the Franks felt more secure in the ancient privileges
of their race, and some of their nobles at once gave
public expression to the hatred felt by every citizen
for the instigator of the crime. Led by one of their
own chiefs, a deputation of these Prankish nobles rode
up to Fredegond's palace at Rueil. They delivered a
message to the effect that justice should be done, and
that the murderess must at last put a term to all her
crimes. Her reply was even more rapid and fearless
than usual. She handed the speaker a cup of honeyed
wine, after the custom of his country ; he drank the
poison, and fell dead upon the spot.

A kind of panic fell upon his comrades, and extended
even to the town of Rouen itself. Like some monstrous
incarnation of evil, Fredegond seemed to have setded

c 33

The Story of Rouen

near their city, followed by a trail of death. Her rery
breath, it was imagined, exhaled the poisons of tfaie
sorcery and witchcraft that accompanied and rendered
possible her coundess assassinations. She seemed beyond
the pale of human interference, and invested with some
infernal omnipotence that baffled all pursuit or vengeance.
Every church in Rouen closed its doors, for the head
of their Church lay foully murdered, and his murdorer
was not yet punished. Leudowald of Bayeox took
over the sacred office in the interval of consternation
that ensued, before another successor could be appcnnted,
and he insisted that not another Mass should be cele-
brated throughout the diocese until the criminal had
been brought to justice. Night and day he had to pay
the penalty for his boldness by being forced to keep care-
ful guard against the hired bravos of his unscnipoloos
enemy, who was now fairly started in a career of blood-
shed, that she would never end until her vengeance was
complete. At last she wore out his courage and his
strength alike, and the inquiry gradually faded away
before the persistent and sinister vindicdvenesa of tl4
royal witch at Rueil. She soon was strong enough to
put her creature Melantius back in his episcopal chair,
and he was content to officiate upon the very stones
that were still stained with the innocent blood of
Pretextatus.

One more proof of the absolute mastery her intrigaei
had given her was afforded by Fredegond's next
action. Its heartless cynicism was but a natural con-
sequence of so much previous guilt. For she deliber-
ately summoned before her the slave whose assassin's
knife she had bought, reproached him openly with
his hideous crime, and handed him over to the dead
bishop's relations. Under torture this miserable wretch
confessed the full details of the murder, the names of
his accomplices, and the guilt of Fredegond. The
nephew of Pretextatus, apparendy aware that he would

Merovingian Rouen

aevet get satiiiactioD on the principal*, leiipt upon the
prey that had bo contemptuously been flung to him,
and cut the alave to pieces with his Bword> And
thiB was the sole reparation that waa ever given for
the murder of the bishop. But the people never
forgot the Pretextatus who lived for centuries in their
memory as a martyred sainL Hia terrible &te has
more than atoned, in their eyes, for the impolitic events
of his earlier life, or his unwise affection for the un-
fortunate prince he had baptised.

With this last crime that part of the Merovingian
tragedy with which Rouen is connected comes to a
close. Nor have I apace here to follow out the actors
to the curtain's fail. In other pages their various
fortunes and their dark calamities may be followed to
a. conclunon. The next chapter in
the history of the town is that of the
Northmen, and of the founding of I
that mighty dynasty which was to J
spread itt rale across the Channel, I
and to gather the towns of England I
under the same sceptre that fwaved I
the citizens of Rouen. But before '
the coming of the Northmen, there
are a few more slight hcU chat I
must chronicle if only to explain the
desert and the ruins that alone were Rouen when
the first [urate galley swept up to the quay and
anchored close to where tlie western door of the
Cathedral now looks out across the Parrit.

The monk Fridegode relates that it was in 513
that the first stones of what was afterwards to be the
famous Abbey of St. Ouen' were laid by the first
Hlothair. Others tay that a church founded neariy
two centuries before was restored by the son of Hlotild

> " In manu gothlcs," be njt, with a phnue that wm to
pnMluce a tcij prcttj quarrel later on.

The Story of Rouen

the holy Queen and dedicated first to the WxAj
Apostles, and then to St. Peter and. St. PauL Iti
name was changed to the one it bears now in 686
when the body of St. Ouen was moved there oe
Ascension Day three years after his death. But
not a trace of the original church remains, and moK
probably it was built almost entirely of wood, like
that shrine of St. Martin in which Brunhilda and her
young husband fled for sanctuary in about the year
J 80. In this same century we first hear too of that
legendary Kingdom of Yvetot, whose lord was fireed
from all service to the Royal House of France bj
the penitence of King Hlothair. Its history is chieflj
confined to the airy fantasies of poets, and is com-
pletely justified of its existence by Beranger's verses :

" II ^tait un roi d'Yvetdt

Peu connu dans lliistoire
Se levant tard se couchant t6t

Dormant fort bien sans gloire
£t couronne par Jeanneton

D'un simple bonnet de coton,*'

which may very well serve as the epitome and epitaph
of a lazy independence that needed no more seriou
chronicler.^

Early in the next century occurs the name of a saint
who was destined to be famous in the story of the town

^ This jovial monarch is mentioned in a l^gal decree ot
1392. He retires into obscurity during the English Occupa-
tion, and is restored, curiously enough, by the sombre Louis XL
in 146 1, and freed from ail taxes and subsidies. At the entrj
of Charles VIII. in 1485 (see Chap. X.) he makes a very ap-
propriate appearance. In 1543 Franpis Premier mentloiii
a «Reine d'Yvet6t/' In 1610 Martin du Bellay, Siear de
Langey and Lieutenant General of Normandy, was hailed as
** Mon petit roi d'Yvet6t " by Henri Quatre at the coronatioo
of Marie de Medicis. In 1783 the last << documentary "
evidence occurs in the inscription on two boundary -stones :
«« Franchise de la Prlncipaut^ d'Yvet6t"

Merovingian Rouen

from its earliest days of civic liie until the duos of the
Revolution, in wluch the old order fell to pieces and
carried ao many picturesque and harmless ceremonies
into the limbo where it swept away the ancient abuses
of despotic monarchy. For with the name of St.
Romain, who enlargM St. Mellon's primitive " cathe-
dral " even more
than St. Victrice
had done, is con-
nected one of the
most extraordinary
privileges that any
ecclesiastical body
ever possessed. The
Chapter of the
Cathedral of Rouen
every Ascension Day
were allowed by the
*' Privilege de Saint
Romain " to release
a prisoner con-
demned to death,
who was then made
to carry the holy
relics of the saint
upon hit shoulders
in a great pro- — . -

cession. The list "^"^'.VJI^'^" "^",^
of the prisoners who ^mi
bore the " Fiertc

Saint Romain"^ extends (ram mo to 1790, the
chapel where the ceremony was performed still stands
in the Place de la Haute Vieille Tour, and the manu-
scripts in which the released prisoners' names with their
accomplices and crimes are recorded, furnish some of the
' Evidently "fcretmm," if. "La fiertre de Silnt Thonai,''
Frgjinn, xil. 9.

The Story of Rouen

most interesting and practically unknown details of the
intimate life of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
I shall have occasion to refer to them so fully later
on that I must for the present confine myself merdy
to abolishing a myth, and laying some slight foundation
for the facts that are to follow — ^facts so astonishing
and so authentic that they need no aid firom legend
or romance.

Yet the miracle that is related to-day about St.
Romain is so persistent and so widely spread, that
it must be told, if only to explain the many allusioDS
contained in picture, in carving, and in song,^ throughoot
the tale of Rouen, and in the very stones and windows
of her most sacred buildings. The story is but another
variant of our own St. George, of St. Martha and the
Tarasque in Provence, of many others in almost ewer^
country. It is but one more personification of that
struggle of Good against Evil, Light against Darkness,
Truth against Error, Civilisation against Barbarism,
which is as old as the book of Genesis and as the
history of the world. It has been represented by
Apollo and the python, by Anubis and the serpen^
by the Grand'gueule of Poitiers, by the dragons of
Louvain and of St. Marcel. The general truth was
appropriated by each particular locality until every
church and town had its peculiar monster slain by
its especial saint. Thus at Bordeaux there was St.
Martial, thus Metz had St. Clement, Asti and Venice
had their guardian saints, Bayeux had St. Vigor, Rouen
had St. Romain. The emblem of eternal strife had
become a universal allegory acceptable in every place
and in all centuries, and so commonly believed, that
until some poignant necessity arose for its assertion,

^ He is carved on a facade in the Mus^ des Antiquit^s, for
instance, and painted in a window of the Church of St. Godard,
to take only two examples of his constant occurrence in the
civil and religious life of the people.

Merovingian Rouen

it was never — as we shall see — mentioDed even by
those historians of the life of St. Romain^ who might
more especially be expected to know the details of liis
life.

For St. Romain, so the fable niDS^ delivered Rouen
from an immense and voracious monster^ called the
^^ Gargouilley'' who dwelt in the morasses and reed-
beds of the river^ and devoured the inhabitants of the
town.^ The wily saint employed a condemned crimi-
nal as a bait, lured the dragon from its den, then made
the sign of the cross over it, and dragged it, unresisting,
by his holy stole into the town, <^ o5 elle fiit arse et
bruslez.'' To commemorate this deliverance in 626,
continues the legend, the good King Dagobert (or was
it Hlothair ?) at the saint's request, allowed the Cathe-
dral to release a prisoner every year upon Ascension
Day, as the saint had released the prisoner who had
assisted in the destruction of the ^^ Gargouille."

All this is a very pretty example of a holy hypothesis
constructed to explain facts that arose in a very different
manner ; and though it is no pleasant task to undermine
a picturesque belief, yet the chain of events which led to
its universal acceptance are too remarkable to be left
without a firm historical basis, or at any rate a sugges-
tion more in accordance with the science of dates than
that which was related by the Church throughout so
many centuries. For there is no disputing that if the
^< miracle ** had in actual ^ct occurred, some mention
would have been made of it after the death of St.
Romain in 638, or at any rate after 686, when the
historians had the whole life of St. Ouen and his
times to describe. Yet neither St. Ouen himself
nor Dudo of St. Quentin in the tenth century, nor
William of Jumi^ges, nor Orderic Vital, nor Anselm,

^ Not only did it eat men, women, and children, say the old
chronicles, but "oe pardonnait meme pas aux vaisseaux et
Da?iret I "

The Story of Rouen

Abbot of BeCy in the eleventh, say a word about it;
and these are all most respectable and painstaking
authorities. In iioS, when an assembly was held by
William the Conqueror at Lillebonne, with the express
object of regulating privileges, not a word was said by
the Archbishop of Rouen there present about the most
extraordinary privilege enjoyed by his chapter. It is
only at the beginning of the thirteenth century that the
inevitable quarrels between the civil and ecclesiasdcal
powers over a criminal claimed by both can first be
traced; and it may be safely argued that while the
rivilege was not questioned it did not exist. It is as
ate as 1394 that the first mention of the famous
" Gargouille " itself occurs in any reputable docu-
ment. It was not till a twenty-second of May 1425,
that Henry, King of France and England, did com-
mand the Bishop of Bayeux and Raoul le Sage to
inquire into the '< usage et coutume d'exercer le
privilege de Saint Romain '' ; for the good reason that
in this year the chapter desired to release, by the exer-
cise of their privilege, one GeofFroy Cordeboeuf, who
had slain an Englishman. In 1485, one Etienne
Tuvache, was summoned to uphold the privilege before
the " Lit de Justice " of Charles VIII. on the 27th
of April ; and in i 5 1 2 we find the definite confirma-
don of the privilege by Louis XII. ; and even yet
there are only a few confused and vague rumours of
the "Gargouille" and its saintly conqueror.

There are, therefore, hr more numerous and more
authentic traces of the privilege than of the miracle ;
the effect is undoubted ; it remains to conjecture its
prime cause ; and as I shall show at greater length in
its right place, there is every reason to believe that the
origin of the privilege was one of the great Mystery
Plays of the Ascension, and that it was first exercised
between 11 35 and 1145. As the custom grew into a
privilege, and the privilege crystallised into a rights
40

Merovingian Rouen

ecclesiastical advocates were never at a loss to bring
divine authority to their aid in their championship of
the chapter's powers ; the <^ Gargouille/' in fact, was
" created " after the " privilege ** had become estab-
lished ; and for us the chief merit of the tale lies in
the fact that it preserves the national memory of St.
Roroain's firm stand against the old dragon of idolatry
and paganism, whose last remnants were swept out of
Normandy by his firm and militant Christianity.^

This is an age of great churchmen. While the
Roman Empire lasted, the Church had been dependent
and submissive to the Emperors. When the Franks
arrived her attitude was changed, for to these barbarous
and ungodly strangers she stood as a beneficent superior,
and a steadfast shield over the Gallo-Roman people.
So it was that the bishops became the protectors of
towns, the counsellors of kings, the owners of large
and rich tracts of land, the sole possessors of knowledge
and of letters in an age of darkest brutality and ignor-
ance. With the names of St. Ouen and St. Romain
in Normandy at this time are bound up those of
St. Philibert, St. Saens, and St« Herbland, under
whose protection was one of the oldest parishes of
Rouen. His church stood until quite modem years
in the Parvis of the Cathedral at the end of the Rue de
la Grosse Horloge. On various islands in the stream,
for the very soil of Rouen at this time was as uncertain
as its chronicles, were built the chapels to St. Clement
and St. Eloi, and other saints. The boundaries of the
Prankish settlement, described in terms of modern street-
geograplw, were, roughly, along the Rue des Fosses
Louis vIII. from Pont de Robec to the Poteme,

^ He certainly pulled down the Amphitheatre, and destroyed
the Temple of Venus, and the loss of l>oth of these was likdy
to be well remembered for some time by the inhabitants. It is
suggested that the Temple of Adonis fell at the bidding of the
same bold reformer to make way for the first church of St. Paul
beneath the heights of St Catherine.

4«

The Story of Rouen

thence by the Marche Neuf, now Place Verdrel,
along the Palais, through the Rue Massacre to the
Rue aux Ours. From there the line passed to the
Place de la Calende and the Eau de Robec, while the
fourth side was marked by the waters of the Robec
itself.

This was the Rouen which welcomed Charlemagne
in 769, who came to celebrate Easter in the Cathedral
he was to benefit so largely, among the canons who had
only been organised into a regular chapter, living in one
community, about nine years before. The great Em-
peror not only helped the Cathedral in his lifetime, but
left it a legacy in his will, for the town, in gratitude for
his benefactions, had furnished twenty-eight ^* ships ** to
help him pursue his enemies, out of the fleet which had
already begun to exploit the rich commercial possibilities
of Britain, and to enter into trading engagements even
with the Byzantine emperors. With the second coming
of Charlemagne at the dawn of the ninth century, the
next period in the history of Rouen closes. At his
death the semblance of an empire, into which his mighty
personality had welded the warring anarchies of Western
Europe, crumbled back into its constituent fragments.
His was an empire wholly aristocratic, and wholly
German. After Charles Martel had driven out the
Saracens from Tours and Poitiers, it absorbed Gaul
also in its rule, but Charlemagne was never other than
a Teutonic ruler over Franks. He was one of the
makers of Europe but not one of the creators of the
Klingdom of France. It was not until his empire
crumbled at his death that those persistent entities,
France and Germany, made their appearance.

But Normandy had much to go through before she
became a part of that kingdom which she did so much
to make. In 556 a great (ire had destroyed most of
the city of Rouen. Thirty years later a plague had
decimated her inhabitants. The Merovingians had

Merovingian Rouen

left her ruined and depopulated. Though spasmodic
efforts at prosperity and strength appeared during the
great Emperor's life-time, the town had not yet
reached anything approaching to a solid basis of civic
or commercial power. Its attempts were ruined by
the anarchy that followed Charlemagne's decease, and
there was uttle left for the first Danes to plunder when
the first galleys of the Northern pirates swept up the
Seine in 841.

CHAPTER IV
Rouen urtder her own Dukes

Normanni, si bono rigidoque domioani regunCur, atieniilidinl
aunt el In arduls rebus inviclE omnee eicelluat et cnnctli
hoallbiu forCiorea supeiare contendant. Alioquln aeu vlcbdm
dilanianC atque consumiinC. Rebelllonei enim cuplaat,
•editionei enim appctunc, et ad omne nefai pnuoptl nut.
RectitudlDia ergo fbrll cenaara coerceantur et fraeno dliclplinae
per tTamitem juatitiae giadiri compellancur.

pHE unity of Charlemagne's Empire existed in
: alone. The agglomeration of esseatially
« ODJy served the purpose of emphasising
the distiDctioDs of blood and climate
I which were to be the eternal ban
I against unnatural union. But the resi-
I duum of separate nations was some tune
I !n making its appearance. Their various
I rulers would not accept the inevitable
I without a struggle ; and in that struggle
the only power that gained was the
Church. France had no sooner thrown
off the German yoke than she profesaed
obedience to her great eccleBlaatics. In
Ncustria the only life and strength left after the
Empire died was in the Church. For the land was
but a waste of unuUed soil, sparsely inhabited by serfs,
and divided among the overlords, and of these latter
the richest were the abbots and the bishops, round
whose palaces and monasteries clustered the towns for
their defence. But their temporal power was soon

Rouen under her own Dukes

destined to decay. The empire of the mind they
might regain ; their leadership of France was lost the
instant that the Northmen's ships appeared upon the
Seine.

When the serfs of Neustria first heard the ivory
horns of the Vikings echoing along their river's banks,
and saw the blood-red banner of the North against the
sky, few men realised that the invaders were to weld
them into the strongest Duchy of the West, and finally
to make France herself arise as an independent nation
out of Europe. They fled, these spiritless and defence-
less villagers, to the nearest abbey's walls, they hid
before the altars which held the relics of their saints,
but neither relics nor sanctuary availed to save, as the
monks of St. Martin at Tours, of Saint Germain des
Pres at Paris could testify. These barbarians used the
Christian rites merely to advance their own base pur-
poses. Ever since Harold had won a province for a
baptism each pirate chief in turn was the more eager to
insist upon such lucrative religion. When they could
not make capital out of *^ conversions " they took gold
and provisions as the price of temporary peace. By
degrees they gave up going home in winter. The
climate of these southern lands was tempting. In
various parts of France along the river-mouths, just
as they had. taken the highway of the Humber into
the heart of Britain, they made their scattered settle-
ments, even as far inland as Chartres. But only one was
destined to be permanent, and this was made by Rolf,
Rollo, or Rou, In Rouen, the kernel of the Northern
province. In 841 Ogier the Dane had sailed up the
^< Route des Cygnes " to burn the shrines of St.
Wandrille and Jumi^ges, to pillage Rouen, even to
terrify Paris. After him came Bjom Ironside and
Ragnar Lodbrog. Twice they reached Paris, knock-
ing at the gates to pass through towards the vineyards
of Burgundy. In 861 they made a kind of camp

The Story of Rouen

upon an island between Oissel and Pont de FArche.
At last in 876 came Rolf the Ganger, the King of the
Sea, and made Rouen his headquarters.

There had been but little resistance to their advance.
The fifty-three great expeditions of Charlemagne had
used up the fighting men and scattered the bravest of
the nobles over widely separated tracts of conqaered
territory. The Frenchmen had disappeared^ either io
war or by a voluntary submission to the lords ander
whose protection alone could they find safety. No
wonder that the chroniclers were obliged to account
for the barrenness and weakness of the land by ex-
aggerating the already certain slaughter at Fontenai. • • .

** La peri de France la flor
£t des baronz tuit li meillor
Ainsi trov^rent Haenz terre
Vuide de gent, bonne a conqnerre."

The land was left uncultivated. Forests grew thicker
between Seine and Loire. Wolves ravaged Aquitaine
with none to hinder them. The South was still
infested by the Saracens. France seemed given up
to wild beasts. Nor were the pirates unaided in
their work of rapine. Necessarily few in number, for
they came from far by sea, their ranks were recruited by
every reckless freebooter in the country, who was quite
ready to bow down to Thor and Odin, instead of to the
shrines of his own land, which had proved so power-
less to protect it. Fast on the heels of the first
band of pirates came another, and another yet. Only
by the strength of Theobald of Blois was the Loire
closed against continual invasion, as the Seine was held
by Rollo, who was to fix the true race of the Northmen
for ever in the land.

He made his settlement in Neustria in exactly the
same way as Guthrum thirty years before had taken
possession of East Anglia. But while it was an easy
task for the Danes to become Englishmen, it was a far

Rouen under her own Dukes

harder one for the invaders of the Seine to become so
completely Frenchmen^ as in &ct they did. In the
case of both Guthrum and RoUo, the invaded sovereign
had been compelled to give up part of his lands to save
the whole. Both the archbishop at. Rouen and the
" King " at Paris saw no other way out of their diffi-
culties ; and Rollo was as ready as Guthrum had been
to go through the form of baptism and the ^rce of
a submission^ requiring as a pledge the daughter of the
King, whose vassal or " man *' he became. The treaty
in which Charles the Simple purchased peace was a
close imitation of the Peace of Wedmore. These
things became more serious to the pirate later on.
But his way was at first made easy for him. At
Rouen, Archbishop Franco, remembering perhaps the
gloomy prophecies of Charlemagne, gave up his ruined
and defenceless city without a blow.^

Rolf found indeed very little except the ^< crowd
without arms'' described by Dudo of St. Quendn
in a town where hardly a stone wall had been left
upright and the population had been ruthlessly deci-
mated by his predecessors. As Wace says of the
expedition of Hastings the Dane :

** . . . A Roem rant arest^
Tote destruitrent la cit^
Aveir troverent i plenty
Mesonz ardent, froissent callers,
Homes tuent, robent mostiers ** . . .

80 that it is almost astonishing to hear that even the
church of St. Martin de la Roquette remained standing,

^ Chron. de St. Denis, iii. 99. — << Franco . . . renrda I'^tat
de la cit^ et les murs qui ^talent d^chus et abattus, etc., or in
Wace*8 verses :

*< Li Archeveske Frankes i Jumi^ges ala
A Rou et i sa gent par latinier parla . . .
. .{. Done vint Rou a Roem, amont Saine naja,
De joste Saint Morin sa navie atacha.*'

The Story of Rouen

if) indeed, that is meant by the phrase, ** Portae cui in-
nexa est ecclesia Sancti Martini naves adhieaity" which
may refer to the "Saint Morin" of Wace, or the
^^Portus morandi" I spoke of on page i6. The towi
was still, it must be remembered, in its primitive watery
condition, the chapels, not only of St. Martin, but of
St., Clement and of St. Eloi, were on islands that are
now part of the firm soil of the river's bank. The
waters of the Robec itself formed one of the defences
of the ruined city Rollo took. Just beyond the line of
the old Gallo- Roman walls, rose the first rude monas-
tery of St Ouen ; shrines were also consecrated to St
Godard, to St. Martin, to St. Vincent sur Rive ; but
most of the houses were still only of timber, and it was
not till Rollo had closed up the wandering bed of the
river between these shifting islands that the **Terre8
Neuves" were first formed that reached from the
Rue Saint Denis to the Eau de Robec, through the
Place de la Calende, down to the Rue de la Madeleine
and the Rue aux Ours, and so to the Quai de la Bourse
by way of the Rue des Cordeliers. What is now merely
No. 41 Rue Nationale, was once the old church of St
Pierre du Chaste], and the name commemorates the
spot where Rollo built his first square tower, the first of
the many "Tours" that were built by the lords of
Rouen, native and foreign, princes or pirates, from the
river to the northern angle of the outer walls. Map B
shows Rollo's castle and the three which followed it,
one on each side beneath, and one above.

It was in 9 1 2 that Rollo thus marked the beginning
of the Duchy of Normandy with the strong seal of his
donjon-keep at Rouen, though he and his descendants
for another century were still known only as the Pirates,
and the Pirates' Duke. In that year he was baptised
by the Archbishop of Rouen, and received from the
Karoling King all the lands from " the river of Epte
to the sea, and westwards to Brittany," with the hand

Rouen under her own Dukes

of the Princess Gisela. Robert, Duke of the Franks,
came back with him to Rouen to be his godfather, and
for seven days the " King of the Sea " wore the white
robes of innocence, and his followers eagerly joined him
in the fold of Christianity, with results whose world-
wide importance were only to be seen more than a
century later. For the present the wolves were quite
ready to lie down with the lambs, but they kept their
brutal dignity and coarse jests throughout all the solemn
ceremonial. The pirate who was sent to do submission
for the Duchy, embraced the royal foot so roughly that
the King fell backwards off his throne, and in a roar of
Norman laughter the Norman rule began that was to
last for three centuries in France and spread from
Palermo to the Tees. The fable of this rudely-
treated monarch reflects more than the anxiety of
Norman chroniclers to hide the least appearance of
submission ; it suggests the fact of very actual weak-
ness in these dying Karolings. Rollo's coming had
decided for the French dynasty of Paris as against
the Frankish dynasty of Laon. Both Karolings and
Merovingians had been essentially of German stock.
It was only late in the ninth century that Paris, the
chief object of the Northerners' attack upon the Seine,
arose as the national bulwark against the invader, and
became a ducal city that was to be a royal. Its Duke,
Robert the Strong, the forefather of Capets, of Valois,
and of Bourbons, had a son, Eudes (or Odo), whose
gallant repulse of the Pirates had given him a throne
that was still held by his descendants a thousand years
later, and he ruled in the French speech, while the
Karolings of Laon still used the Teutonic idiom.
When Laon was joined to Paris in 987 by the
election of Hugh, modem France really began with
a French king ruling at Paris, and a German emperoi
as alien to the realm of the Capets as was his brother of
Byzantium. But there is still much to happen before

D 49

The Story of Rouen

the date of 987 can be Bafely reached, and the last in-
e£Fectual years of Charles the Simple gave RoUo every
opportunity to strengthen his new possessions in security.
The young blood, the adventurous spirit, the thirst
for conquest, that his Scandinavian followers brought
to Rouen, was destined to work wonders on its new
soil. For these pirates took the creed, the language
and the manners of the French, and kept their own
vigorous characteristics as mercenaries, plunderers, con-
querors, crusaders. If in peace they invented nothing,
they were quick to learn and adapt, generous to dis-
seminate. In Rouen itself they welcomed scholars,
poets, theologians, and artists. Their Scandinavian
vigour mated to the vivacity of Gaul was to produce
a conquering race in Europe. At Bayeux, where
a Saxon emigration had setded down long before the
days of Rollo, the type of the original Norman can stiU
be seen. The same type comes out in every famous
Norman of to-day, in that " figure de coq," with its
high nose and clever brow that marks the bold nature
tempered with the cunning, the lawyer and the soldier
mixed. To these men Rollo gave land instead of booty.
Of himself and his doings little accurate is known; but
firom the results of his rule his greatness can be fairly
judged, for he held his sceptre like a battleaxe, and
increased the bounds of his dominion. It was within
his capital that his rule was chiefly beneficial. Here
and there his Norman names have survived, as in Robec
(Redbeck) Dieppedal (Deepdale) or Caudebec (Cold-
beck), but in the main he proved at once the high adapta-
bility of his race. His first assembly was of necessity
aristocratic, and without ecclesiastics, for every landowner
was Scandinavian, and the remnant of the aborigines were
serfs whose revolts were pitilessly crushed. Twice a
year his barons came to his court, as feudatory judges,
the first faint beginnings of the Echiquier de Normaqdie.
His la\»s were made then, and made to be respected,

Rouen under her own Dukes

and it is even said that the cry of " Haro ! ** which
was heard far later in the history of Rouen, originated
in the " Ha ! Rou ! " with which the citizens then
began their appeal to him for justice. The tale of the
golden bracelets he hung in the branches of his hunting
forest by the Seine, which stayed three years without
being stolen, is an indication of the rigour of the laws
he made. In about 930 he died, and was the first lay-
man to be buried in the cathedral he had improved : —

<< Ed mostier Nostre Dame, el cost^ verz mid!
Ont li der ^ li lai li cors ensepulcri/'

His son, William Longsword, succeeded to his Duchy,
enlarged by the additions which Rollo had known how
to secure during the strife between Laon and Paris that
had been going on throughout his rule. That he had
paid little attention to the weak King Charles is evi-
dent from the tale that tells of the first execution
recorded in what is now the Place du March6 Vieux.
For Charles, with a simplicity worthy of his title, had
apparently sent two gallants of his court to console his
daughter Gisela for the roughness with which he heard
her husband treated her, and these two were prompdy
hanged. But there was more material profit to be had
out of the quarrels of the country, and though he lost
Eu for a time, Rollo had been able to gain from the
war by which he was surrounded in Maine, in Bessin,
and in Brittany ; which meant that his son came into
possession of Caen, Cerisy, Falaise, and that Bayeux,
which had been colonised from the North in the last
days of the Roman Empire, and remained Teutonic
long after Rouen had been " Parisianised," where you
may still see all save the tongue of England, in men
and animals, even in fields and hedges. And William
Longsword, though he wavered towards France and
Christianity, remained at heart even more Pagan than
his father, sending his son to these stubborn Northmen

The Story of Rouen

of Bayeux where the Danish tongue was kept in all its
purity, and calling in fresh Danish colonists to occupy
his own province of Cotentin from St. Michael's Mount
to Cherbourg. It was in the battle that secured his
hold on this new territory that 300 knights of Rouen,
under Bernard the Dane, drove out 4000 from Cdteo-
tin under their leader Count Riolf, who had disputed
William's suzerainty, upon the Pr^ de la Bataille that
is now a cider market near the town. (Roman de Rou,
V. 2239.) It was at this time, too, that Prince Aian of
Brittany fled for refuge to England, and the crushing of
the Breton revolt resulted in the addition of the Channd
Islands to the Duchy of Normandy, which remained
British after John Lackland had lost the last of his
continental possessions, retaining their local indepen-
dence and ancient institutions under the protection of
England ; a far better thing for them than any enjoy-
ment of the privileges, either of a French Department,
or of a British county represented in Parliament like
the ancient Norwegian Earldom of Orkney.

Few of the occurrences of this confused period are
so clearly prominent or have such far-reaching results
as this ; and after young Louis d'Outremer had been
called over from England to the throne of France,
this vacillating and weak Duke William was murdered
by Arnoulf of Flanders at the conference held on the
island of Pecquigny in the Somme, as William of
Jumi^ges relates (III. cap. xi. ei seq*)» His
courtiers found upon his body the silver key of the
chest that guarded the monk's cowl he had always
desired to wear. So upon a sixteenth of December
943 (in the year of the birth of Hugh Capet), the
strengthless descendant of the Viking died and was
buried in the Cathedral, and the Normans did homage
to his young son Richard the Fearless who was
fetched from his Saxon home at Bayeux and guarded
by Bernard the Dane within the walls of Rouen.

5«

Rouen under her onvn Dukes

The boy was desdned to a perilous and adventurous
career, which began as soon as he had taken up his
father's power, for the King of France came straight
to Rouen and would have seized the little Duke had
not the citizens arisen to protect him with such
menaces of violence that the attempt was postponed.
But he enticed the boy to Laon and there imprisoned
him until the &ithful Osmond got him out concealed
in a bundle of hay and bore him off on horseback
to Coucy. Then Bernard the Dane called on Harold
Blacktooth of Denmark to bring his men from
Coutances and Bayeux and to sail up with his long
ships from Cherbourg to avenge the murder of Duke
William. The King hastened to the walls of Rouen
to see what could he done by treaty with the invaders,
but the crafty Normans pretended that among his
escort they saw the murderer himself, so they fell
suddenly upon the French, slew eighteen of their
nobles, and threw their king into prison from which
he was only rescued by Hugh, Duke of the French,
at the price of the city of Laon. The interference
of Germany in the quarrel produced an alliance
between Normandy and Hugh of Paris that led
eventually to the independence of the Duchy and
the downfall of the Karolings of Laon as soon as
the German help had been withdrawn. But this did
not happen until an energetic attempt had been made
to crush Normandy and Paris by the new allies who
failed to take either Laon or Paris, but ravaged
Normandy and were only repulsed from Rouen after
a siege in 946 that is one of the most picturesque
landmarks in the early story of the town. In the
Roman de Rou, and in Dudo of St. Quentin, the
details of the fighting have been carefully preserved.

The combined host of Germans under Otto, French
under Louis, and Flemings under Arnoul, advanced
together upon Rouen, and their scouts reported that

I'he Story of Rouen

the town showed no signs of resistance. But bdiind
the battlements^ the citizens were stacking piles of
stones and darts. Masses of picked men were posted
at various vantage-points for sallying forth. Spies
were hidden in the long reeds and grass all round
the city, and sentinels unseen were guarding all the
wallsj from the main road at the Porte Beauvoisine^
round the heavy ramparts to the north and east
Upon their south-west was the river, and there was
plenty of provisions stored inside. The quiet reported
to the allies was but the confident repose of thorough
preparation, and this the Germans discovered as soon
as they drew near the city. The young Duke
Richard suddenly dashed out over the drawbridge
with seven hundred full-armed Norman knights on
horseback shouting " Dex Aie ! " behind him.
They rode straight upon the German spears, cut their
way through and back again taking fifteen captivei
with them, and slaying their leader, the ** Edeling"
himself who had followed them to the very bridge.
Otto fainted at the sight of the dead body of the
brave Edeling whose " Flamberg " and Castilian steed
are often mentioned in the story though his name does
not appear. Then the braying of aurochs' homfly
of cornets and of trumpets, announced the coming
vengeance of the allies. Their catapults rained missiles
on the town, and their men-at-arms waited impatiently
for a breach to be battered in the Porte Beauvoisine.
But it remained steadfasdy shut, and the Duke made
another brilliant sally from a postern gate with the
blood-red standard waving again above his Norman
knights, and swept back once more the assailing lines
of Germany until the French had to bring up their
reinforcements from the rear and save the field.
That evening, in Otto's pavilion, the funeral service

^"As herteiches montent et al mur quernel^.** (Wace.
R. de R., 4057.

Rouen under her own Dukes

of the EdeliDg was held. All night he lay beneath
the silk of his funeral pall with tapers burning at his
head and feet, and the low chant of prayer sounded
till the dawn. All night had Otto stayed awake in
sorrow and unrest. At last, witli the rising of the
sun he heard a burst of minstrelsy. Rouen was silent
no longer ; the songs of triumph and defiance burst
from every parapet and tower, while the very birds
(says the chronicler) seemed to join in the chorus
of happiness all round the beaten camp. Then Otto
rode moodily along the city walls and watched the
waggons bringing in supplies across the bridge, and
noted that the bridge-head at Ermondeville (St. Sever
as it is to-day), was weakly held, so he rode back
determined to starve Rouen into submission.

But the council of his knights refused the plan,
so he was obliged to veil his anger by asking the
Normans for permission to pray at the Shrine of St.
Ouen and bury his noble kinsman beyond the walls
of their town. Safe conduct was immediately granted,
and all the leaders except Arnoul of Flanders passed
in procession to the abbey. There, after gifts of
gold and precious carpets to the abbot. Otto proposed
that Arnoul should be given up, but returned before
the answer, to these treacherous negotiations had been
given. The night that followed was full of terrors
and alarms. Suspecting that he would be betrayed,
Arnoul took all his Flemish host as soon as dark-
ness fell, and lumbered heavily out of the camp of
the allies, his cumbrous waggons creaking noisily
beneath the weight of the camp - furniture. Both
French and Germans heard the sound and started
to their feet imagining a night-attack from Rouen.
Panic seized the camp at once. Men cut the cords
of the rich tents, and scattered their spoil about the
ground, rushing half clad in all directions and shouting
for their arms ; a fire broke out at headquarters ; the

The Story of Rouen

camp-followers seized their opportunity, dashed upon
Otto's tent and plundered it of armour and of all its
royal ornaments; the rest fled hastily aU ways at
once not seeing where they went, and in an unknown
country.

Meanwhile the rising clamour roused the ' sentinels
of Rouen, and all the garrison made ready for
attack, hurried to their posts, and waited steadfasdy
under arms until the dawn. As the light shone fi-om
the east they saw the rout and disorder of their enemies'
camp, and loud jeers and laughter rose along the walls,
and echo still in the rough verses of Dudo their
historian. The Flemish had the advantage of an early
start, and got clear away. The French had followed
fast upon tibeir heels, but the Germans had plunged b
unwieldy panic into the labyiinth of the woods and
fens. The Normans spread out at once and caught

them. At the Place de la Rougemare
they slaughtered so many that the fields
were dyed red with their blood. At
Bihorel more were massacred. In
FIGURE FROM THE Maupcrtuis, or Maromme, hundreds
BORDER OF THE ^^^^ butchcred. Theu the peasants

BAYEUX TAPESTRY ^ , i i i i i * ttt. t

took up the bloody task. With
sharpened scythes and pitchforks, with pointed staves
and heavy truncheons and ironshod clubs, they killed
the miserable Germans all day long, and the line of
escape was marked along the Beauvoisine road by
corpses almost to Amiens itself.

This strange victory seems to have pulled the men
of Rouen together, and given them confidence. The
Laws of RoUo had been restored to their old strength
by Harold Blacktooth, and at last Neustrians and
Scandinavians seemed in a fair way to amalgamate and
produce that nation of warriors and lawyers which they
afterwards became. In 954 King Louis died after a
last flicker of expiring power in retrieving Laon. But

Rouen under her own Dukes

though Lothair followed him as King of the French,
Hugh Capet was ruling in 956 as Duke of Paris, and
it was to Hugh that Duke Richard of Normandy did
homage for his fief. Thirty-one years later the last
Karoling was passed over, and Hugh Capet was
crowned King at Noyon. In the starting of this new
dynasty, which is the starting-point for the true history
of France, Duke Richard of ^Normandy had played a
most important part, for it was in no small measure by
his help that Gaul liad been made French and had
won a French Lord of Paris for her King. At the
coronation of Hugh Capet, Normandy ceased to be the
Land of Pirates, and became the mightiest and noblest
fief of the French crown, its most loyal and most daring
vassal. In the years of Duke Richard too, Normandy
was completed internally. Her army and her fleet were
organised. Her frontiers, her laws, her feudal system
came to perfection. Her national character crystal-
lised. Already in the Norman Baronage we can find
English names like that of the Harcourts, descended
from Bernard the Dane, on a castle- wall we can read
the name of Bruce, in a tiny village trace the name of
Percy. Among the elms and apple-orchards that still
faithfully reflect our English countryside, the square
gray keeps are rising already which were handed on by
Norman builders to the clifiFs of Richmond or the banks
of Thames. In 996 Duke Richard built one of these
upon the right bank of Robec near the Seine, a new
Palace-Prison, another " Tour de Rouen " to replace
the fallen masonry of Rollo's ancient keep. It was
founded where the Place de la Haute Vieille Tour
preserves its memory still, with the Duke's private
chapel on the spot where the Fierte St. Romain stands
to this day.

Robert Wace preserves a story that indicates the
close terms on which Duke Richard was with religion,
and also shows that the steady growth in wealth and

The Story of Rouen

influence of the clergy through his reign, was not
unaccompanied by an immorality which was conspicuous
under Archbishop Hugh II., and became flagrant
during the office of Mauger later on. It appears that
the Sacristan of St. Ouen fell most uncanonically in
love with a lady who dwelt on the other side of the
Robec. On his way to meet her one dark night, his
foot slipped from the plank that crossed the rapid little
stream, and he fell into tbe water. Whereon a
sprightly devilkin seized hurriedly upon his soul and
was on the point of bearing it away to Hell, when an
angel (mindful doubtless of the abbey's piety) arrived,
objecting with a nicely argued piece of logic that the
sacristan had not been carried off " en male veie," but
before any sin had been committed. So the contending
parties brought the case (that is the body) before the
Duke for judgment.^ His Grace insisted that the
soul should be put back into its mortal envelope, and
he would then decide according to the action of the
sacristan. The ardour of the resuscitated monk
seems to have been sufficiently cooled by his involuntary
bath in Robec, and he hurried back to his lonely bed
in the Abbey of St. Ouen, and at the Duke's com-
mand confessed his wickedness to the abbot. But his
escapade remains enshrined in a proverb that lasted well
into the sixteenth century, and is given by Wace in its
original form :

" Sire Moine, suef alez
Al passer planche vus gardez."

In 996, the Fearless Duke himself gave up the

^ Students of that invaluable vision of antiquity " Les Contes
Drolatiques '* will remember that it was also before Duke
Richard that Try ballot, the lusty old ruffian known as " Vieuhc
Par-chemins," was brought up for judgment, and that the
statue commemorating His Grace's sympathetic verdict re-
mained in Rouen till the modesty of the English invaders
removed it.

Rouen under her oivn Dukes

ghost, after having enlarged the Cathedral of Rouen,
and given it new pavement.^ His son, another
Richard, like hira in name alone, succeeded, and in
the first year of the new reign, we hear of a peasant
revolt that shows an extraordinary foreshadowing of
the changes that were to come after the fateful
thousandth year had passed. The keynote of the
movement is struck in the strange word used by Wace,
that occurs now for the first time in history :

<' Asez tost oi Richard dire
Ke vilains cumune faseient''

These downtrodden serfs, of mixed Celtic, Roman,
and Prankish parentage, had actually spoken that word
of fear to every feudal baron, a " commune." They
established a regular representative Parliament with two
peasants sent from each district to a general assembly
whose decision should be binding on the whole. This
was a considerably higher political organisation than
the aristocratic household of their masters round the
King. And bitterly their masters resented such
forward and unscrupulous behaviour. The Duke's
uncle, Rudolf, Count of Ivry, crushed the " revolt "
with hideous cruelty, and sent back the people's
representatives maimed and useless to their hovels.
" Legatos cepit," says William of Jumi^ges, " trun-
catisque manibus et pedibus inutiles suis remisit," adding
with unconscious ferocity <'his rustici expertis ad sua
aratra sunt reversi." But the germs of freedom did
not die, for villenage in Normandy was lighter, and

* L'iglise de PArceveskie
De mensam plus riche fie
Fist abatre e fere graineur
A la Mere Nostre Seignur
Plus lunge la fist e plus l^e
Plus haute h miex empavent^

R. deR., 5851.

'The Story of Rouen

ceased far sooner, than in the rest of France. These
first martyrs did not suffer in vain.

If you look closely at the few carvings remaining on
the churches of the tenth and eleventh centuries, you
will understand the terror under which all men were
crushed as the thousandth year drew nearer, which
was believed to be the end of the world. Grimacing
dumbly in their stiffened attitudes of fear, these thin
anatomies implore with clenched uplifted hands, the
death that shall save them from the misery of their
life. A world so filled with ruins might well give up
all hope on this side of the tomb. The revolt of the
Norman peasants had been crushed in blood. The
first religious persecutions had begun, in the slaying of
the Manichean heretics at Orleans. The seasons in
their courses seemed to fight against humanity, for
famine and pestilence, storm and tempest swept down
upon the land and the people died in thousands of sheer
starvation. The Roman Empire had crumbled in the
dust ; after it fell that of Charlemagne into the abyss.
The chronicles of Raoul Glaber are full of the most
gruesome details of cannibalism, of diabolical appear*
ance{^, of tortures that cannot be named. The only
refuge seemed to be within the walls of the churches,
where the shivering congregations gathered, mute in a
palsied supplication like the stone figures carved upon
the walls above them. At last the terrible year
passed by, and the stars fell not, nor did the heaven
depart as a scroll when it is rolled together, and the
kings of the earth and the great men and the rich men
and the chief captains and the mighty men and every
bondman and every freeman came forth from their
houses and from their dens and from the rocks of the
mountain, and went with one accord to give thanks to
Holy Church for their deliverance. The wave of
religious feeling swept from one end of Europe to the
other, and nowhere was it so strong as in Normandy.
60

Rouen under her own Dukes

For the Normans saw their advantage in it, just as the
first pirates had seen their gain in baptism. The laws
of RoUo and his descendants were too strict for
brigandage at home, so the more restless spirits started
over Europe in the guise of pilgrims, << gaaignant,"
as Wace says, towards Monte Cassino, to St. James
of Compostella, to the Holy Sepulchre itself. It was
as pilgnms that they travelled into Southern Italy,
where a poor Norman knight had been rewarded for
his fighting against the infidels by the County of
Aversa. Tancred of Hauteville, from the Cotentin,
followed there. By 1002 the citizens of Rouen were
already admiring the oranges, or "Pommes d'Or"
which their adventurous <' Crusaders " had sent back
from Salerno, as the firstfruits of that Kingdom of
Calabria and Sicily which a Norman, Robert Guiscard,
was to make his own.

Meanwhile within the bounds of Normandy itself, the
great religious revival went on side by side with growing
civic and military strength. In 1004, Olaf, King of
Norway, who had come over to help the second Duke
Richard, was baptised in the Cathedral of Rouen.
Sweyn, King 01 Denmark, and Lacman, King of
Sweden, were in the city at the same time, and doubtless
felt the same impulse to profession of the Christian faith
when visiting their Scandinavian relatives. Rouen was
indeed a gathering place for all the northern royalties,
for Ethelred II. who had lost the Anglo-Saxon throne,
was there as well, with his wife Enmia the daughter
of the Duke. It seems in fact to have already become
the fashion for princes of the royal house of Britain to
complete their education by a little tour in France. A
curious trait of the manners of the time is recorded by
Wace, who describes one of the many banquets that
must have been given so often during all these royal
visits. He speaks of the long sleeves and white shirts
of the barons, and relates the first instance of aristo-

The Story of Rouen

cratic kleptomania at a dinner-table, when a knight
took a silver spoon and hid it in his sleeve (R. de R.
7030). The reign of this second Richard and of hit
son the third passed without much incident, and then
came the sixth Duke, Robert the Magnificent as his
courtiers called him, Robert the Devil as his people
knew him. He is chiefly famous as the father of hit
mighty son, and he did little in his capital of Rouen
that is of interest beyond its walls, save the attempt to
restore the Saxon princes Alfred and Edward to their
father's throne, which failed because his fleet was
stopped by persistent headwinds and could do nothing
more than thoroughly subjugate the neighbouring fief
of Brittany. After this, the Duke fell in, like all
around, with the dominant religious passion, took up
the pilgrim's cross, and died with his Crusaders at
Nicaea,

" A Faleize ont li Dus hant^,*

says Wace,

« Une meschine i ont am^e,
Arlot ont nom, de burgeis n^.**

And from this love-match with a tanner's daughter sprang
William the Bastard in 1028. Though his father had
insisted upon this child's inheritance on his departure
for the East, the election of a boy of seven to the
Ducal throne was naturall)!^ bitterly opposed by such-
great baronial houses as those of Belesme and others.
A period of anarchy and assassination was the obvious
result. But Alan of Brittany, the Seneschal Osbern,
and Count Gilbert stood staunchly by the heir. All
three were murdered, and young William himself with
difficulty escaped. Then Ralph of Wacey and William
Fitz-Osbem attached themselves to the boy who must
have shown promise of his greatness early to attract such
faithful friendships through the twenty years of civil
war that preceded his firm holding of the throne. He
62

Rouen under her own Dukes

had been knighted young, and he was soon to prove
the strength of his right arm. But his first actions
strangely enough are connected with the Church that
overshadowed so much of public life. He made the
mistake of giving the See of Rouen to the profligate
Mauger (though the error was sternly corrected later
on) just as he gave the See of Bayeux to his half-
brother Odo* Benedictine monasteries began to flourish
all over Normandy, chief among which was the Abbey
of Bee, which in Lanfranc and Anselm was to provide
Canterbury with two prelates later on. Religion was
responsible, at the same time, for at least one benefit to
the land in the famous institution of the << Truce of
Gody" which was fully confirmed later on, and pro-
claimed that from Wednesday evening until Monday
mombg in every week the poor and weak were to be
free from the oppressions of their overlords and from
the tyranny of private war. And a still more valuable
result of the prevalent religious enthusiasm was the
gradual drawing together of Normandy and the Papal
See which had its greatest outcome in the ** Crusade "
against England.

But William had much to do in his own Duchy
before he could find time for any extension of his
dominions. At Val-^s-Dunes he fought his first
pitched battle, crying the " Dex Aie " of the Normans
as he swept the rebellious barons, under Guy of
Burgundy, oflT the field. Then feeling more secure in
his own power, after he had taken Alen^on and
Domfront and laid his iron hand on Maine, while
Anjou and Brittany were too bent upon intestine strife
to trouble him, he pacified the continual quarrels with
Flanders by taking Matilda the daughter of its Count
Baldwin as his wife. Descended from the stock of
Wcssex, of Burgundy, and of Italy, with the blood of
Charlemagne in her veins, Matilda was beautiful,
virtuous and accomplished, and worthy to be the mate

The Story of Rouen

of one who set an example of domestic purity to all
the princes of his time. W hat had been politic at first
became a marriage of affection afterwards, strengthened
no doubt by the opposition that at first arose. For the
Duke's Uncle Mauger objected to the match as being
within the forbidden degrees of relationship, and the Pope
at the Council of Rheims actually pronounced against
it. But now came the first-fruits of the policy which had
already shown signs of drawing together Normandy and
the Papacy. For it only needed a little pressure on the
part of the Guiscards in Apulia to secure the consent
of the Papal Legate to the banishment of Mauger to
the Channel Islands, which he appears to have richly
deserved for many other reasons, if Wace be right in his
indictment; and after four years of waiting, Matilda
was married to the Duke in the Cathedral of Rouen

by the new Bishop Maurilius who
finished the new church that was
consecrated in 1063. Another objec-
tion to the marriage received very
different treatment. For in Lanfranc
of Bee William had recognised the
HGURE FROM THE ^^1^^^^ Italian who would be useful in

BORDER OF THE ^ ., i • i ^i , t

BAYEux TAPESTRY ^ouncil 38 much as m the Church, and

it was through Lanfranc's personal
intercession that the Papal authority had finally been
brought to William. The " penance " inflicted for his
wedding was, we may well believe, cheerfully per-
formed in the building of the hospitals at Rouen,
Bayeux, Caen and Cherbourg, and the two mighty
abbeys (for William and for Matilda) that remain at
Caen.

Meanwhile the power of Normandy continued to
wax greater. Even two centuries after this time it
comprised a third part of the wealth and importance of
the kingdom, and in the days of our own Fifth Henry
no advice more dangerous to France could be given to

Rouen under her own Dukes

an English King than to preserve by every means the
Independence of this Duchy. To the France of the
eleventh century, it was a hr greater peril still.
Sullenly hostile, or actively menacing, it was only by
perpetual harassing that Normandy could be kept down
at all. At last in 1054 the King roused all the cities
of Central Gaul, Burgundian, Gascon, Breton and
Auvergnat in one combined onset, and gathered them
at Mantes, the natural frontier between Normandy and
France. Duke William's strategy and daring were
equal to his task. He divided the invaders into two,
annihilated one division at Mortemer with very little
loss, and watched the other with grim merriment as it
vanished from his Duchy, afraid to strike a blow.
Four years later France and Anjou came on for
another attempt. Again the Duke was ready. He
caught their hosts where the river Dive cut the army
in twain, and fell suddenly with all his knights ana
clubmen and a thundershower of arrows on the division
that held the lower bank. King Henry had to watch
in idleness above, while his rear-guard was being help-
lessly cut to pieces. By the taking of Le Mans in 1 063,
William made still further preparation for the greater
fight that was to come. Presages of the coming
struggle were not long in making their appearance.

In 1064 Earl Harold on a pleasure-trip from
England was wrecked upon the coast of Ponthieu.
Duke William at once had him brought to Eu, where
he met him and escorted him, in all good fellowship
and chivalry, to Rouen. What actually happened
during this important visit cannot be accurately deter-
mined. But of a few facts there seems to be no doubt.
If Harold, for instance, received knighthood at
William's hands, he thereby became his "man."
More probably he swore brotherhood with the strong
Duke. Certainly he took part in the expedition that
crashed a Breton revolt, and chased its leader to the

E 65

Rouen under her onvn Dukes

dangerous quicksands of St. Michael's Mount Cer-
tainly too, an oath of some kind was plighted between
the host and his somewhat unwilling guest. In this
the Duke must have made mention of the promise
given by Edward the Confessor as to the English
Succession. This Edward it will be remembered was
one of the Saxon princes who had lived for some time
in Rouen, and was always fond of his Norman mother
and her friends. Mention is also made of a betrothal
of William's daughter to the Earl. In any case, we
may be sure that Harold was sufficiently engaged to
satisfy the politic Duke before he was allowed to
return to England. Nor may we imagine that the
next news which came across the Channel was wholly
unexpected. For as the Duke was hunting with his
courtiers and squires in his pleasaunce at QueviUy, across
the Seine from Rouen, a messenger brought the tidings
that Edward the Confessor was dead, and that Harold son
of Godwin had seized the throne. Wace describes how
Fitz-Osbem paced up and down the hunting-hall with
his master as they discussed the news, and the Duke
soon made his mind up as to the course to be pursued.
A message was at once sent over to Harold, reminding
him of the famous Oath, which had been taken, as
some say, and according to the suggestions in the B^eux
Tapestry, over the sacred relics of the saints. What
the Duke had expected and even hoped for, of course
happened. Harold repudiated all knowledge of a
binding agreement as to the Succession, and Normandy
could thenceforth call upon the outraged Sanctity of
Religion to help her in what was cleverly published as
a Holy War.

Now the full effects of the religious trend in William's
policy were seen at last, as clearly as was the wisdom
of his own carefully religious life. The champion of
the poor, the fatherless and the widow, the worshipper
and communicant in Rouen Cathedral, the builder of
66

Rouen under her own Dukes

hospitals and monasteries, above all the friend of
LanfranCy was easily able to secure the voice of the
Pope in ^vour of a claim based not on heredity, not
on election, not on bequest, but made by virtue di the
personal injury done to him by Harold, and made to
avenge the insulted saints of Normandy by recalling
pagan England into the fold of Rome. Never were the
highest motives so skilfully interwoven with appeals to
lower instincts in the mingled crowd whom the Duke
William gathered to his standard. He had before
this crushed the Norman rebels, conquered the men of
Maine or Anjou or Brittany, defeated the King of
France^ But this was a far greater task. Yet if
Normans had won the Kingdom of the Sicilies,
Normans should cross the sea to England and win
that as well. And all the faithful of the earth should
help them. It is a mistake to think that Normans
alone conquered the land of Harold. From Flanders,
from the Rhine, from Burgundy, Piedmont and
Aquitaine, from all the northern coasts, an army of
TC^unteers flocked to the standard of the Duke. And
their leader went swiftly on to make preparations
worthy of so great a host. While all the woods of
Normandy are ringing to the axe, and all the ship-
wrights' yards are sounding to the hammer, we may
pause and see what this mighty expedition means to
Rouen.

To Normandy it brings at once the climax of her
power and the beginning of her fall. For a Duchy
that was but secondary to the Kingdom over seas could
never claim again the fuD strength of the rulers who
had raised her first. By degrees she fell away from
the land across the channel and became absorbed in the
kingdom of which she was territorially a natural part.
But, as we have seen, she had already done much
towards the making of that kingdom in her indepen-
dence, and when she formed an integral part of it herself

The Story of^ Rouen

she was its firmest bulwark against invasion f^om the
North. In Rouen itself the beginnings of commercial
greatness had been indicated, even before the coming
of Rollo, by the Mint which had been established
there, as a branch of that founded by Charlemagne at
Quantowitch, which was destroyed by the first Pirates.'
The money of Rouen was marked with the letter B
to signify that it was the second in importance in the
Kingdom. That the trade of the town soon justified
this proud distinction on its currency is evident from
the law of King Ethelred II., which exempted all
Rouen merchants from taxation on their wine and
" Marsouin " within the port of London. Other
signs of commercial activity are to be found in bridge
building, and the numerous Fairs which arose under
the Norman Dukes. In 1024 a toll upon the wooden
bridge of Rouen is recorded, and when in 103O9 it
was destroyed by a revolt under Robert the Devil,
the timbers were very shortly afterwards replaced, and
remained until in 1 1 60 the Empress Matilda built the
famous "Pont de Pierre" that lasted for so many
centuries. Of the great Fairs of Rouen, the first
seems to be that of St. Gervais, instituted by the second
Duke Richard in 1020, which was given with the
church of the same name to the monks of the Abbey
of Fecamp. It is still held in June in the Faubourg
Cauchoise. The Foire du Pre was next founded in
1064 on the day after the Ascension by the great Duke
William, under the auspices of the Priory of Notre
Dame du Pre which his wife had built in the suburb
of Emendreville across the river, where St Sever now
stands. The church itself took the name of Bonne-
Nouvelle when the Duchess heard, as she was praying
there, that the .Victory of Hastings had made her
Queen of England. Within its walls were buried the
Empress Matilda, and the hapless Prince Arthur of
Brittany. It was burnt down in 1243, and struck by
68

Rouen under her own Dukes

'. . .

lightning in 135I9 destroyed during the siege by the
'English in 1418, and rebuilt only to be destroyed again
hj the Calvinists in 1562. In 1604 ^^ ^^^ rebuilt for
the last time, but the rights of jurisdiction and of the fair
given it by William the Conqueror were only surrendered
to the town of Rouen in 1493. In 1070 the F6te de
rimmacul^e Conception, called the P^te aux Normands,
,wa8 celebrated for the first time in memory of a vow
after a safe vovage. The Confr^rie de la Conception,
sometimes called Le Puy, was founded in connec-
tion with this, with the poems that were written each
year in honour of the Feasts, which gave rise to
the jocund office of the Prince des Palinods, of
whom we shall hear more later. Their first poem,
written by Robert Wace (the author of the " Roman
de R0U9' who was bom in Jersey in 1 100 and died
at the age of 84 in England) was called '^L'Estab-
lissement de la feste de la conception, dicte la Feste
as Normands."

The most famous Fair of all was founded a little later
byGuillaume Bonne Ame, forty-eighth bishop of Rouen,
when he transported the body of St. Romain in a new
and precious shrine from the church of St. Godard to
the Cathedral. At this first procession in 1079 ^^^^
William the Conqueror and his wife assisted. The
change had been necessitated by the great crowds of
people who had come every year to receive pardons and
indulgences at the shrine of the famous guardian saint
of the city, and who thronged into the neighbouring
fieldy called the Champ-du-Pardon to this day. When
the saint's body had been removed to the Cathedral,
the Foire du Pardon was held in his honour in the
sune open space, and the whole ceremony was without
doubt the beginning of that Levee de la Fierte which
preserved the memory of St. Romain until the end
of the eighteenth century. By William, the fair was
originally fixed on two days in October, and in 1468

The Story of Rouen

its duration was still further extended.^ In the church
of St. Etienne des Tooneliers, ^i^ch was put under
the protection of the monks of St. Ouen at tiiis time,
we can trace further evidence of the gradual consolida-
tion of various trades ; even the institution of the curfew
bell, at the assembly of Caen in 1061, shows that
increasing commerce had insisted upon greater security
in the public streets. The Parvis of the Cathedral,
too, was at this time not merely a place of inviolable
sanctuary, but an open space on which merchants could
display their goods and erect booths without any inter-
ference save from the canons. These shops ware built
up against the crenelated wall that surrounded the Parvis
until the quarrel between canons and bourgeois pulled
them down in 1 1 92. The place was a frequent scene
of coaflict, and also of amusement, for in spite of the
presence of a cemetery which extended over the Place
de la Calende and the Portail des Libraires and was
only abolished in the last century, the mystery plays
were often given here, using the cemetery as a ** back-
ground," as was frequently done. Till 1199 bakers
sold bread here. Till 1429 the ^'Marche aux herbes
et menues denrees " was held here, and then transferred
to the Clos aux Juifs. In 1325 the working jewellers
also frequented this locality, and in the name of the
great north porch of the Cathedral is still preserved the
memory of the booksellers of times far more modern.

The foundations of another cathedral had been laid
in 990, where Robec and Aubette still defined an
" lie Notre Dame de Rouen '* whose inhabitants
were under the jurisdiction of the chapter-house. It
was brought to a conclusion by Maurilius in 1063, and
in the foundation and lower storeys of the northern

^ The Champ du Pardon attained a grisly notoriety in the
fourteenth century from the presence of the " fourches Patibu-
laires ** or public place of execution upon the <* Mont de la
Justice " in one comer of the field.

HE OLDEST

If^^

■j

'^^^

Rouen under her own Dukes

tower of the west facade (known as the Tour St.
Romain) are perhaps some of the few relics that
remain of the architecture of these destructive years.
But a ^r more beautiful and more authentic fragment
is to be seen close to the Abbey Church of St. Ouen,
in the exquisite little piece of architecture known as the
Tour aux Clercs in the north-eastern corner of the
apse, (see Chap. VIII. ). This is part of the apse of the
second abbey, which was begun by Nicolas of Nor-
mandy in 1 042, finished in 1 1 26, and burnt to the
ground in 11 36. Its fate was the common one of all
ecclesiastical buildings of the time. In the next chapter
we shall find but two more churches that can certainly
be dated as before the years when Normandy became a
part of France. The School of Art which gave a
name to all those English buildings of which Durham
Cathedral is the type and flower, left scarcely a stone
in its own capital as a memorial of its source. Nor
can Rouen point to a single building now remaining
which was a palace or a prison of its Norman dukes.
The greatest monument of its greatest duke is the
Tower of London. Even the ruined Abbey of St.
Amand, which was dedicated in 1070, does not now
possess a stone that can be traced with certainty to the
period of its Norman foundation. For whatever ruins
now remain are those of the church built in 1274,
whose tower was rebuilt after 1570, and whose last
abbess, Madame de Lorge, died in October 1745.

CHAPTER V

The Conquest of England and the Fall of

Normandy

<< En Normandie a gent molt fiere
Jo ne sai gent de tei maniere ;
Chevaliers sont proz € vaillanz
Par totes terres conqn^ranz. . .
. . . OrguiUos sunt Normant h fier,
E vanteor h bombancier ;
Toz terns les devreit Ten phusier
Kar mult sunt fort a justisier.

Robert Waci.

IT is time to look more closely at the personality of
the greatest Duke of Rouen. William the Bastard

has been described^ as tall and very stout, fierce of

visage, with a high, bald forehead, and,
in spite of his great corpulence, of
extreme dignity, whether on his throne
or in the field. The strength of his
arms, for which he was famous, was
proved very early, when the chivalry of
France went down before his boyish

FiGDR. FROM THE j^^^^ ^^ Val-es-Duues. He evidently

BORDER OP THE . ,, . -wj.. . .. ^

BAYEux TAPESTRY possessed all the true Vikmg attnbutes

of physical power derived from Rollo,
his great ancestor. In mental type he reproduced much
of that Norman cunning which we have noticed as a

^ << Justae fuit staturae, immensae corpulentiae ; facie fera,
fronte capillis nuda, roboris ingentis in lacertis, magnae dig-
nitatis sedens et stans, quanquam obesitas ventris nimium
protensa.** — Will Malms: lib: iii.

7»

^be Conquest of England

cbaracterisdc of the race. Both Maine and England
he conquered by fraud as much as force. If he was
a great soldier, he was a consummate statesman too.
For as he used Fiance to conquer Normandy, so he
used Normandy to conquer France, and both to con-
quer England. Kindly to submissive foes, he was
pitiless to stubborn opposition, and very dangerous to
taunt. The town which hung tanners' hides upon its
walls was answered by the sight of bleeding hands, and
feet, and eyes, which had been torn from its prisoners
and hurled across the battlements. The king who jested
of the candles for a woman's churching, was answered
by the blaze of a whole town. A comet flamed across
the sky of Europe in the year of the great Duke's con-
quest. Amid fire and tumult he was crowned at West-
minster. Upon the glowing ashes of Mantes he met his
death-wound. Through burning streets he was borne
to his burial. He was not only the strongest of the
dukes of Normandy, he was also one of the world's
greatest men, whose work was not only thorough at the
moment, but effective for all time ; whose purpose was
fixed, and whose iron will none could gainsay. He
rose above the coarse, laughter-loving, brutal, treacher-
ous, Norman barons of his time, by the force of his own
personal genius, and the acuteness of his own strong
intellect. If it had necessitated a web of the subtlest
intrigue to get together the vast host that was to con-
quer England, it needed a vigorous and dauntless per-
sonality no less amazing to keep together the fleet and
army while they waited wearily for the wind, until
Harold's own fleet (the one safety of England then,
as ever) had dispersed, until the right moment came,
and all his barons and their men-at-arms rushed eagerly
on board, carrying their barrels of wine, their coats of
mail, and helmets, and lines of spears, and spits of meat,
and stacks of swords, as is recorded in the Bayeux
Tapestry. With him went twenty ships and a hundred

The Story of Rouen

kni^U tent by the Abbot of St Ouen. Asotber ibip
that miut have carried especial prayers wMi her froB
Rouen was the " Mora," given by his wife Matilda,
with a boy carved upon her stern-post, blowing hi* bom
towards the cllfFs of Pevenaey,^ By the lantern on hei
mast die seven hundred transport galleys sailed at night,
and early :n the next dawn they landed, archers fint,
then knights and horses, and marched on to Hasting*.
How the Duke of Rouen conquered England, and
bow he wrote it in his Domesday Book, is no imihedi-
n of ours. By March in the next year he

(ETVHN

was back in his own capital, bringing with him, through
the cheering streets, the Prince Edgar, Stigand lie
Primate, and three of his greatest earls. There bis
beloved wife met him, and gave account of the Duchy

' WithlheBayeuxTapestryi/: Wace's descriplion. R.deR.,
.iSlg,&e.!

" Une lanterne fist li Dub
Metre en sa nefel mast de sua

The Conquest of England

she had guarded with Roger of BeaumoDt in his absence.
There he at once dealt out rewards to the regular and
secular clergy of the city, among which were the lord-
ships of Ottery and of Rovrige in Devonshire. Mean-
while the Normans were crowding to admire the trophies
of victory. The banners from the battlefield, embroid-
ered with the Raven of Ragnar, or the Fighting-Man
of the dead Harold, and booty that brought wonder to
the eyes even of citizens who had seen the spoils of
Sicily. Nor did the Duke forget in the hour of triumph
to be politic. He sent Lanfranc to the Pope at once,
DO doubt with news that Stigand would shordy be sup-
planted, and that England had been brought into the
fold of Rome. For the warriors that Normandy had
sent to the lands of the south, she was richly repdd in
the learned doctors sent by Italy to the northern countries.
Calabria and Sicily were counterbalanced by the arch-
bishoprics of Lanfranc and of Anselm. At a synod
held in Rouen some six years after his great conauest,
William insisted upon reform in the morals oi the
Church, upon strict rules of marriage, on an exact
profession of the orthodox faith. He was not behind-
hand in performing his part of the profitable bargain
that had been made with Rome.

In 1073 Maine started into revolt under Fulk
Rechin,^ nephew of Geoffrey of Anjou, and William
punished it by reducing Le Mans from a sovereign
commonwealth to a mere privileged municipality. After
this the King of England was constantly in his Duchy,
where Robert << Short Hose," his unruly son, was

* This was the prince who, according toOrderic Vital (Hist
Bed. vii.) introduced the long tumed-up boots called *< pig.
aces" which were one sign of effeminacy among the dandies
of the Red King's Court, where <nen wore long hair, shaved off
in front, wide sleeves, and the narrow and flowing robes which
were a very characteristic change from the short tunic of the
Conqueror's men, which permitted them to run or ride, or
fight in freedom.

The Story of Rouen

giving perpetual trouble in Rouen and elsewhere, as
Regent. So imperious were his demands for inde-
pendence and immediate provision, that his father's stern
refusal roused an attempt at open rebellion in which
Robert attacked the Castle of Rouen, with the help
of a few turbulent young nobles of his own unquiet
persuasion. But the Conqueror grimly took their
revenues and with them paid the mercenaries that
warred them down. His son was compelled to fly,
but came back again unwisely to the quarrel, with help
from the French King behind him. At Gerberoi he
actually wounded his father, without recognising him,
and the Conqueror was only saved by the swiftness of
a Wallingford man who sprang to his assistance.

The truce that followed did not last. About this
time occurred the marriage of William's daughter,
Adela, to Stephen of Blois and Chartres, who became
the mother of Stephen of England. The Conqueror's
second son had died in the fatal New Forest, and in
1083 died his faithful wife, Matilda, and was buried at
Caen. The next years were very heavy in both parts
of King William's dominions, and by 1087 the strain
seems to have told even upon his iron frame. For in
that year he stayed for treatment at Rouen, just as he
had done before in Abingdon, and while he lay in bed
King Philip jested at the candles that should be lighted
when this bulky invalid arose from child-bed. Then
William swore one of those terrific oaths which came
naturally to his strong temperament — "Per resurrec-
tionem et splendorem Dei pronuntians " — that he would
indeed light a hundred thousand candles, and at the ex-
pense of Philip, too.^ In August he devastated the Vexin

* " Qant jo, dist-il, releverai
Dedeiz sa terre i messe irai
Riche offrende li porterai
Mille chandeles li ofrerai.''

RobkrtWacb., a.

The Conquest of England

with fire and sword, and as he rode across the hot embers
of the burning city of Mantes, his horse stumbled, and he
was wounded mortally by the high, iron pommel of the
saddle.

He came back dying to his castle of Rouen, and
was there borne from the noisy streets of the city to the
Priory of St. Gervais, where we have already visited
the ancient crypt of St. Mellon. Here for some days
he lay in pain, though without losing speech or con-
sciousness, and sent for Anselm from £ec. But the
prior himself was too ill to get further than St. Sever on
his journey to his master. So the Conqueror disposed
himself to death, giving much treasure to the rebuilding
of churches both in France and England, bequeathing
Normandy and Maine to Robert, and with a last strange
movement of apparent compunction, leaving the throne
of England in the hands of God :

« Non enim tantum decus hereditario jure possedi."

As to the crowning of his son William, he gave the
final decision to Lanfranc. His youngest son, Henri
Beauclerc, the truest Norman of them all, was given
^ye thousand pounds in silver and the prophecy of
future greatness. After releasing all the prisoners in his
dungeons, the Conqueror lay on his couch in St.
Gervais and heard the great bell of the Cathedral of
Rouen ringing for prime on the morning of Thursday
the ninth of September 1087. Upon the sound he
offered up a prayer and died.

Within an hour his death-chamber was desolate and
bare, and the corpse lay well-nigh naked. But the
citizens of Rouen were sore troubled. "Malignus
Guippe spiritus oppido tripudiavit." The news travelled
from Normandy to Sicily in the same day. The arch-
bishop ordered that the body should be taken to Caen,
and by the care of Herlwin this was done, and the dead
Conqueror was floated down the Seine to burial. As

The Story of Rouen

the funeral procession passed through the town the
streets burst into flame, and through the fire and smoke
the monks walked with the bier, chanting the office of
the dead. When the corpse reached the abbey, a
knight objected to the burial, because the land had
forcibly been taken from him. So the seven feet of
the Conqueror's grave was bought, and, not without
more hideous mishaps, the body of Rouen's greatest
duke was at last laid to rest. In 1793 ^^ ^^ tomb
and its contents were utterly destroyed.

Among the prisoners who were released at William's
death was that half-brother, Odo of Bayeux,^ to whose
skill and knowledge is due the marvellous pictorial
record of the Bayeux Tapestry. Its inscripdons are in
the Latin letters of the time, and its eleventh-century
costumes, the short clothes easy to ride or run or fight,
the arms depicted, the clean-shaved faces, are all very
different to those which Orderic Vital describes as
usual in the twelfth century. Neither Matilda the
Queen, nor Matilda the Empress, could have
embroidered the details on the border, and neither
could have known so many facts as the Odo who
was on the Council that advised invasion, who rallied
the troops at Senlac when William was supposed to
have been dead, who was made Regent of England,
Count of Kent, and Bishop of Bayeux. It was to
the advice of this rich, powerful, and intelligent
prelate, that the new and feeble Duke Robert had to
trust in the first year of his reign in Rouen. With
all the vices of the Conqueror, Robert had neither his
virtues nor his strength. The difficulties which met
him first came from a cause too deep-seated for him to
recognise either its value or its far-reaching issues.

I have already described how the first attempts of

1 According to Wace, Odo had been taken in the Isle of
Wight and imprisoned in the << Tower of Rouen** for fbnr
years. See <' Roman de Rou,** v. 14,298.

7«

The Conquest of England

Norman peasants to found a '* commune '' had been
crashed with horrible brutality. The movement now
began again. It is perhaps possible that the very pre-
eminence of the Conqueror over all his barons helped
to emphasise the fact that the feudality which he
employed for his own uses only, and threw away when
he had done with, was not to be an order of things
fixed by any eternal providence. When the King rose
at one end of the social framework the people naturally
came into greater prominence at the other.

The truce of God, insisted upon by William him-
self, had helped to the same end. For every male of
twelve years old swore to help the Bishop to keep that
trace, and by degrees his parishioners combined to
organise the safety of their town, << ex consensu parochiari'
orumJ* They used the resources for which all sub
scribed, and placed them under the control of a
^'gardien de la Confr^rie," or ^^ fraternarum rerum
autos.** While these associations preserved the peace
of the towns, the King was responsible for the peace of
France. But the feeling of independence and the
strength of union grew steadily among the citizens year

Sr year. The rise of commerce, which has been
ready noticed in Rouen, also contributed to this.
As cities grew in wealth, they became more and more
desirous of escaping from feudal rapacity and of regu-
lating their own affairs by magistrates chosen by them-
selves. In 1066 Le Mans had already done this.
Ten years afterwards Cambrai followed the example.
Noyon, Beauvais, Laon, Soissons, and many more
clamoured for the charter of their liberty. In the
absence of so many overlords at the Crusades the
towns beneath the shadow of their castles seized the
opportunity of strengthening their position. The same
spirit of revolt began to work in Rouen as soon as the
strong hand of the Conqueror was taken from the helm
of government. But Rouen did not win her civic

The Story of Rouen

liberty until she had changed her own Norman dukes
for the kings of France. The descendants of Duke
William, feeble as they were, were still too near the
feudal overlord to admit of rapid change. Yet the
leaven was working already, and the disputes of the
Conqueror's children fostered the unruly elements in the
town.

Scarcely three years after Robert had attained the
Duchy he quarrelled openly with his brother^ the Red
King of England; and Rouen was instantly in an
uproar under Conan, a rich bourgeois, who probably
sided with William Rufus, because he saw more
chance of a commune under a distant king than
in the presence of a duke at Rouen. In the days
of the Conqueror there had been no tyrants or dema-
gogues in the city, no armies in civic pay, no deal-
ings of the citizens with other princes. But now the
chance for an independent commonwealth seemed really
to have come. However, the youngest brother, Henri
Beauclerc, came from Cotentin to assist Robert in his
difficulty, but not before the debauched and treacherous
duke had been obliged to fly by the eastern gate of
Robec into the faubourg of Malpalu, where he was
cordially welcomed, and passed on to safety in St.
Sever. Then Henri Beauclerc, "The Lion of
Justice,'* took up the fighting for himself, swiftly
beat back the soldiers of the Red King, threw Conan,
the leader of the revolt, into the Tower of the Dukes
by the Seine, and finally cast him down headlong
from the battlements to die upon the stones beneath.
The place preserved the name of " Saut de Conan "
for many years, in the south-east corner of the Halles.
So this nrst Artevelde of Rouen came to an untimely
end, Henri Beauclerc, helped by Robert of Belesme,
one of the de Warrens (whose tomb is in the church
of Wantage), and by the Count of Evreux, proved far
too strong for him and for his companion in revolt,
80

I'be Fall of Normandy

William^ the son of Ansgar, who had to pay a vast
ransom as the price of disobedience, while many of the
rebellious citizens were massacred, and this immature
attempt to form a commune ended.

The three brothers continued to quarrel, and to
make it up again for some years. First, Robert and
Rufus combine against Henry. Then Robert sends
over troops to help the barons who were rebelling
against his brother in England. Finally he went oS*
with his Uncle Odo on the first crusade in 1096,
pledging the Duchy in his absence to his brother the
Red King, who, of course, seized it, and the real
quarrel between England and France began. For
when Normandy had been independent, Rouen blocked
the road from Winchester to Paris. But as soon as it
belonged outright either to one or to the other, the
ancestral strife of French against English was certain
to begin, and to go on. The revolt of Elias, Count of
Maine, against the English King was repressed by his
imprisonment — by Robert of Bellesme again — in the
same Tour de Rouen that had seen the death of Conan.
But Rufus never used his great gifts and power of ruling
for anything but evil, and his brother Henry followed
him, the husband of that descendant of Edmund and
of Alfred who called herself Matilda at his coronation.

When the weak and incompetent Robert Short
Hose returned from his crusading, he had the temerity
to lay claim not merely to his Duchy but to the throne
of England with it. He naturally lost both, at the
battle of Tinchebray, where Henri Beaucierc won
Normandy, and beat the Normans with his English
•oldiers. For many years Robert languished in English
priaons until he died at Gloucester. And the Duchy
he had lost throve infinitely under his brother's wise
and prosperous rule, which gradually repressed more
and more of the remnants of feudal anarchy and mis-
rule. In 1 1 14, his daughter Matilda gained her title

F 81

T'he Story of Rouen

of Empress by marriage with Henry V., but won her
greatest fame by her second match — after this first
husband's death with Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of
Anjou, in 1125, from which Henry II. of England
was to be bom. But Henri Beauclerc was unfor-
tunate in his other children. For in 11 19 his sons,
William and Richard, were drowned in the White Ship
on their way to England. The occurrence caused a
very painful and widespread sensation, for besides the
brilliant young nobles of the suite, eighteen high-bom
ladies, many of them of royal blood, perished in the
wreck. In Orderic Vital, in William of Malmesbury,
in Henry of Huntingdon, the story is fully set forth.
The captain was the son of that pilot who had steered
William the Conqueror to Pevensey in the good ship
" Mora " built at Rouen. The weather was calm and
bright with moonlight, and as the young princes urged
their captain to row harder after their father's ship, he
took a short cut along the treacherous coast, and the
boat split open on a rock on the night of the 25 th of
November. The only survivcy was a butcher of Rouen,
called Berold, or Gueroult as Robert Wace gives the
name,

" Cil Gueroult de Roem esteit
Machecrier ert, la char vendeit '^ . . .

and he was only preserved because of the thick
clothes he wore through the frost of the night, to be
rescued by some fishermen next morning.

•* Un peli^on avit ve8tu
Ki del grant freit I'ont defendu ;
Iver esteit, grant freit faiseit/*

says the "Roman de Rou" (15,319), so that in the
Rue Massacre (close to the Rue Grosse Horloge) at
Rouen, one home was gladdened with good news after
a catastrophe that threw at least three courts into
mourning, and gave the succession of the English
82

The Fall of Normandy

throne to the great houae of the Plantagenets of
Maine.

Rouen had not remained entirely submissive to the
Lion of Justice. In 1109 the King of France
encouraged yet another rising of the citizens in Rouen
and elsewhere against feudal power. And after, the
wreck of the White Ship, Fulk of Anjou took the
opportunity to push the claims of Duke Robert's son
both in England and Normandy, but the rebels were
badly beaten at Bourgtheroulde ^between Seine and
Rille), and the Lion of Justice held a court in Rouen
to judge them. Some were imprisoned in his Tower
by the Seine, and some in Gloucester, while a satiric
poet, named Luke of Barre, paid the penalty* of being
a pioneer in scofhng politics by having his eyes put
oat. At Henry's death in 1135, Matilda's infant
hrir was still very young at Le Mans, and the
usual anarchy followed both in England and in Nor-
mandy that was inevitable when the direct male line
of Norman Dukes died out. Of the two countries
Normandy had perhaps the fate that was hardest to
bear, for it was better to be ruled by any one than
a Count of that Maine, with whom, as with an ec^ual,
so noany centuries of battles had been fought. But the
strong stock of Anjou and Maine soon took advantage
of the weakness of the Northern Duchy, and in 1 1 44
Geo£h'ey Plantagenet entered Rouen in triumph.

'< C«u fulmen ab alto,''

nogs the poet,

'< Neustria concutitur fulg^re tacta nova"

To an inheritance so rich already, the boy Henry
Plantagenet added all the dominions of Eleanor of
Poitou by marriage, and after the anarchy of Stephen's
reign in England had passed over, the Angevin Empire
be^ui from the Pyrenees to the Firth of Forth. At

The Story of^ Rouen

ten years old the second Henry had been recognised by
Rouen as her duke, and it can be easily understood
that the citizens used every advantage it was possible
to win from the years of his minority^ and from the days
of uncertain authority before it. Already under Henri
Beauclerc the municipality of Rouen had obtained ampler
recognition than before. Its population increased accord-
ingly, and was augmented by the extension of freedom
to a considerable number of serfs. The bounds of the
city itself were enlarged, and from the fact that a fire
is recorded (in November 1131) to have destroyed
the Hotel de Ville, near the Porte Massacre, in the
Rue de la Grosse Horloge, we may gather that the
municipality, whose rights in property were recognised,
had been able to secure a common meeting-place for
the discussion of its civic business. By iijo these
meetings had resulted in a league, definitely made by
the burgesses, to defend their rights against all feudal
encroachments, a league which very nearly deserves
that name of ^' Commune " at last, which was apparently
first given in Normandy to Eu and to St. Quentm.
Geoffrey Plantagenet, during his government of the
Duchy for his son, had recognised the strength of this
civic movement, by confirming the privileges of the
citizens, and favouring the growth of this industrial
corporation. In May of that same year the first law
court of the town, as opposed to feudal or ecclesiastical
justice, was also established, and called the Vicomt6 de
I'Eau. It had the charge of all civil and criminal cases
by river and by land, and kept the standard of the
weights and measures. Its importance may be judged
from the fact that in the hands of the merchants of
Rouen was the monopoly of all wines sent by Seine or
sea towards the north. The Confr^rie of these " March-
ands de I'eau " had been accorded a special port, known
as Dunegate, at Thames' mouth, by Edward the Con-
fessor, and their monopoly extended also to the whole

The Fall of Normandy

trade between Normandy and Ireland, a trade they
kept until the reign of Philip Augustus.

Other corporations were also rapidly increasing in
strength and importance. The tannners, whose
especial church was St. Martin Sur Renelle, received
the charter of their privileges from Henry II. of Eng-
land. The "savetiers" and " cordonniers " enjoyed
privileges that were more ancient still, which were con-
firmed in 1371, in 1660, and in 171 5. The"cor-
donniers" were united in the confrMe of St. Crepin
at the Church of St. Laurent. The "savetiers*'
joined the confr^rie of the Holy Trinity at the Abbey
of St. Amand. The Church of St. Croix des
Pelletiers still preserves the traditions of another con-
fir^Cy that of the " Pelletiers-fourreurs," whose stat-
utes dated from Henri Beauclerc. By 1171 the
** Marchands de I'eau " secured a still further exten-
sion of their privileges through the French King
Louis VII. They were allowed to come up as for
as Pecq to load their barges without interference from
the Parisian confr^rie, whose commerce was limited to
the same point. Forty years afterwards the two con-
Mries united to make the best possible for each out of
the commerce of the Seine ; and the effects of reci-
{HTOcity became evident so soon, that even in 1 1 80 the
merchants of Rouen and of Paris had already come to
an agreement as to the transport of the salt from the
mouth of the river which formed so important a part of
every Norman landowner's revenue.

This gradual increase in self-confidence and power in
Rouen soon proved of direct importance to the King of
England in a somewhat curious way. For when the
King of France had roused one of the English royal
princes to revolt, and Henry Plantagenet himself was
obliged to come to Normandy to the rescue of his
besieged capital, it was by the ringing of the bell that
huog in the town belfry that the city was saved from a

>h. -^1

The Story of Rouen

sudden attack by the French forces that must have
proved successful. This was the famous bell known
as ^< Rouve]/' which rings the alarum henceforth at
every crisis in the history of the town, and its first
public service to the municipality; which had hung it
where the Grosse Horloge stands, was richly rewarded
by King Henry. He freed the citizens of all duty on
their goods on both sides of the Channel, he freed them
from taxation and from forced labour, he confirmed
their ancient privileges, and — most important of all — ^he
gave them an established court of law, composed of
burgesses, and presided over by a " Bailli."

When once the impulse had been given in the right
direction, it is astonishing to notice how fast were the
developments of civic freedom and of commerce which
go henceforth hand-in-hand throughout the story of the
town. When the last sad years of Henry's perpetual
struggle with his sons were over, neither of them dared
to infringe the privileges he had so solemnly granted or
confirmed to the municipality of Rouen. The accession
of the Lionheart was signalised in the Cathedral chap-
terhouse by the characteristic gift of three hundred barrels
of wine, which the canons and the archbishops were to
claim from the Vicomte de I'Eau, and this privilege
the good ecclesiastics thoroughly enjoyed until the
middle of the sixteenth century. The jurisdiction
of the Vicomte de TEau itself, and of the new " Bail-
lage" and the "Maire," was further developed and
established in 1192 ; and the quarrels that are so per-
sistent throughout the history of Rouen, between the
civil and ecclesiastical authorities, found their expression
two years later in a renewed and fiercely contested
struggle about the rights over the Parvis of the Cathe-
dral. The canons, as usual, held their own, and in
the same year asserted their still more extraordinary
right of releasing a prisoner by virtue of the Privilege
of the Fierte of St. Romain, by giving their freedom
86

■Mk

The Fall of Normandy

to two men, on the return of Richard from the Holy
Land, because the privilege had not been exercised
during his imprisonment abroad. There is an ex-
tremely fine impression in wax of one of Richard
Cceur de Lion s seals in the archives of Rouen,
which is one of the few still existing in which he
18 represented on one side as the Eling sitting upon
the throne of England, and on the other as the Duke
of Normandy riding in full armour against his foes.
His is a character that gains from the mystery of
romance cast over it* His career in France shows
little that is creditable either to his head or heart.

In 1 197 the same spirit of assertive independence
was evidenced in the building of stone crosses in all
parts of the city, which lasted until 1562, and re-
corded that their Duke Richard had bought the
manor of Andelys and the rock for his Chateau
Gaillard firom the Archbishop of Rouen, at the price
of two of the town's public mills, the manor of
Louviers, the towns of Dieppe and Bouteilles, and
the forest of Aliermont. The bargain had not been
struck without great agitation, interdicts on the town,
and outcries from laymen and ecclesiastics alike. But
it was well worth any trouble and treasure, and the
Lionheart's " saucy castle *' became the key of Nor-
mandy. His miserable brother John would never
have lost the Duchy had he kept the fort. But
his reign was ever destined to failure and discredit,
and after the murder of Prince Arthur, which is
said to have taken place within the Tower of Rouen
by the Seine, had added gross impolicy to unpardonable
crime, the last descendant of Rollo, who was both
a King of England and a Duke of Normandy, fell
before the power of the King of France. Rouen
surrendered to Philip Augustus, and Normandy be-
came a French province. The change had been an
easy one, for John was far more Angevin and English

The Story of Rouen

than he was Norman, and his Duchy was no longer
the home that William the Conqueror had made a
terror to his neighbours.

Englishmen might indeed regret the loss of that
motherland of heroes which had conquered Sicily and
England too, and mourn to see her seven great cities,
her strong casdes, her stately minsters, and her Teu-
tonic people in a Roman land, all under the jroke of
kings whom Duke William had beaten at Varaville, and
King Henry had conquered at Noyon. But the loss
was England's gain. It meant not only that England
was united under a really English king, but that her
Norman nobles had become her own Englishmen.
Far more had resulted from the immigration finom
the Continent, led by the Conqueror, than is usually

appreciated. Its results were not
merely such tangible documents as
that charter of the liberties of
London, signed by the great Duke
of Rouen, which is still the most
ncuRE FROM THE chcrished possession of the archives
BORDER OF THE ^f ^j^^ Qj William's soldiers

BAYEUX TAPESTRY -ri rn j i /• i

were swirtly roJlowed by peaceral
invaders far more numerous, whose influence was far
more widespreading. Not only did every Norman
baron and abbot bring his own company of chosen
artists and craftsmen with him from France, but
**many of the citizens and merchants of Rouen,"
says the chronicler, "passed over, preferring to be
dwellers in London, inasmuch as it was fitter for
their trading, and better stored with the merchandise
in which they were wont to traffic." One concrete
example of the resulting growth of trade may be quoted.
Before the Conquest, weaving had not been practised in
England as a separate craft for the market. By 1 165
we find a kind of corporation of weavers at Winchester,
who preserved their own customs almost as closely as
88

The Fall of Normandy

the Jew?, contributed indepeodently (like other aliens)
to fiscal demands, and even chose their own aldermen.
Almost the only name that remains to us of those ancient
** portreeves *' oh London, who were the predecessors
of its mayors, is that of Gilbert Beket, a burgher of
Rouen, whose son Thomas was afterwards the martyr
of Canterbury. No doubt these wealthy immigrants
asnsted in the growth of the English towns, both in
commerce and in freedom. The army, the navy, the
universities, trade, and education, as we know them, had
no real existence in England before the Conquest* The
Normans brought in not only the most permanent, but
the most important invasion of alien immigrants, who
affected and directed the development of English habits
and character, and of the English constitution. There
18 little wonder that William had no lack of followers
in his attempt, for the England of the eleventh century
must have appealed to the Normans, the Picards, and
Borgundians, of his mingled company, much as South
Africa still calls our younger sons to-day, as a land of
the promise of indefinite success.

But a still further, and an even less recognised source
of wealth that was a direct result of Duke William's in-
vasion, may be found in the settlement of Jewish traders
who followed him from Normandy, and especially from
Rouen. These were the capitalists, who helped the
King of England to collect his revenue in money rather
than in kind. Though liable to special fiscal exactions,
they were protected by the King from many of the
taxes imposed upon their neighbours. They were estab-
lished, as they had been elsewhere in Europe, in separ-
ate ** Jewries," or places kept apart for them in every
city. Never having been allowed to possess either land
or the rights of citizenship, their wealth was nearly
always in gold. The Jews, indeed, were already the
capitalists of Europe. Many a castle and cathedral
alike owed its existence to their loans. Everyone at

The Story of Rouen

once abhorred yet could not do without them. In
Rouen their history is soon marked by massacre and
crime. As soon as Duke Robert had gone to the
Crusades in 1096, the townsmen rose against the in-
habitants of the Rue aux Juifs, and murdered numbers
of men with their wives and children* The great fire
that took place in the Parish of St. Lo, between 1 116
and 1 1 26, may very likely have been caused by another
attack of the same kind. In any case, it was the un-
happy Jews who paid the penalty; and still more
trouble must have been caused by the fire already
mentioned in 1 1 3 1 which raged round the Porte
Massacre, close to their quarter. When Philip Aug-
ustus drove them all out of France in 1182, the town
of Rouen seized the opportunity to take possession of
the synagogue and houses in the Rue aux Juifs, and
the Jews were only allowed to return sixteen years
afterwards, on the payment of large sums of money.
In 1202 they were again mercilessly "bled" by King
John, and the protection naturally accorded by this
needy prince to their usurious practices was bitterly
resented by the burghers.

The fires that were of such continual occurrence
even in the small space of the Jews' quarter were by
no means confined, unfortunately, to that part of the
city. I have had to notice several times already the
repeated devastation caused in this way to a town that
was still chiefly built of wood, and in the last days of
the Norman Dukes the ravages of fire were excep-
tionally widespread and pitiless. The year 11 16 was a
peculiarly fatal one, and only ten years afterwards flames
broke out in the Rue des Carmes, and devoured both
the Abbey of St. Amand and the Abbey of St. Ouen,
while the Cathedral itself only just escaped, and an earth-
quake that immediately followed the fire completed the
destruction of what little had been left standing within
its area. But the Metropolitan Church which had been
90

The Fall of Normandy

struck by lightning and injured in 1 1 1 7, was not spared
by the soldiers of Geoffrey of Anjou in 1136; and
before the end of the century the whole of the building
that William the Conqueror had seen consecrated before
the invasion of England was destroyed by the flames on
Easter Eve, and of the Cathedral built by his Bishop
Maurilius where the Lion Heart received his crusading
8Word and banner from the Archbishop Gautier^
QOthing now remains except the lower part of the
Tour St. Romain. In that same terrible year of 1 200
the first shrine of St. Maclou was also burnt to the
ground with several other churches, and the fire swept
through the southern parts of the city to the river itself,
and even set alight some buildings of the Tour de
Rouen which the Norman dukes had built, though the
chapel must have been saved, for it is recorded that in
1203 this building was given to his chancellor by
John Lackland. But the ancient donjon to which
Henri Beauclerc had added the palace standing where
the Halles are now, and the fortifications which were
erected near the spot by the same Duke, whose walls
were strong enough to resist for three months a close
siege by Geoffrey Plantagenet after the faubourg of
St. Sever had been ruined, all this was utterly de-
stroyed by Philip Augustus in 1204, and the Chateau
of the French Kings was built near the Porte Bouv-
reoil where the donjon still remains that preserves the
most shameful record in the story of the town. Rouen
has kept no memory of its native dukes.

All this will explain how it was that the French
King began his rule in a Rouen that was almost as
stripped of buildings as the Rotomagus that Rollo took.
But there was the vital difference that the " unarmed
crowd '' had been replaced by burgesses conscious of
their strength, by confr^ries whose privileges and
statutes did not depend on bricks and mortar, and by
citizens who had just begun to realise the value of their

The Story of Rouen

civic independence. The Knights Templars had of
course their own commanderie in so important a centre
of industry and wealth, but all vestiges of their habita-
tion were swept away when the order was so mercilessly
suppressed by Philippe-le-Bel. I have shown else-
where that by 1312 this order had become as much
the bankers of Europe as were the Jews of a century
before, and that the charges of witchcraft had merely
been trumped up by royal debtors who preferred hang-
ing their creditors to paying their bills. The sign
of the Barde or Barge Royale, now in the Mus^e
des Antiquites is the only remnant of the Templars left
in Rouen. A " Commanderie " that lasted far longer
in the town was that of St. Antoine, which was
established in 1095 ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ those suffering from the
horrible disease known as St. Anthony's Fire. It
continued its good work until 1 790. Another founda-
tion that had its origin in the same charitable instincts
was the Hospital of the Mont-aux-Malades, founded
to care for cases of the terrible leprosy brought back
by the Crusaders from the East. This was first in-
stituted by the citizens themselves in 1 1 3 1 , and a few
years afterwards was placed under the care of a priory
of Augustinian monks. The Church of St. Gilles was
then founded on the same spot, and the hospital's funds
were increased by Guillaume Baril of St. Maclou. In
1 162, Henry II. of England still further added to
the revenues of the priory and hospital by giving it
the rent and privileges of the Foire de St. Gilles
with half of the octroi duty. It was to be held for a
week on the first of September every year, and fourteen
years afterwards the same king rebuilt the hospital
entirely and placed the new church under the patronage
of St. Thomas of Canterbury.

This church is one of the few buildings of the time
before Philip Augustus that you may still see. To
reach it you go up the Rue Cauchoise, along the Rue
9a

7 be Fall of Normandy

Sl Gervais, past the Abbey of St. Gervais, where
the Conqueror died, and where the 'old crypt of
St. Mellon still exists, then up a long and steep hill,
on whose very summit is a village street with a broad
iron raiHng that opens to your right into a pretty
avenue of limes, with the worn steps of an old stone
cross or fountain to the left of the church inside. At
first you will be shocked and disappointed by the
hideous modem restoration of the west front, with its
side aisles, that are but poor specimens of pointed
architecture. But go boldly inside and you will
•ee the church of good, plain Norman work, dedi-
cated by King Henry to the memory of the murdered
English archbishop, and built by his chamberlain,
Roscelin. The original building had the simple nave
with its apse beyond, that we shall see on the other
ode of the town of St. Julien. There is a further
disappointment in store when you find the incongruous
windows inserted in the chancel and the aisles that
were added later on to the original nave. To under-
stand what has happened you must go to the outside of
the east end, and there you will see how the old round
Norman apse was cut o^, and a squared end was stuck
on instead with a large pointed window, and how a
new outside roof was clumsily fitted on to cover both
the aisles and the nave as well, a job so badly cal-
culated that the tops of the eastern aisle-windows on
both sides show above the line of roof, and the open-
ings themselves are blocked. When I saw it in 1897
the church was in process of being joined on to the
religious buildings which surround it, and the closed
eastern openings had been altered, in the north aisle to
a round-headed recess, and in the south aisle to the
altar of a chapel. But the five round-headed Norman
arches of the nave remain, with the four smaller ones
in the choir. Above the nave arches are five narrow
round-arched windows which do not correspond with

I'he Story of Rouen

the pillars beneath, but are merely holes in a thick
wall instead of spaces between vaulting-shafts, as they
are in the perfect Gothic of St. Ouen. But even so
these windows are far better than the incongruous
pointed work in the newer aisles. There is no tran-
sept, and the roof is a plain vault. The round columns,
too, are quite plain, with slight carving here and there
upon the capitals. And this is all that is left of the
church which Henry II. ordered to be built in 1 1 76*
Twenty-one parishes used to send their lepers to
this hospital, and those who could not pay their fees
were helped to do so from the parish purse. In 1 478
each leper was obliged to bring with him (among other
things), a bed with its sheets, all his body-linen and
towels, his cooking pots and table ware, and various
articles of clothing, besides 62 sous i denier for the
prior, 5 sous for the servants,^ and three ** hanaps " or
drinking vessels, one of silver. Evidently all this was
not what a poor patient could often afford, and we
find, without surprise, the parish St. John objecting to
the rule in case of one Perrecte Deshays, who had been
sent there by order of the officials, and could not
possibly afford the list of necessaries claimed by the
prior. So a compromise was made that for all lepers
in the twenty-one parishes who could not give what
the rules required, a sum of twenty livres from the
parish authorities would be accepted as an equivalent.
The treasurers of every parish were bound, in the
public safety, to report to the proper town official every
case of leprosy within their bounds. This official then
took medical advice about the sick person, and if the
leprosy was certified ordered the sequestration of the
invalid. The acts in which these orders were carried
out continue very frequent, even in the first half of the
sixteenth century, and especially in the parish of Octe-

1 The complete list has been printed from the archives of
Rouen by M. Ch. de Beaurepaire.

The Fall of Normandy

Tille. The leper was conducted to the hospital with
exactly the same ceremony as was used for the inter-
ment of the dead, and was followed by all the members
of the confr^rie to which he belonged, and preceded
by a mourner ringing a dirge. One of the statutes of
a confr^rie ordaining this procession has been preserved
(Arch, de la Seine Inferieure, G. 5,238) : — " Le ser-
oient tenus convoier jusques a sa malladerie le maistre
et Tarlets portans leurs sourplis et capperons vestus a
toolt la croix et banniere et clochette, et sy luy feroit
Fen semblable service comme a ung trespasse en I'eglise
o(^ il seroit demourant en lad. vOle et sy seroit led.
Tarlet tenu crier par les carfours comme pour ung
treraasse."

Another of these charitable refuges for lepers was
built for Rouen by an English king in 1 183 at Petit-
Qu^villy, outside the town on the south side of the
Seine. The Hospital of St. Julien was placed by
Eling Henry II. under the protection of the older
Priory of Grammont, which is now a powder magazine.
It was called the " Salle aux Pucelles," or " Nobles
Lepreuses," because its patients were at first limited to
royal or nobles families. In 1366 the " Maladrerie"
appears to have outlived its original objects, and was
changed into a priory, which retained the old chapel, and
seems to have kept up a public hospital of wider scope
under the patronage of Charles V. of France. It was
then known as the Prieurl St. Julien. Later on it
got the name of '* Chartreux " from the Carthusians
who settled there when they were turned out of the
Chartreuse de la Rose, which our Henry the Fifth
had made his headquarters during his seige of Rouen
early in the fifteenth century. It was to Quevilly
also that the monks came for refuge when the be-
sieging army of Henri Quatre wrecked their abbey
on St. Catherine's Hill above the town. Something
of all this changing history is perceived in the names

the Story o/Roaen

that the traTcller sees tn his way to the Bttle church
to-day For he can cither go there from the Pmit
Boieldieu in an electric car marked "Place Char-
treux," or he may tell his coachman to drive hiro to
the "Chapelle St. Julien, Rue de I'Horoice, Pctn-
Qugnlly " Unlesa he enjoys hunting on foot for two
■mall gabled roofs and a round apae, htddeo away
in the comer of some ancient and twiating atreeti
among deserted fields, dnving there will be far moK
satisfactory, and the
visit u well worth hn
while

The little builduig,
whose very uolatira
has perhaps helped to
preserve it, is now vwy
justly classed among
the best of the '* Moon-
ments Histonque* de
France ' m Not-
mandy There u no
tower On the Ime
beneath the roof round

the

according to the tradiiio

the heads of hairy
Franks and Saxony
D of the older Norman archi-
tecture at the Church of St Paul's, which we shidl
next visit, near the river Near the western end, on
the noithem exterior, ig a dilapidated Madonna, and
an old bricked'Up doorway. But it is the inside that
will chiefly repay you for your trouble. Through the
triple portal of the west entrance, with plain round
arches set on slightly carved Norman capitals, you pass
at once into the nave. The whole effect is that which
can be only given by simple, honest, and good work-
96

7 be Fall of Normandy

manahip. The restoration was carried out with a
reverential conscientiousness that is far too rare, by M.
Guillaume Lecointe, and by him this precious relic of
twelfth-century architecture and art was given to the
Commune of Petit-Qu^villy. A small arcade of en-
gaged colonnettes goes right round the whole church ;
the larger pillars have carved capitals, and there is the
usual conventional Norman moulding on the round
arches.

In the apse are four round-headed windows, all
slightly smaller than the four in the choir and the
six in the nave. In the chancel-arch there are two
clustered columns, and also in the nave and apse. The
others have plain round shafts. The simple vaulting
of the choir and apse is excellently done, and on the
roof above the choir you see the frescoes that are the
chief treasure of the place, representing scenes from the
Annunciation, the Wise Men, the FJight into Egypt,
and other Biblical subjects. These paintings are
boldly and well executed, and are of the highest
interest. Indeed, their workmanship is such, that
many antiquaries refused to believe that they were
contemporary with the building itself. As if the
little chapel had not suffered vicissitudes enough, it
wit put up to public auction at the Revolution in
1 789, and used by its new proprietors as a stable and
granary. They were careful to cover the whole of
their ceiling with a thick coat of whitewash, and it
18 only in the last few years that the patriotic work of M.
Lecointe has been completed by the careful recovery of
these ancient paintings from beneath their bed of white-
wash. Even then their value was not fully appreciated,
and only when M. LeRoy had submitted certain de-
tached portions to a chemical analysis was it proved
that frescoes of the twelfth century had really been
preserved.

By this careful observer it has been shown that a

o 97

The Story of Rouen

couch of sandy mortar was first laid on the stones of
the vault, then a second layer, rich in lime, and
especially in white of egg, was applied, and the
surface was ready for the application of the colours.
These are blue, green, yellow ochre, reddish-brown,
black, and white. Cobalt blue, or ^^ azure,'' was only
discovered in the sixteenth century by a German glass-
maker. The blue used in these paintings is the true
** outremer " of the twelfth century, the solid colour
made from lapislazuli, which was worth its weight in
gold. That it was employed at all, is one more evi-
dence of the munificence of Henry II. in his foandft-
don. The green is a mixture of this blue with the
yellow ochre. The white was made of powdered t^
shells, and the black is lamp black. From the fitct
that the colouring matter has in no case penetrated
the prepared surface, but adheres to it, we may argoe
finally that the process in which white of egg is the
chief constituent was used to lay on the colours.

Besides the heart of Richard Coeur de Lion, the
Cathedral of Rouen contains another relic of the
Norman days in the tomb of that Empress Matilda,
who as Countess of Anjou, gave Henry Plantagenet
to the throne of England, and died in 1167. Her
rich sepulchre at Bee was pillaged by the English in
1 42 1, and the restored monument was desecrated in
1793, but in 1846 the original casket was discovered
by the fortunate stroke of a pickaxe, and now rests in
the Cathedral. In 1 1 24 the shrine containing the body
of the famous St. Romain was opened in the presence
of the King and Queen of England, and nfty-foor
years afterwards, ^ the decorations made for it by
Guillaume Bonne Ame had been taken for alms to the
poor. Archbishop Rotrou made a new and more
magnificent covering for the venerated relics that play
so large a part in the story of the town. This new and
Norman shrine it must have been which was carried by

The Fall of Normandy

the two prisoners, delivered by the Privilege of the
Fierte in 1 194, but it has long ago been replaced by
later work.

There is but one more religious monument, the last
building I can show you in this chapter, that has
remained from these centuries until now. Walk along
the riverside eastwards, and as the .^ - .

waters flow from Paris towards you
on your right, stop where the chalk
dam of St. Catherine's Mount
begin to slope downwards from
the left hand of the road. Just
between it and the river is the
Church of St. Paul, which stands corbel prom the old
where the first Christian altar re- ^°*^ °' '"^ ^^^'•
placed the Temple of Adonis, and watched with St.
Gervais and St. Godard the infant town of Rotho-
magus arise.

It was no doubt at the time when St. Romain him-
•elf finally destroyed the Tarasque of idolatry that this
first church arose above the ruins of the pagan shrine.
But of Roman or Merovingian structures St. Paul can
show no trace. It has, however, an extremely inter-
esting early Norman apse, which is different to every-
thing else in Rouen, and older than any other build-
ing, save St. Mellon's crypt at St. Gervais. By
going round the outside you can see three apses, and
as you stand there, the midmost apse is the Norman
building, that on your left is of the ninth century, and
that on the right of the fourteenth. This Norman
flat-buttressed and round-arched apse is directed to the
cast of summer, while the new church in the same
place points to the east of winter, and is almost at right
angles to the older one. The corbels outside, beneath
the roof, are carved with the hairy-bearded faces of
conquered Franks and Saxons, who were thus set up to
the perpetual derision of their clean-shaved Norman

The Story of Rouen

victors. The idea is as old as the Temple of Agri-
gentum in 600 b.c., where the conquered Africans
hold up the weight of the building, and recalls the
barbarity of the primitive Sagas, which relate how the
bleeding heads of enemies themselves were placed around
the temples of the Norsemen.

The nave goes back into some private property be-
yond the churchyard, in which a forgotten tomb liei
mouldering behind the railings. In the grass to die
right of the old apse you can see a pointed arch spring-
ing from a capital, which shows how the surroundiog
soil has risen since the thirteenth century. This old
building is all used as the vestry of the new church,
through which you must pass to see the interior of the
ancient buildings. Once vdthin them, you will find
nearest to you the fourteenth-century work of which a
fragment showed outside. Then comes the Norraaa
chapel, that recalls the work in the abbey of St. George's
de Boscherville. Beyond that again is the ninth-cen-
tury '* Saxon " buildings. The archaic quality of the
decoration is very notable in the capital that represents
the adoration of the Magi, and indicates the relative
importance of the personages by the size in which each
is carved, just as is done in the Egyptian sculptures.

With these few relics the tale of Norman architec-
ture in Rouen is finished. From a short survey of this
town alone, no one who had never seen Caen or Cou-
tances would imagine that he was in the duchy which
possessed a school of architecture that was developed
into Notre Dame, on the one hand, in the He de France,
and into Durham, on the other, in England. In our
own island the architecture before the eleventh century,
which it supplanted, known as the Anglo-Saxon, was a
primitive Romanesque of purely Italian origin, as shown
in Bradford-on-Avon Church, which was built by
Ealdhelm in Wessex long before the Conquest. This
is the only entire building of the earlier style that we
100

7be Fall of Normandy

lum, though the towers of EaH'a Barton, of ByweU,
of Sl Beoets u Cambndge, remain to show tta affio-
ity to the styles of Italy and Western Europe, aod
of the Campanilea Even when the Norman work first
appears, it is not without a great deal of that Byzantine
element which is expressed b; a spreading cupola and
a central lantern
But thi* early
Norman building is
very rar^ and that
u why the three
churches I have
jnat descnbed in
Rooen have a TaJue
that is Kaicely
realised by travellers
who are m search
for Gothic or Re-
naissance architecture
only. They are
somewhat difficult
of access too, and
little known, but
they will repay a
nait> They show
tlie fbnn of the Latin
limb besides the apse, the choir beneath the central
tower that replaced the Byzantine cupola, and a
little vanltiDg in the aisles Onginally they had a
flat ceiling for freseoes. This is a style that was
neither that of Southern Italy nor that of Aquitaine
It may have been a distinctively national development
of the Lombard schools of Pavia or Milan But in
any case, though purely local at first, it utterly aup-
pbnted the Primitive Romanesque that had hitherto
been the common possession of Western Europe just as,
in luer centuries, the pointed style utterly swept away

The Story a/Rou

the round arch in all its forms of expression. An(
•the coming chapters it is with the pointed arch that
shall have more and more to deal. To Italy, \
imitated it helplessly, the Northern Gothic never becj
even remotely national in its expression. The na
Southern Romanesque was there only approprial
replaced by the really Italian style developed in
Roman Renaissance. But in the North, where
early pointed arch had been at first only a mem
of Paynim victories, or a trophy of early Saracc
work, the pointed style as a school of architecture '
destined to triumph immediately it rose from the posit
of mere ornament to the necessity of a construci
feature. It was the problem of vaulting over a sp
that was not square, which gave the pointed arch
reason for absolute existence, its beauty of pro^
strength and adequate proportion. Some of
noblest forms of its development are to be found in
buildings we shall see later on in Rouen.

I02

ROUEN

THIffTEENTH CENTUffY

CHAPTER VI
A French Town

Lifdi de piriete clurablt, e[ lignum, quod inter

I V the Norman capital that Philip Augustus added to
the royal domain of France was not particularly
rich, u I have ghowa, in architectural beauty, it pos-
MMed Kimething more eoduring even
tlun rtooe, more vital than any school
of architecture, something also far
more precious as an indication of
coining prosperity and strength ; and
thii woa the beginning of the inde-
pendence and wealth of the citizens
of Rouen, as symbolised by the be-
ginning of their Commune. This
■pirit of independence, and bold
awertion of consecrated privilege, was
not limited to the laymen. Perhaps its most un-
expected expansion is to be found in that Privilege
de Sb Romain exercised by the Cathedral Chapter-
bonier whoK beginning has been already mentioned
in the fablei of the Church (see pp. 38 to 41).
To appreciate the state of things in this connection,
^lich Philip Augustus found in Rouen, you must
recall two facts that I stated in earlier pages.
They are, first, the institution of the Poire du Pai^on
by the Conqueror (see p. 69}, and, second, the
opponunity ot^red for experiments in independence
103

The Story of Rouen

whether civic or ecclesiastical, by the years of
Stephen's anarchy in England, and of Henry Planta-
genet's minority in France (see p. 84) between the
years 1135 and 1 145.

I am enabled to limit the date of the beginning of
the Privilege de St. Romain to this particular inter-
val, because a formal inquiry in 12 10 established the
facts, on sworn testimony, that there had been no
objection made to the privilege in the reigns of Richard
Coeur de Lion or of Henry IL, and the details given
of the procession to the Norman castle and the visit of
the canons to the dungeons show that the machinery of
ceremonial had already advanced to a certain degree of
age and elaboration. In the first of these reigns there
is indeed definite reference to the fact that no prboner
was released in 11939 because the Lion-hearted Duke
was himself a captive ; and as a graceful recognition of
this courtesy the Chapter were permitted to release
two prisoners in 1 1 94 to compensate for the voluntary
lapse of one year. This again would show that the
privilege was already known and recognised as tradi-
tional and proper. We can go still further back in
the process of limitation ; for Orderic Vital, who died
in 1 1 4 1, describes the first bringing of St. Romain'sbody
to the Cathedral, and says nothing either of the dragon
or the privilege ; nor, indeed, could the essential part
of the ceremony known as the " Levee de la Fierte *'
have taken place before the jewelled shrine had been
made (see p. 98) to hold the sacred relics which the
prisoner bore upon his shoulders. Now it is not likely
that Henry Plantagenet, when he came into his kingdom
in 1 1459 would have permitted so grave a limitation of
the royal prerogative to arise for the first time ; and,
on the other hand, it is extremely probable that it
should arise during the years of his minority, when, as
we have seen, experiments in independence were quite
the ^hion. It is therefore practically certain that the
1 04

A French Town

PiiYildge de St. Romain began sooo after 1 1359 though
not 80 late as 1 1 45.

The year 12 10, already mentioned, is the first date
on which an actual record exists of the liberated
prisoner's name. His crime is not mentioned, though
we know that it involved the penalty of death. But
the date is important because of the inquiry insisted on
by the governor of the Castle, when the Chapter of
the Cadiedral claimed his release by exercising their
Himous Privilege. When the dispute was referred to
Philip Augustus, who was naturally anxious to con-
ciliate the powerful clergy in his new domains, the
chevalier Richard (who was the military protector of
the abbey of St. Medard at Soissons), was given to
the canons, and in gratitude for this escape from mortal
peril,^ he granted the Cathedral the perpetual rent upon
his public mill.

From this case it is clear that so glaring a renuncia-
tion of the incommunicable sovereign rights of life and
death could only have been successfully obtained by the
regular intercession made to each duke for the release
of one prisoner every year ; and the origin of that
intercession can be explained with perfect probability
by the persistent mediaeval custom of the " Mysteries ''
or Miracle Plays, which came into fashion as soon as
the confif^ries of various trades had been consolidated,
just about the time the craft guilds appeared in Eng-
land, in 1 1 30, a date that fits in very well with the
beginmng of St. Romain's *^ privilege.'' These
Mysteries or Miracle Plays were, as has been noticed,
often performed in the Parvis of the Cathedral, and
their nrst object was to represent the truths of Scrip-
ture to the people in the most intelligible and pictur-
esque way. Ascension Day was one of the festivals
of the Church which most especially needed some such

^ « Cum essem in periculo corporis mei in regio carcere
tpud Rothomagum detentus," he says.

105

T'he Story of Rouen

educational and popular celebration, to impress upon
men's minds how Christ by ascending to His Father to
free them from the Devil and from everlasting death,
had opened wide the gates of heaven, and taken cap-
tivity captive. No more striking significance could have
been given to the meaning of the festival than by the
public release of a prisoner who had been condemned
to death. By slow degrees this release became an
annual grace accorded to the Church in its holy office
of public instructor.

And it was no new thing to invest with such extra-
ordinary privileges the powerful princes of a church
which was the visible representative of Divine Pro-
vidence on earth.i The bishops of Orleans, for in-
stance, possessed even until the last years of Louis XV.
the prerogative of pardoning every single criminal in
the prisons on the day of their solemn entry into their
episcopal see. This, at first sight, appears a wider
power than any possessed by a bishop of Rouen, who,
on one day in the year, voted as a canon in his Chapter-
house for the release of one prisoner and his accom-
plices. But the opportunity of the bishops of Orleans
came only once in a lifetime, that of the Chapterhouse of
Rouen was renewed against all opposition every year
for some six centuries, and M. Floquet has discovered
a manuscript which proves that the prerogative of
pardon was granted in addition, within certain limits,
to the bishop by virtue of his office, as it was in 1593,
when Guillaume de Vienne entered his diocese in state
on a Sunday in September 1393. Yet no historian

1 Outside France the Bishop of Geneva is a famous example
of this ecclesiastical right of pardon ; and even limiting our-
selves to French Territory, apart from Orleans, we shall find
instances at Laon, at Vend6me on the Fete of St. Lazare, at
the Petit Chitelet of Paris on Palm Sunday, and at Embrun.
But in none of these cases is there either proof or record of so
continuous and persistent an exercise of the privilege as is
found at Rouen.

X06

A French I'oivn

seems yet to have noticed this most striking fact. How
it must have impressed the popular imagination may
easily be estimated from the known horrors of the
dungeons and ^^ lakes of misery " in which, at Rouen
and most mediaeval cities, the criminals were con-
demned to linger. The " resurrection of the dead "
would be no exaggerated description for the act of
pardon which released a prisoner from the hideous dens
of a twelfth-century jail. Certainly no act could more
clearly fix on all men's minds the meaning of a sacred
season and the power of the Church.

In 1 1 35 the great fi^te of St. Romain, the most
important yet held in Rouen, had been instituted for
only about fifty years. Its pardons, its processions,
and its ^r were still fresh in the popular imagination,
and would be very likely to be secured as the chief
attraction in the first great " Miracle- Play " that was
given under the patronage of the Church at Ascension-
tide, for they kept alive the memory of the patron
saint of Rouen, who had delivered his city from the
Dragon of Idolatry by means of a condemned
prisoner. So the idea of the Ascension Mystery
became inextricably connected with the great saint of
the town, yet the Privilege itself was not exerted on
his feast day, the 23rd of October, but on Ascension
Day, when the Virgin was also represented as crushing
the serpent's head. For two days in the great Ascen-
sion Festival the flaming monster was moved before
the cross through all the streets of Rouen. On the
third day, which was Ascension Day itself, the dragon
followed, bound and vanquished, behind it.

So it is that we find this first recorded prisoner. Chevalier
Richard, speaking of the " Privilege " as " «i Vhonneur
de ia glorieuse Vierge Marie et de Saint Romain.*' ^

^ With this phrase in 1210 compare the words recorded in
MS. 69 in the Rouen Library, where the privilege is spoken of
as '' auordea la Sainte vUrge Marie et au lienheureux Saint Romaim^**

in i»99- 107

The Story of' Rouen

fiy 121O9 therefore^ these two holy names had
become definitely associated with the << Lev^e de la
Fierte," and Xht JUrte was already raised upon the
shoulders of the prisoner to signify the new yoke of the
Christian religion which he took upon him in exchai^
for the sins from whose consequence he had been merci-
fully delivered. Where Chevalier Richard, in 121O9
raised the jewelled shrine of the relics of St. Romain, at
the chapel of the old castle of the Dukes of Normandy,
on the very same spot did Nicolas Behlrie and his w&
raise it in 1 790, on the last occasion when the "Privil^e**
was exercised. The custom had continued through the
centuries in the place of its origin, though Norman
castles had been replaced by the prison of Philip
Augustus, though the fiaillage had been built, though
the Englishmen under Henry V. had taken the town,
though the Conciergerie of later reigns existed. The
conservatism of the Church had led her thus uncon-
sciously to preserve the secret of the origin of her
Privilege from the days when the prisons of the last
Norman dukes had been the only appropriate scene
for her most striking and gorgeous public ceremony.

The little open chapel built upon the same spot now
(see p. 37), saw the last deliverance of 1790, and still
preserves the name of the " Fierte St» RomainJ* An
excellent and well-proportioned example of the archi-
tecture of the sixteenth century, it was used for the
first time in 15439 and shows in every detail of its
construction and arrangement that it was expressly
planned for this especial ceremony. Of the cere-
mony itself I shall have more to say later on. For
the present I must content myself with this neces-
sary explanation of its origin and locality. From
the lists of the prisoners I shall very frequently have
occasion to take a striking example of the manners
of the time, as the tale of the city is gradually un-
folded, in which this Privilege de St. Romain is
108

ji French Town

perhaps the most exceptional and striking feature. But
it is only by the second half of the fourteenth century
that the names are written down with a sufficient regu-
larity to admit of useful reference. During the thirteenth
century, at which I have now arrived, there are only
three names actually preserved, though the continuation
of the Privilege is fully proved by the inevitable quarrels
between the ecclesiastical and civil authorities, of which
conspicuous examples occur in 1 207 and in 1 299.

The canons did not shrink from laying the town
under an interdict when the lawyers proved recalcitrant,
and- took every opportunity to enforce the recognition
of their permanent right of choosing their prisoner at
the season of the year consecrated to the exercise of
their peculiar privilege. The same Bailly of Rouen
who had objected to this in 1299, found, to his cost,
that it was dangerous to repeat his attempts to thwart
the ecclesiastics. For when their freedom of choice
was again infringed only three years afterwards, the
Chapter brought the sacred shrine to the chapel in
the Place de la Vieille Tour, and, after explaining
what had happened to the people, they left this ven-
erated palladium of the town out in the open square
until their privileges had been recognised. For the
Thursday of Ascension Day, for the Friday and
Saturday following, it remained there guarded by
certain of the clergy and by many pious citizens.
Each day it was solemnly visited by a procession
firom the Cathedral, accompanied by a sympathising
crowd that daily grew larger and more vehement.
By the Sunday morning the Baillage gave in, and
the canons released the prisoner with a ceremony
that was more than usually impressive after the oppo-
sition that had preceded it.

Such quarrels were the more probable just now, be-
cause the ecclesiastics were thus tenacious of their << privi-
l^e" just when the infant commune was beginning

109

The Story of Rouen

to feel its strength, when commerce was becoming
regular, and even a town militia makes its appear-
ance ; for die *^ Compagnie de la Cinquantaine,'' some-
tames called the Arbal^triers, were able to trace back
their foundations to 1204, when an inquiry was held
and their privileges confirmed more than five hundred
and fifty years afterwards. The conmiune itself was
also fully approved by Philip Augustus, who confirmed
its possession of certain common lands in the suburbs
which had been granted by Duke Richard. By the
same date the ^* bourgeois" or sworn freemen were
exercising the free choice of their twelve councillors and
twelve aldermen, and sent up to the King from among
them three candidates out of whom His Majesty selected
the Mayor of Rouen ; and this civic constitution lasted
until 1320. It was revised by St. Louis, in 1255,
and the same king reformed the civic expenditure by
establishing the Chambre des Comptes which held its
sittings in later centuries in the Renaissance building
north-west of the Cathedral. In 1220 the commone
obtained from the King for an annual rent of 40 iivres,
the house and land of the Earl of Leicester close to
the Porte Massacre, and the Church of Notre Dame
de la Ronde, and there they built the Belfry Tower
and the Hotel de Ville, which lasted until 1 449 and
is still represented by the buildings in the Rue de la
Grosse Horloge above the famous archway near the
Hotel de Nord.

This fief of the Earl of Leicester was but one of the
many acquisitions by which Philip Augustus gradually
bought out the feudal barons and made sure of Nor-
mandy. Other property of the Montforts, and of
William the Marshal ^ are examples. And if the

^ M. Paul Meyer, head of the £cole des Chartes, has, I
hear, just discovered a mediaeval poem about this interesting
person, called the ^'Histoirede Guillaume le Marshal. '^ It
was in the British Museum, and his edition will be of great
interest to British history.
J 10

A French Town

Eang allowed his burgesses their Hotel de Ville, we
may be sure he destroyed the castles of the barons
whene?er it was possible. Even that ancient fortress
of the Dukes of Normandy, called the Tour de Rouen,
or the Haute Vieille Tour, he pulled down, destroying
their double wall and filling up their triple moat, and
erected on the " Place Bouvreuil " the new castle of the
kings of France, with its six towers and the donjon
keep which still exists, and is called the Tour Jeanne
d'Arc. The other buildings only lasted until 1590,
though a mill could be seen for almost another century
which was still worked by the water that ran from the
stream of Gaalor which supplied the well of the casde-
keep^ and was used later on for many other fountains
in die city. By 1250 it had already been led through
underground channels to the Rue Massacre, and by
1456 the Fountain of the Town Belfry was established
wluch is now represented by the Fontaine de la Grosse
Horloge, built in 1732. The waters themselves come
originally from a spring near the foot of the Mont-
aux-Malades. In his new castle Philip Augustus
ordained the Echiquier de Normandie, as the supreme
Tribunal of Justice in the province, whose courts were
to lie alternately at Rouen, Caen, and Falaise.

Soon afterwards the land occupied by the palace
of William the Conqueror was nearly all given up to
the burgesses for purposes of their trade. They were
permitted to extend the buildings to the quays provided
they did not intercept trafHc on the river. By 1 224
the drapers had obtained lands in the forest of Roumare
for the proper manufacture of their woollen stuffs,
which were always a staple of commerce in Rouen,
and they used these '^ Halles " for the exhibition and
•ale of dieir wares. The courtyard must have looked
very much as it does to-day, with the addition of
cloisters and open shop-fronts. By 1325 commerce
had grown there so much that << sales in the dark "

III

The Story of Rouen

had to be forbidden by law. St. Louis granted the
extension of the market-halls over the whole ground
on which the Norman dukes had built, and established
in 1256 the market called <^March6 de la Vteille
Tour." This king was an especial fiiend of the
Archbishop Odo Rigaud, and both were zealous in the
reforms necessary to Church and State. In 1262 the
Cathedral gave up to the King certain possessions outside
the town in exchange for the public mills of Rouen ;
and property was further centralised by the royal charter
granting these Halles, with the March6 de la Vieille
Tour, for an annual rent to the mayor and burgesses
of the town, who were also given full rights of posses-
sion in the streams of Robec and Aubette. St. Louis
also established the right of the citizens to insist on
their debtors coming to Rouen itself to adjust their
legal difHculties, and further assisted commerce by
prohibiting strange merchants from retail trade in the
city, and by making all Jews wear a circle of yellow
(called rouelle) on back and breast, as a distinctive
mark.

The commercial privileges which I have already
mentioned (see p. 85) were fully confirmed by Philip
Augustus, especially with regard to exports to Ireland,
while Louis IX. continued the gradual consolidation of
the river trade in the hands of the Rouen merchants.
What this involved, may be seen from the case which
was brought before the Parliament of Paris in 1 272,
when the Mayor of Rouen had seized six barrels of
wine which a landowner was bringing (as he asserted)
from his vineyards to his own house by river. Every
quay along the bank was rapidly taken possession of by
the merchants, and by 1282 the famous ^^Clos aux
Galees, between the Rue du Vieux Palais and the
Rue de Fontenelle, was built in the parish of St. Eloi
as a dockyard for purposes of commerce and of war.
But not long after this the space appears to have been
112

A French Town

needed for other purposes, and the real ^'Clos des
Gal6e8 '' was moved across the river to the other bank
at the end of the Empress Bridge, or <<Pont de
Mathilde." In a charter of 12979 the change is
marked by the name, " Neuves-Galles," and this occurs
again in 1 308. It is remarkable as the first arsenal ever
used for artillery in France; for cannon, arms, and
powder were all stored here in later times, and here
were built the ships that fought in the Hundred Years'
War by Charles VL, out of wood from the forests of
Roumare. Just before the great siege by the English
in 141 8 the citizens destroyed it, but the name remained
in the hostelry called the ^' Enseigne de la Galore."
Then the "Grenier a sel " and the "Hotel des
Gabelles" were built on the same spot; and finally
yon can only imagine very vaguely where the first
dockyards of Rouen were when you look now at the
Caserne St. Sever.

In tracing out the changes that have come in each
century to the aspect of the town, it is not often we
shall find a locality so persistent in its character as the
Place de la Haute et Basse Veiile Tour, when once
its military strength had been changed into commercial
convenience. The older castle, originally built more to
the north-west by Rollo, between the Church of St.
Pierre du Chastel and the Rue des Charrettes, had long
ago absolutely disappeared, and its place was taken by
a Franciscan convent, given to the brethren in 1^48 by
Archbishop Rigaud, who had been originally a monk
of the Order; and the ruins of their building may
be seen in the street which, as Rue des Cordeliers, still
preserves their name. Another change that is still
recorded in the nomenclature of the streets took place
when Louis VIII. allowed the inhabitants to build
gardens and almshouses in what had once been the
moat of tlie old town walls. This you may trace in
the name of the Rue des Fosses Louis VIII., formerly

H 113

The Story of Rouen

the Rue de 1' Aamdne. In die same way the Rue des
Cannes preserves the fact that the Carmelite monks
brought by St. Louis from the Holy Land, migrated
to the street that bears their name in 1 336, and remained
there for a very Jong time.

But everything did not go smoothly in the streets of
Rouen while these pacific changes were in progress.
In 1 2 1 3 the town was filled with the levy of counts,
barons, and knights, with all their men-at-arms, whom
Philip was collecting to attack the King of England ;
and in 1 250 a far more disorderly and plebeian assembly
gathered under the leadership of Andre de St* Leonard
to express in the practical form of riot and pillage their
disapprobation of the ten per cent, exacted by the
Church for grinding corn in the ecclesiastical milk.
Near the Pont de Robec and the Rue du P^re Adam
flour and wheat were forcibly stolen, but Archbishop
Odo Rigaud soon asserted his authority, by fining the
ringleader 100 marks of silver, equivalent to about
jQiooo sterling, and the dissatisfaction ceased. In
the next year a rising, that had some slight degree of
religious colour in it, gave a good deal of trouble, not
to Rouen only, but to the rest of France. Bands of
peasants, styling themselves " Pastoureaux," asserted
their indignation at the captivity of King Louis IX.
by chasing the archbishop out of his cathedral. From
the ^ct that they had been joined, not merely by all
the lazy rufHans of the neighbourhood, but by some
burgesses, and even by certain municipal office-holders,
we may infer that the privileges or prerogatives of the
Church were once more the real objects of the dis-
pute. Though the ecclesiastics were as usual strong
enough to exact a public apology and absolution fix)m
the mayor and his councillors, the strange frenzy
spread to the Provinces ; men averred that the Holy
Virgin and her angels had appeared to urge them to
release St. Louis, and it was necessary for Queen
114

-.w.jkj

A French Town

Blanche herself to intervene before the trouble was
stopped in Paris and many parts of France.

This widespread affection felt for St. Louis may,
perhaps, be explained not only by his personality, but
by the fact that he was always moving from one part of
his dominions to another, in spite of the obvious incon-
veniences of mediaeval travel. I have already noticed
some of the things he did for Rouen on his various
visits. But such pilgrimages as that of 1255 to Adam
Bacon, the solitary abbot of St. Catherine, cannot
have failed to increase his local reputation. He cele-
brated Christmas here in 1 264, after another short visit
previously on his way from Pont de I'Arche to Bee,
and in 1269 he came again from Port-Audemer. On
every such occasion he prayed in the churches and left
offerings suitable to his rank ; he ate in the refectories
with the monksy he dispensed alms to the poor, and gave
money or its equivalent to the hospitals. His charity
was, mdeed, extraordinary, for Queen Margaret's Con-
fessor has related that he not only fed the hungry at his
every meal, but went round the beds in the sick houses,
smoothing the pillows of the sufferers, speaking to them,
and trying to supply their wants.

It was when King Louis came with his mother,
Blanche of Castile, to keep the Christmas of 1255 at
Rouen, that the greater part of the choir, transept, and
nave of the Cathedral as we see it now was finished.
The monastical developments of previous centuries had
done their work ; the power of the great abbots and
priors, which raised them into feudal dignitaries, with
large wealth and wide possessions, had reached its limit.
The rise of the communes in every town, and the pas-
sion for civic liberty which accompanied them and gave
them birth, as we have traced it in Rouen, was taken
advantage of by the archbishops in those fruitful years
which lay between 11 80 and 1240. The royal power,
personified here by Philip Augustus, was as much con-

The Story of Rouen

oeraed as die burgesses in the dimination of feudality.
Even the great secular nobles were not averse to en-
couraging a movement that appeared to coonteiact the
importance of their most dangerous ecclesiastical rivals.
So that religious and political motives came together,
just at this one momentous period, to produce an en-
thusiasm for building which has never been equalled
before or since. The gradual development of the
sacred edifice from the crypt, like that catacomb of
St. Gervais, through the form of die Roman basiUca,
with its simple nave and round apse, to the new de-
velopments of choir and chapels, introduced by Suger,
had not proceeded without leaving on the finished
product — ^which has been called Gothic — the traces
of its growth. And this is one reason why, until the
fourteenth century at least, the Cathedral retained the
mingled characteristics of a building that was both civil
and ecclesiastical, that was used both for the divine
offices and for political, even military assemblies.

In what I shall have to say of the architecture called
Gothic,^ I would not have it thought that I exclude the
praise of beauty from every other form of building, for
there are Renaissance buildings, for instance, in Rouen
alone that would contradict such barren dogmatism at
the outset. The reserve and the harmonious prc^xNtion
of the Cour des Comptes have a value of their own
quite independent of the Gothic unrestraint and revdry
of carving in the Portail des Libraires. But I cannot
conceal my preference for one form of beauty over

^ In the matter of this word << Gothic/' I am of the opinion
of R^nan, who writes: <' En Allemagne jusqu'au quatorzidme
si^de ce style s'appeia ^ opus Francigenumt at c'est U le nom
qu'il aurait dii garden'' If it is too much to expect of future
writers that they will give up the phrase, let them at least
follow the advice of Mr Moore and limit << Gothic ** to the
French pointed school of the lie de France. Our owa archi-
tecture has already received quite enough additional labels to
prevent confusion

ii6

A French T'own

another, my delight in the most organic form of art the
world has ever seen, the true " master art *' of Gothic,
as opposed to that ^Mooking backward '* which was
the Renaissance, to that defiance of the rule of progress
which bade men advance to different developments of
organic living forms in every single branch of life, except
in the greatest art of all. The Middle Ages had in-
herited a direct succession of harmonious forms, one
rising out of another until the perfection was attained.
Then came the Black Death, and the no less ^tal
scourges of Commercialism and Bureaucracy. Men's
thoughts apparently became so riveted upon the grave
that they must go back to the art of the dead Romans
and the formalism of classical examples to keep breath
in their bones at alL And even so, they informed the
skeleton with a new life. In such new creations of the
aged spirit as the French Renaissance Chateaux of
Touraine, or Rouen's Hotel Bourgtheroulde, they
showed what vigour there was left, if only it had been
permitted to remain original. Nor is there any hope
of betterment in architecture, or any art, to-day, until
something of the spirit has come back to us which made
each citizen proud of the house he lived in, or of the
House of God he helped to build, until the love of
workmanship that built the old cathedrals has returned.
Through those doors, which were shut sternly in the
buct of princes under the Church's ban, the poor man
gladly passed from the hovel that was his home. Out
of the dark twisting streets whose crowded houses
pressed even against the walls of the Cathedral, the
homblest citizen might turn towards the beauty of a
building greater and more wonderful than any that
his feudal lord could boast. He found there not
merely the sanctuary, not merely the shrine of all
that was holiest in history or in creed, but the epi-
tome of his own life, the handicrafts of his various
guilds, as at Rouen, the tale of all his humblest

117

The Story of Rouen

occupaiioDf, the mockery of hit netghboun' fbibk%
the leuoDi of the horror of an. For befwe the
end of the thirteenth century, the handicraftsmen, lu-
sociated into such gnilds as we have aeen io Rouen,
had not only won their freedom from arbitrary oppres-
sion, but had secured so large a share in the govern'
ment of the towns, that within the next fifty yeai^
the heads of the communes were nearly always the
delegates from the craft-guilds. The zenith of Gothic
architecture coincided with this period of their triumph ;
its bright, and glittering, and joyfijl art spread all OTcr
the mtelligent world, and more especially m France ; it
was not contented with merely architecural fornu in
colourless cathedrals, bat
decorated thera with carringi
pamted in gay colours, uxd
every space for pcturn,
drew upon all literature fix
Its materials. In Daole,
Chaucer, and Petrarch, in
the German Niebelungenlied,
in the French romances, in
the Icelandic Sagas, in
Froissart and the chroaiden,
: spirit; and each town smote
upon the walls of its cathedral.
Every village, even, had its painter, its carren, its
actors ; the cathedrals that have remained are but
the standard from which we may imagine the loving
perfection to which every form of craftsman's art was
carried. And their work gives us such pleasure now
because they had such intense pleasure in doing the
work themselves.

For the masons had gone to iheir new task with

a will. Freed from the thick and shadowy archwav*

piled upon heavy piers, which had obscured the old

priestly and dermatic Romanesque, the builder* of the

Ii8

A French Town

new cathedral revelled in the new found Gothic of the
people, and raised their soaring arches to the sky, and
crowned their pinnacles with wreaths that flamed into
the clouds. And upon every inch of wall they wrote
and wrought upon the living stone, '< magistri de vivis
lapidibus/' until every detail of the world of worship-
pers was gathered up and sanctified by this expression
of its new found meaning, as a part of the mystery and
the beauty of holiness.

It is significant of the democratic nature of this
architectural outburst, that the first communes signal-
ised their liberty by the earliest cathedrals, at Noyon,
SoissoDS, Laon, Reims, Amiens, in the capital of
France, and in the capital of Normandy. It was
early in this same century (1203) ^^^ Normandy
became part of the crown domain together with Maine,
Anjou, Touraine, Poitou, and Limousin. Before the
century was done, Languedoc, the County of Toulouse,
part of Auvergne, and Champagne were also included
in the royal domain. More than this, the Head of the
Church himself had come in 1 309 to live in Avignon,
and this movement had, no doubt, its effect upon religi-
ons sentiment in the nation to whose charge St. Peter's
representative committed himself; for religion had of
course the greatest part in a movement that could never
have been so widespread and so creative without its
powerful motives ; but, even in spite of the immense
unpulse given by the crusades, religion would never have
got its opportunity at all, if <* politics " had not at the
very moment been ripe for contemporaneous expansion,
if the people and the King had not simultaneously been
ready to give expression to a movement in which liberty
and unity were the greatest factors. Thus it is that
the cathedrals are the first visible basis of that French
nationality into which the scattered provinces of Gaul
had expanded, the first germ of that creative genius of
French art which has not yet lost its right of place in

119

The Story of Rouen

Europe, the first clear record of the nadooal intellect
And the people were not slow to recognise the meaning
of the carvings that were placed where all who ran might
ready placed there by men of like passions with them-
selveSy copied often so directly from themselyesy that
the cathedrals may be regarded as the great record
of the ancestry of the common people. The em-
blazoned tomb, or the herald's parchment, might fidy
chronicle the proud descent of the solitary feudal lord ;
but the brothers and kinsmen of his dependents were
carved in their habits as they lived upon the church's
walls, and there they work at their appointed tasks, and
laugh at their superiors, unto this day. So the people
filled their church with throngs of worshippers, with
merry-making crowds, with vast audiences of the great
mediaeval Mystery Plays, with riotous assemblages some-
times not too decent, whose rough humour has been
preserved for us in the thousand grotesque carvings
of the time.

I have been at this length in explaining the building
of the cathedrals, because it would be impossible for
you, without some such suggestion of their origin,
to realise the meaning of the carvings which cover
the great north and south porches of the transept at
Rouen. I choose them first out of the mass of detail
and construction in this enormous and heterogeneous
building, because they are most typical of the feeling
which gave it birth, and of the craftsmen who worked
upon it. It is wellnigh impossible to attempt any
explanation of the many styles, from the twelfth
century to the sixteenth, which are commingled, super-
imposed even, without any feeling in the mind of the
architect, for the time being, except that of the imperi-
ous need for self-expression, regardless of the fashions
of his predecessor. In the great western facade this
mingling of the styles is most observable. The angle
towers are absolutely unlike, the arches are broken, the
1 20

A French Town

pinnacles are smashed short off, niches are mutilated,
and arabesques are worn away, yet in the healing rays
of moonlight, the whole composes into a mysterious
beauty of its own that will not bear the strict analysis
of glaring day.

But the Portail aux Libraires which Jean Davi,
the architect of the Chapelle de la Vierge, built for
Archbishop Guillaume de Flavacourt in 1278, will
bear microscopic examination in every part, and the
reverently careful restorations carried out some time
ago by MM. Desmarest and Barthllemy have only
brought to light the exquisite perfection of the original
work. This gate to the northern transept got its
name from the special trade which gradually was con-
nected with that portion of the Cathedral bounds. I
have already noticed how the Parvis was filled with
various shops and booths, and this space before the
northern gate was similarly appropriated by booksellers
until at least some time after the sixteenth century was
over. What I have to say now is connected with the
actual portal itself. The fore-court once filled with
bookstalls, that leads up to it, was only decorated in
1480 by Guillaume Pontifz, who also erected the
fine screen that opens into it from the Rue St. Romain.
On the east side of this court you may see St. Genevieve
standing with a Bible in her left hand, and a candle in
her right. Upon one shoulder a tiny angel tries to
kindle the light, while on the other a wicked little
devil with a pair of bellows is perched ready to blow
it out again. The panel decoration upon the buttresses
of this north door has been selected by Mr Ruskin as
the high- water mark of Gothic tracery before its decline
began. It takes the form of blind windows carved
upon the solid stone, and is certainly an exquisite
example of varied, yet severe proportion and arrange-
ment. Its plan expresses the true qualities of the
material with a right regard for mass in decoration,

121

iiifil nil i *liiiil1>lBMii .^.

The Story of Rouen

rather than for line, the fatal change which wrought so
much damage after the earlier ruling principle had been
given up.

This same acute observer, blessed with more leisure
time than I have ever had in Rouen or elsewhere, was
able to make certain remarks on the detailed carvings
of the door itself, which must be at least suggested in
any other description. My own count of the separate
carvings does not agree with that made by Mr Ruskin,
and in a mere matter of mathematics I may be bold
enough to differ publicly, where agreement is so inevi-
table with the main thesis of his argument. Some idea
may be obtained of the work expended on this one
portion of the Cathedral alone, when I say that in the
centre of the door is a square pedestal, on each of
whose four sides are five medallions vertically arranged.
Within the great encompassing arch, on each side, is a
cluster of three more square pedestals similarly decorated.
The arch itself has seventeen medallions upon each
pillar, the top five on each side being cut in half by a
moulding. Beyond the arch to right and left are two
other pedestals with the same five ornaments on their
two faces. Thus, if you count the smaller pillars only,
there are twenty-four rows of five, or 1 20 medallions,
and adding those on the arch, you get a total of 154.
Even this is not all ; for on each medallion or panel
its separate bas-relief is contained within a quatrefoil.
None of their arcs are semi-circles, and none of their
basic figures are squares, for each panel is slightly varied
in size from its neighbours. The result is that intervals
of various shapes are left at each of the four angles of
every quatrefoil, and into each interval is fitted a differ-
ent animal, which gives the astonishing result of 596
minor carvings in this one doorway, all of them repre-
senting living things, and all of them subsidiary to
the larger subjects which they frame. If you measure
these tiny sculptures you will find the base of the curved
122

V-.4I

Tbe Story of Rouen

triangle they adorn to average about four inches long,
its height being just half that distance. When you
look closer at those which are least worn away you
will find them clearly enough carved to represent un-
mistakably in one instance the peculiar reverted eye of
a dog gnawing something in jest, and ready to run away
with it ; in another, the wrinkled skin that is pressed
over a cheekbone by an angry fist; in a third, the
growth of wing and scale upon a lizard.

Think of the life and energy that were pulsing through
the brain of the craftsman who could so fill the sur£ice
of the stone. Think of the time that he was ready
to give up to patient chiselling at this one task till it
was perfect to his mind. And then consider more
closely the quatrefoils, small in themselves, which *vat
yet far larger than the details which surround them.
The best known is one that has suffered terribly in
the wear and tear of nearly six centuries. It is the
famous bas-relief of the hooded pig playing on a violin,
a motive which recurs at Winchester and in York
Minster. Its fingers are placed so accurately upon the
bow that the method of playing has formed a type of late
twelfth-century style in all collections of musical anti-
quities. The Minstrel's Gallery in Exeter Cathedral
may profitably be compared with it. This accuracy of
execution in an essential detail shows the patient copy-
ing from life which accompanied — and indeed was
necessary to — the vivid imagination that could create
so many non-existent monsters. For among all these
grotesque chimeras and fantastic mixtures of the ani-
mal and human element you will notice the creative
faculty in its strongest development. These strange
beasts, half man and half a goat, part woman and
part fish, have each of them a reality of individual life,
a possibility of visualised construction, that is marvellous
in its appeal to the spectator. Another violin player
appears upon this same door, this time with a human
124

A French Town

head set on the body of a beast, and beside it some
small animal dances to the tune.

The mediaeval carver was no mystic symbolist. But
he felt so much and so vividly that when two strongly
opposed ideas came into his head at once he had to ex-
press himself by throwing them together into one newly-
forged creation of a woman-ape, or a dog-man. He
had besides his own thoughts all that strange gallery to
draw from, of sirens, harpies, centaurs, which a dying
mythology bequeathed. You may trace most of the
Metamorphoses of Ovid on the walls of the cathedrals.
Then there were the queer bestiaries of his own doctors,
the early Mandevilles, the Presterjohns of the twelfth
century, the Munchausens of all time. From these
he inherited the Sciopod upon the door of Sens, the
cynoscephalae, and ** men whose heads do grow beneath
their shoulders." He lived, too, in an age far more
pictorial, far more given to the living allegory, than any
centuries to which the cold print of a book alone ap-
pealed. Architecture, as he knew it, ceased when printing
became cheap. But in his days the Bible of the people,
the encyclopaedia of the poor, the general guide to
heavenly or terrestrial knowledge of the mass of wor-
shippers, was what they saw in the Mystery Plays, or
what was carved for them (often inspired from the
same dramatic source) upon the walls of their cathe-
drals. When he had tried all these, there remained the
thousand simple incidents of daily life, such as the
mother welcoming her child which is on this Portail
des Libraires and was copied from it (as is the case
in six other instances) in the misericordes of the choir
in 1 467, or the man who steals clothes from the line
as FalstafF's ragged regiment did (a rufHan who is no
doubt commemorated also in the name of Rue Tirelin-
ceuil at Rouen), or the burglar walking off with a
chest upon the southern transept, while the owner
soundly kicks him and tries to take it back.

Its

The Story of Rouen

This southern door is called the Portail de la
Calende from the confi^rie of that name, but the
derivation is rather uncertaioy and some authorities
consider it refers to certain ecclesiastical assemblies,
distinct from the synod, which were held four times
a year in this part of the CathedraL The plan
of the quatrefoils is much the same as that of the
<< Libraires." Within the tall embracing arch it is
indeed identical, but upon the arch itself fourteen
panels are set on each side, and outside it are no less
than three double clusters both to right and left, which
increases the total of panels to 227. In this enormous
number, I have already mentioned one; but perhaps
the best known is that which illustrates a very popular
mediaeval legend, the <<Lai d'Aristote/' which also
recurs in the misereres of the choir. It suggests the
eternal supremacy of woman over man, even the wisest,
by representing the typical philosopher of the middle
ages saddled and bridled by a gay lady of Alexander's
court, who sits upon his back and whips him heartily.
This is rather difHcult to see, as it is high up on a
buttress beneath a statue at the side of the Rue des
Bonnetiers. From mythology you will find here count-
less sirens, some playing instruments before their victims,
others, like the mermaid of the fable, admiring themselves
in mirrors and waving a seductive comb. There is
also yet another violin player, with his back towards
you, playing to a dancer who is posturing head down-
wards on his hands, like the daughter of Herodias upon
the west facade.

I have already given the name of one of the master-
masons who were associated with this great pile of
buildings, where the sound of chisel and mallet can
have scarcely ever ceased from the twelfth century to
the sixteenth. But Jean Davi's work was necessarily
one of the last finishing touches upon a building that
Others had reared in the mass for him to decorate in
126

A French Town

detail. The various churches that had been conse-
crated on the same spot have been recorded in their
turn, from the first primitive shrine of St. Mellon,
in the fourth century, to that greater fane seen by
the Conqueror, which was almost entirely burnt in
1 200. The lower part of the Tour St. Romain is
certainly a part of die cathedral St. Maurilius con-
secrated. To say exactly when the work of recon-
struction was begun which St. Louis saw completed
has puzzled antiquarians far more diligent and learned
than I am. But M. Viollet le Due has pointed to un-
mistakable signs of work earlier than the rest in the
two circular chapels of the apse, in the chapels of the
transept, and in the two side-doors of the western
fe^ade, which open to the aisles. M. de Beaurepaire
has also demonstrated, from a close study of the Chapter-
house accounts, that when Richard de Malpalu was
dean in 1200, one Jean d'Andeli is spoken of as
*^ Cementario, tunc magistro fabrice ecclesiae rothoma-
gensis.'' He was also a relation of one of the canons.
The Chronique du Bee gives the credit of initiating the
design to Ingelramus, or Enguerrand, from 1200 to
12I4; but this does not contradict the possibility of
partners in the work, and that the choir at any rate was
done before the Norman influence was much affected by
the He de France, may be seen at once in the fourteen
tall and strong round pillars with their simple capitals and
massive round arches, which produce a very fine effect
of pure solidity amongst the lighter pointed work sur-
rounding them. After Enguerrand came " Durand le
Machon," who dwelt in the same house that Jean
d'Andeli had held on lease, and after him, again, the
name of Gautier de St. Hilaire occurs before that of
Jean Davi towards the end of the thirteenth century.

The period of the first coming of Philip Augustus in
the ten years after 12 10 is strongly marked by the in-
fluence of the He de France, and by the French Gothic

127

7'be Story of Rouen

work of Suger, which at lirst swept out of its path every
other style with which it came in contact. But by
degrees the Norman transition re-asserts itsdf, and
the northern pointed work made its appearance, whose
history is completed in Eoglaod, and is a different
school Trom the Gothic on the French side of the
Channel. But every century and every style
ha*e had itd say and
left its miirk upon
the ^bnc of Rouen
After the thirteenth
century had built
choir and transepts
and 3 great part of
the nave and before
its close had begun

the decoration of the magniliccnt side portals, and the
refinement of the Lady Chapel, the first thing the

fifteenth century did ■
the choir after its own ma
daws of the nave as well
in the fourteenth century ai
a rose window in the navi

enlarge the windows of
ner, and widen the wid-

The only names we find
• that of the architect of
and a tomb of Charles

A French Tou;n

v., which ha^e both disappeared, and that of Jean
de BayeoXy the boilder of the civic belfry tower at the
Hotel de Ville. Bat the perpetrator of the enlarged
choir windows was Jehan Salvart, who worked for
Henry V. during the English occupation, and is for-
given much, because he was with Le Roux at the
finishing of the exquisite church of St. Maclou. The
glass was put in by Jean Senlis.

I may as well complete the tale of architects now
that I have begun it, though the detail of their work
is fitter given in the order of its making, later on. But
it is so rare that these master-masons have left any
traces of themselves at all, that I may perhaps be
pardoned for giving the full list that is hardly possible
in any other great cathedral in the world. Jean
Roussel succeeded to his father of Bayeux in 1430, to
be followed in 1452 by Geoffroi Richier for eleven
years. Guillaume Pontifz was perhaps the greatest con-
tributor of any of these later men. In the thirty-four
years of his office, the stalls of the choir, representing
the various crafts, were carved by several workmen,
whose names will be given later, at the cost of nearly
7000 livres, borne by the Cardinal d'Estoute ville, the
Portail de la Calende was completed, a new top placed
upon the Tour St. Romain, a frigid and unpteasing
staircase built in the north transept to lead up to the
canon's library, and the courtyard, with its entrance
screen placed in the Rue St. Romain before the
Portail des Libraires. He also began the Tour dc
Beurre, but left it to be finished by Jacques Le Roux,
who had done so much for St. Maclou, but died a
poor man in 1500, and was buried beneath the organ.
Within the lart of this tower that he built was hung
the great bell ** Georges d'Amboise," thrr biggfst out-
side Russia, which shared with ** Rouvel " the afTection
of the citizens, which rejoiced the heart of Francis the
First, and cracked with grief in 1786 at b'.-ing called

I 12(j

The Story of Rouen

upon to ring for Louis XVI. It was his nephew,
Rouland Leroux, whose help was called in when the
canons desired to embellish their west facade and have
a finer central door. This work was begun in 1 508
with the money of Georges d'Amboise, and Pierre
Desaubeaulx did the central tympanum. Jean Ther-
oulde, Pierre Dalix, another Leroux, Nicolas Quesnel,
Hance de Bony, and Denis Lerebours worked at the
statuettes. A screen of open work (carrying the
clock) was raised in front of the rose window, and
four turrets were added, of which but one remains.
So Rouland Leroux finished his contract in 1527,
having left for himself a greater fame in the masonry oJF
the central tower, whose base he rebuilt after the old
stone spire had been destroyed by fire, and especially
in the tomb of Cardinal d'Amboise, than ever he will
gain by the patchwork of the west fagade. What he
could do with a free hand and his own designs to begin
with, may be imagined from the fact that he built die
Bureau des Finances on the opposite side of the Panris
and laid the first plans for the Palais de Justice. No
wonder that he worked at Havre, at Beauvais, and at
Angers, as well as in his native town.

I shall hardly be blamed, I think, if among the full
tones of a praise that must become monotonous, a
single note of regretful misunderstanding cannot remain
quite unheard ; and I must confess that in this western
front so many unfinished and supervening designs occur
that I find myself unable to imagine the meaning of its
builders. Considering, first of all, the arrangement of
its detail, I find elaborate flower-mouldings and re-
naissance-work placed so high up that they can barely
be distinguished as anything save light and shade,
whereas upon the Portail des Libraires all such delicate
work ceases at about 9 feet high, and the upper carving
is done boldly in broad, simple masses for an effect of
distance. But if this is bad flamboyant work, the
130

A French I'own

central gate itself is purer, and perhaps among the
finest examples existing of the flamboyant style. There
are four strings of niches round this porch from the
ground to the top of the arch, each holding two figures ;
every detail in them and about them is worked with
the most elaborate and tender patience, full of imagina-
tiye canringSy trellised with leaves and blossoms deep
wrought in the stone. At this part of the western
front and at the northern side-door I could never tire
of looking. But the whole fagade I had to give up in
despair, save when the moonlight softened it into a
tracery of lace- work climbing to the sky, as delicate as
the pattern of white spray upon a rising wave.

The masonry upon the central tower I have already
mentioned. In 1544 it was crowned, by Robert Bec-
quet, with a light spire of wood, 132 metres in height,
that was burnt by the lightning in 1821.^ The new
cast-iron erection, with which it has been replaced, may
best be described as possessing half the height of the
Eiffel Tower with none of the excuses for the Colonne
de Juillet, of which M. Alavoine, its architect, was also
the designer. For the present I need only add that
both the western towers could actually be placed, all
but their last two metres, inside the nave of Beauvais.
The nave of Rouen is but 28 metres high, and 136 in
length, from the Portail to the apse of the Chapelle de
la Vierge ; and as a matter of possible proportion it is
interesting to note that the old spire could just have
lain down inside it. At first it had no chapels, but
these were built later on between the buttresses, as was
done at Notre Dame in Paris. The transept measures
50 metres in breadth, which is just the height of the
great lantern above it, that is beneath the central
tower.

^ In 1897 two men were still alive who saw it burn, and all
the gargoyles vomiting molten lead ; they were M. Noel the
Librarian, and le p^re Pepin, janitor of the Town Belfry.

i3«

^be Story of Rouen

From here, as from the heart of Normandy, flowed
the life blood of Rouen through her arteries of traffic
clustering round the great Cathedral. Within its walls
the noblest of her dead are gathered, returning to the
central shrine that gave them birth and being. With
the completion of the first main bulk of its design the
story of the town that built it is brought to a definite
point of development. I shall no longer be obliged to
go even as deeply as I have hitherto felt necessary into
the details of the civic history, for Rouen is henceforth a
part of France, and the seal of her nationality is stamped
large upon her. Till now, she has been slowly growing
out of the mists of aboriginal antiquity, through Mero-
vingian bloodshed, to become the pirate's stronghold,
and then the capital of the Northmen's Duchy. When
she had fulfilled her mission by carrying French arts
and Norman strength into the English kingdom, she
lost a little of that individuality of character which
I have traced through former pages, just as a mother
loses the first bloom of her girlhood when her son
is born. Though Rouen once more passed for some
years into the possession of an English king, the days
of her captivity — with its culminating shame — are as
little agreeable for us to hear, as for her citizens to
remember, and Englishmen will no longer take that
vital interest in her each year's growth, with which
a grandson reads the memoirs of his forefather.

So I have somewhat altered the plan of the next
chapters in accordance with what I suspect to be the
sympathies of those who have done me the honour
to follow me thus far.

If you are content to let me guide you further among
the many buildings, whose very origin I have not yet
had time to trace, you will find that to nearly every
one of them may be attached some brilliant episode
that stands out in a century, or some over-shadowing
personage whose life-story dominates a generation of his
132

A French Town

fellow-citizens. So that, as we visit these old walls
together, they shall speak to us in no uncertain voice,
of the lives of those who built them, and of the progress
of the town. Until now, there have been but few build-
ings to which I could point as the visible witnesses of
my written word. So that my story has had to pro-
ceed but slowly on its way, without the illustration
which your eyes in Rouen streets could give it, making
a gradual ground-work of which there are hardly any
traces left. But with the building of the Cathedral I
have reached a point where the tale of civic, or religi-
ous, or private houses that are still to be seen, is the tale
of Rouen, told on pages well-nigh imperishable. These
mile-stones on our road henceforth become so frequent,
that in passing from one to the other, I shall have
hardly any need to fill the gaps in a history that is
at once more modern, and more easily understood.
And as we left off with the highest expression of
religious fervour, the Cathedral, we may well pass
on, for the sake of contrast, to the most visible sign
of purely municipal development, the belfry of the
old Hotel de Ville, the famous buildings of the Rue
de la Grosse Horloge.

»33

CHAPTER VII

La Rue de la Gross e Horloge

Une rue d^icieuse ou le monde se pourm^ne, oil tousioun
il y ha du vent, de I'umbre et du soleil, de la pluye et de
I'amour. Ha! Hal riez doncques, allez-y doncquesi c'est
une rue tousiours neufve, tousiours royale, tousioun imp^ale,
une rue patrioticque, une rue a deux trottoirs, une rue ouverte
des deux bouts . . . brief, c'est la royne des rues, tousiours
entre la terra et le ciel, une rue a fontaine, une rue a laquelle
rien ne manque pour estre c^i^br^ parmi les rues.

npHE cluster of old buildings which are beneath the
shadow of the belfry are perhaps better known
to strangers than any other piece of architecture in the
town. It is the focal point of Rouen, the centre of its
civic life, and if you are fortunate enough to live quite
close to it, as I did, you will find yourself in the best
place for starting on nearly every expedition that your
fancy may dictate.^ The Rue de la Grosse Horloge
itself is one of those memorable thoroughfares of which
nearly every old French town possesses at least one
fascinating example, the kind of street that, in his
" Contes Drolatiques," Balzac has so admirably de-
scribed in making mention of the Rue Royale at
Tours. A glance at even the few streets marked
upon Map B will show its structural importance in the
economy of the town. For the Cathedral has stood

^ In venturing to suggest a few such expeditions in my
appendix, I have found it convenient to assume that even if my
reader were not a guest in the Hotel du Nord, he would invari-
ably come to the archway of the Grosse Horloge to meditate on
the programme for the day

La Kue de la Grosse Horloge

m different fbrmt vBfoa the fame ^x»c once the fifth
century, and this atreet ataits from immediately oppoiite
its western gate. In the earfiest days it was stopped at
the other end by the gate dvoagh which the Roman
road passed, across the Vienx Marche, towards Cale-
turn (Lillebonne). In later times the Porte Mastacre
was built there, which takes its name, not from the
wholesale nuuder of the Jews in the adjoining quarter,
but from the botchers who congregated close by in the
Rue Nfassacre, or Roe des Machecriers ( Wace^s word
for a butcher), which is called the Rut de la Boucherie'
de-Massacre in a title-deed o^ 1 454.

The Place du Vieux Mafche is a ^wl -Amovt as
historic in its way as the Parvis of the Cathedral, so
that there is interest at both ends of the Rue df: la
Grosse Hoffloge. Its most terrible memory ii the burn-
ing of Jeanne d'Arc, which fa» I shall show from
Ldieor's plan in a later chapter) Utok pbce at die nnglf
of the modem halls, and clote to the cemetery of the
vanished church of St. Sauveur, on the samf spot in
the Vieux Bffarche used since the earlier history of
Rooen as one of the many places of yMic execution.
The Rue de la Grosse Horloge has alto U-en called the
Grande Rue, and serersl oth^ nanKrs which need mH
be recorded here; for botii by geographical position
and in its own right it ha« always claimed a large share
in the interest of the citizens of Rouen. ^ Much of
its once beautiful architecture has vaniihed alt/;getli«rr.
The church of St. H'-rbland, for instance, once st/i^xl
at its eastern extremity, opposite the Cathedral, i^ut
of the Gothic work of 148^ not a stone Is to be
seen. The stained glass windows were Uiught by a
traveller in 1802, and by him taken to Itngland, after
the Reroludon had suppressed the Church.

^ Their afiectton w%« not alwayt gmnrifnatical, a« may U
•een from tht old thle ** Roc du Or'/i Horl^^e " on the comer
of die ttreet tonlay.

'35

The Story of Rouen

A somewhat better fate has awaited the exquisite
example of French Renaissance architecture which
used to be at No. 129. Of this very remarkable
house, known for uncertain reasons as the Maison de
Diane de Poitiers, and certainly worthy of any court
beauty of the time, the fa9ade has been carefully pre-
served in the little square behind the Tour St. Andre
in the Rue Jeanne d'Arc, As the upper storeys pro-
ject over the road, it must have been built before 1520,
the date after which such overhanging constructions
were forbidden. Every inch of the wooden surface is
covered with delicate arabesques and figures. The
proportions of the various storeys are admirably indi-
cated, and the wall-openings grow smaller as they rise,
until the whole is crowned with an equilateral triangle,
in which a round-headed arch on square pilasters Ills
the central space. A round medallion with a bust is
placed on each side of the second storey windows, and
the floors are boldly indicated by deep lines of shadowed
carving. The house, of which nothing but this marvel-
lous fagade remains, was originally called by the sign of
the Cock, and is known to have belonged on the 30th
May 1525, to Jean Le Roy, who appears in the parish
lists of 1 47 1 as a draper. His son Noel married another
of the bourgeoisie, one Marion Ribault ; and from her
possession until .the town bought it from the Hospital,
which held it last, the line of title-deeds is unbroken ;
th^ important point to notice being that it was built not
by a noble, but by a tradesman.^

But it is the Grosse Horloge itself that is the jewel
of the street. As you look at it from the west you can
see constructions built in the Middle Ages, in the
Renaissance, in the reign of Henri Quatre, and in the
days of Louis Quinze. The Belfry Tower, or Cam-

1 There is a charming picture by Bonington, who was par-
ticularly attracted by Rouen, of " Le Gros Horloge," showing
this house still in its old place in the famous street.

136

La Rue de la Grosse Horloge

panile, is, as is fitting to its ancient history, the oldest
building of them all. There was a tower here from
the earliest days when Rouen had a civic history at
all, a <* Ban-cloque " to call her citizens together,
which is mentioned in the city charters as a s3rmbol of
her freedom. First hung here in 1 1 50, the old bell first
saved the town in 1 174 during the siege by Louis VII.
In the next century the bell was recast with the follow-
ing inscription : — ^ie suis nomme rouvel rogier le

FERON ME FIST FERE JEHAN DAMIENS ME FIST. This is

not without significance, for though the King had
given the ground for the new Hotel de Ville, it was
only the Mayor, Le Feron, who in 1258 had a right
to order the communal bell which called the citizens to
their orderly municipal meetings, or summoned tliem to
revolt against oppression. On the larger bell, originally
used as the curfew, are the words: — ie suis nomme

CACHE RIBAUT MARTIN PIGACHE ME FIST FERE NICOLE
FE8SART ME FIST AMENDER lEHAN DAMIENS ME FIST.

Pigache was Mayor in 1254, and Fessart in 1261.
In February 138 1 Rouvel rang for the famous revolt
of the " Harelle," and went on ringing the whole time
the town was "up." So when young Charles VI.
entered angrily by a breach in the Porte Martain ville,
its treasonable clamour was silenced for some time.
For this most blatant of the privileges of the commune
was actually taken away altogether. Nor when he
pardoned rebellious Rouen could the King be per-
suaded to give back the bell or allow the belfry he had
ruined to be set up. So the citizens humbly besought
him that they might '^faire une auloge et la fere
asseoir ou estoit le Beffroi de la dicte ville," and when
King and Bailli had agreed, they craftily built a tower
for their •* horloge" just like the lost and beloved
belfry on the old foundations, and you may read on
the bronze plate upon the southern side how this was
done when Guillaume de Bellengues was captain of

137

I'be Story of Rouen

the town, and Jehan la Thuille was bailli for the
King. Jehan le Bayeux took nine yean to build it
as it is shown in Jacques Lelieur's manuscript of 1525.
Begun by Jourdain Delestre, the clock was finished
by Jehan de F61anis, began to go in September 1389
with two small bells to mark the quarters, and was
mounted on its proper platform in 1 396. The King's
charter of 1 389 had made special and approving mendoo
of the virtuous Cache- Ribaut, so he was set to ring the
hours. But the wicked Rouvel had been given to two
of the King's household ; and the town would not rest
content without him, until, after many emphatic reminders
of his royal pardon, the King was prevailed upon to
give him back again, and he rings the curfew to this
day. But he was not hung up until October I4499
when, after Talbot had left the Vieux Palais, the
Council joyfully gave orders to Laurent des Loges,
'^ pour pendre et asseoir certaine cloche nomm^ Rouve
estant en la tour du beffroy " ; and in the town accounts
stands the cheery item of '^ Sept sous six deniers pour
vin donne aux ouvriers," when it was hung on the
very Saturday on which the Duke of Somerset was
handing to Charles VII. the articles of capitulation.
So when a French king at last came through the faoKMis
street again, Rouvel, who had remained in the dignified
silence of the conquered for sixty-seven years, made
his joyful note heard again above all the clamour of the
citizens, and rang a welcome to the freedom of the
city, to deliverance from the English, to the return of
the King who confirmed the ancient privileges of the
Charte aux Normands, maintained the Echiquier de
Normandie, and did, in fact, everything that was ex-
pected of him except re-establish the Mayor. For
the revolt of the Harelle had entirely deposed the
Mayor from office. In 1389 his councillors were
reduced to six, and it was only three centuries later
that, in 1695, ^^^ ^^g once more appointed a real
»38

La Rue de la Gross e Horloge

mayor oat of the usual three candidates presented by
the towD.

Then the bell ^^ Cache Ribaut " came down, as was
but right of him, from his high place within the cam-
panile, and Rouvel swung again on his home-beam,
<< a la seconde croisee en ogive," and proceeded on his
old business of proclaiming elections, festivals, and fires
and curfews, and does so still. Affectionate flattery
once called him a *^ cloche d'argent," from his peculiar
tone ; but the most open-minded foreigner can hardly,
I think, now take any other interest in his voice than
that aroused by his long history, for he has grown
somewhat hoarse from ringing no less than 650 strokes
at nine each evening for so many years.

The old clock shares with that of the Palais de
Justice in Paris the honour of being the first in France.
Guillaume Thibault and Guillaume Quesnel painted
with fine gold and azure the face towards the Vieux
Marche, which Olivier had made when he decorated
both sides of the old Porte Massacre, and they set
upon it the figures of the lamb and of the four evan-
gelists. Its face was carved as it is now in the days of
Frangois Premier, and on its one hand is still seen the
lamb of Rouen pointing to the hours. You must by
DO means omit to mount the tower and see the guardian
wind it up, for the swing of its pendulum and the
simplicity of its internal arrangements will be of the
greatest interest The astronomical part, showing the
phases of the moon, is quite modem, and is set in a
separate place just behind the clock-face. As you
turn into the belfry out of the arch or arcade you are
actually walking on the old ramparts of the city ; and
(m the wall you may read the number of strokes
rang to mark disaster in each portion of the town,
two for St. Sever, six for St. Gervais, one for Mont
Riboudet, and so forth. From the topmost gallery
look out at the many towers and spires which even

139

The Story of Rouen

now rise in such profiinon above the roofe of Rouen —
St. Pierre du Chaste), St. Eloi, the firont of the Palais
de Justice with the Tour St. Laurent beyond, St.
Ouen looking (to my mind) far finer from that
point of vantage than the Cathedral, which almost
hides the delicate beauties of St. Maclou. Just
below you is the Hotel de Ville, and the cour^ard
which M. Detancourt filled with queer mythology in
various stages of undress, ^< pour son agrement," says
the guide. ^ To east and west runs the great arm of the
river, with that amphitheatre of hills which holds
the town pressed against the outside (rf* the bow like
an arrow-head ready to be launched, and on the left
of Mont St. Catherine you see the Dam6tal valley
where every siege of Rouen had its natural begionii^.
If you are fortunate enough to find one still alive
who saw the seventeenth summer of this centary, Le
P^re Pepin will show you too the ** tinterelles pre-
sented by the Sieur de Mon in 17 13, which hang
round Cache Ribaut to strike the hours ; and the son
and moon, which are set in their old place again above
the pavilion.

I have already mentioned the name of Jacques
Lelieur. His chief fame rests on the admirable plan
he made in 1525 of the water-supply of Rouen, and
incidentally of many of her streets. In Lelieur's mi^
which is a fascinating mixture of plan and elevation^ the
Porte Massacre (in the Rue de la Grosse Horloge), is
shown to be separated from the Hotel de Ville by a few
shops. Two years after his drawing was made the

^ This quaint courtyard is disappointing after you have
reai De La Qu^riere's warm eulogies, and I have only found
two occasions on which it became notable in the history of
the town. In 1461 the Conte de Charolais lodged here with
Regnauit de ViUeneuve, Avocat du Roi, whose house was
known then as the ** Lion d'Or *' ; and when the White Rose
triumphed in England, Margaret of Anjou found a refuge
here by the orders of Louis XI.

140

■1

,^-3*

I^J

^_^^J^^[-(

'If''

lAi. umuuoN riiD> THI AULT or

■nr ctomc HoiiLOOt ^H

^^^H

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^1

The Story of Rouen

great gate (which had shown signs of weakness a cen-
tury before) was taken down and the present Taulted
archway begun, which was finished in 1529. Miss
James has made for me a careful drawing of the central
panel of the entrados, which is now just above the
street, and shows the Good Shepherd (which was, no
doubt, suggested by the lamb in the arras of Rouen),
copied from the seal of the Drapers' Company.
<* Pastor bonus," says the legend, ^^animam soam
ponit pro ovibus suis." Within the semicircular panel
on each side are more sheep pasturing in a landscape
and on all the strapwork, or <^ bandeaux," are
carved delicate arabesques. The •* pavilion,** with
its high roof above it, holds the famous clock of Jehao
de Felanis.

Besides the belfry and the archway of the dock, there
was a public fountain set on this same spot ever since
Charles VII. turned out the English. The oldest of
these fountains in Rouen, drawn from the famous ^ring
of Gaalor, had been in the Priory of St. Lo. The
next was that set up by the Franciscans on the site of
Rollo's castle, and for two centuries the pipe of this
** Fontaine des Cordeliers '* passed close by the belfry,
before it struck the Town Council that it might be well
to provide water supply for citizens near the Vieux
Marche, both in case of fire, and for other obvious
reasons. So by 1458, the Cordeliers having been duly
" approached " on the subject, the " Fontaine de Mas-
sacre " was established at the foot of the belfry, and is
drawn by Lelieur as a Gothic pyramid with five sides,
as tall as the arcade. It showed signs of extreme
dilapidation by the eighteenth century, and the wags
wrote squibs about the broken statues of the Virgin
and bishops by Pol Mansellement (or Mosselmen, see
Chap. X.), in elegiacs as imperfect as their subject. So
the Duke of Montmorency- Luxemburg, the Governor
of Rouen and Normandy in 1728, magnanimously
142

La Rue de la Grosse Horloge

offered for the restoration of the fountains all those three
thousand livres which the echevins had presented to him
in a purse of cloth of gold • The affair [Progressed thence-
forward with due solemnity. M. de Boze, ^'Intendant
des devises et Inscriptions des edifices royaux/' wrote
from Paris that the authorities of Rouen were to decor-
ate their new fountain with the loves of Alpheus and
Arethusa, because, said he, <<the Seine (which is
Alpheus) comes from Burgundy and Champagne to
your fountain in Rouen (which is Arethusa), to
bear their mingled waters to the sea, by which is typi-
fied your fidelity to the King to whom the monument
is to be dedicated." So the name of " Ludovicus XV.'*
duly appears with that of ^^ Franciscus Fredericus
Montmorencius '* ; and mention is made of the allegory
of Arethusa and Alpheus as aforesaid: '< Quorum fluctus
amor dat esse perennes." The first sketch was made by
the King's painter, and being much approved of by the
worthy Mayor Coquerel, was executed in stone by Jean
Pierre de France, ^'architect, sculpteur et entrepreneur,"
for the sum of 5700 livres, as agreed upon in August
1733. In 1 794 the whole was considerably mutilated ;
but m 1846 M. Ch6ruel put all in order as you see it
to this day, and completed the strange harmonious mix«
ture (rf* buildings dating from the Middle Ages to the
eighteenth century.

As 1 have already noted, the first ^< Hotel Commune
de la Ville " was set near the Porte Massacre, close by
the Town Belfry, with the vanished church of Notre
Dame de la Ronde as its first municipal chapel. It
probably stood just where the Hotel du Nord is now,
when Henry Plantagenet granted the citizens of Rouen
their earliest charter of municipal independence. The
second "Town-hall" was that fief of the Count of
Leicester on the opposite side of the street, which
Philip Augustus gave to the burgesses in 1220 at
an annual rental of forty livres, and it remained

«43

The Story of Rouen

in a state of primitive nmplicity for more than two
centuries. 1

In 1525 Jacqiibs Lelieur, tracing the course of the
spring Gaalor shows three large buildings on the old
fief of Leicester, bigger than anything near them, with
a Rez de chaussee, two stories above, and a third in the
roof, the ground floor being arranged for open shops,
with the principal entrance at one side. Lelieur him-
self is shown (as may be seen in his small view of
Rouen which 1 have reproduced) offering his manu-
script to four municipal officers seated round their
council -table, with a clerk at a side-desk. The walls
at the right and at the back are panelled, and decorated
on the left with fleurs de lys.

The third Hotel de Ville was built when the old
shops of the Rue de la Grosse Horloge began to tumble
down. In June 1607 the first stone was laid according
to the plans of Jacques Gabriel. By 1658 Gomboust's
map of Rouen shows that the facade on the street was
finished. It was in the Italian style with '^ rusticated ''
blocks of stone, and had round arcades on the ground
floor for shops. The building origmally formed a
square, and the retreating angle may still be seen north-
wards from the Rue de la Grosse Horloge. In the
centre of the courtyard was a statue of Louis XIV. ;
a chapel stood at the north-east with a pyramidal
steeple of wood covered with lead. A fountain was
placed at the east end (no doubt supplied by the
old "puits"). In 1705 the entry upon the Grosse
Horloge was opened by Jacques Monthieu, just where

^ Though little could be done during the English occupa-
tion, it must have been enlarged in 1440, for we 6nd in the
archives of that century that reference is made at various times
to (i) '' la salie du conseil du manoir de la ville/' (2^ *< galleries
du manoir," (3) ** une salle de parmi ou ^taient les livres de
ladite ville," (4) "une cellier," (5) '< une chapelle particuli^re,"
('6) " un jardin carr^," (7) " une cour carr^ devant la grande
salle," and (8) "un puits.

144

La Rue de la Grosse Horloge

the Passage de I'Hotel de Villa is to-day. In 1796
the whole building was sold to various proprietors for
72,000 livres.

Though it is very degraded in its present state, you
can still see the Doric and Ionic pilasters in couples,
and the heavy circular tops alternating with triangles
above the windows ; and though all those parts of the
decoration which jutted out have been destroyed, there
18 still a massive dignity about the building that would
have thoroughly justified its better preservation. In
any case the municipal authorities might have had some
memory of the traditions of the old centre of their
civic life, before they moved to the commonplace erec-
tions on the north side of the Abbey Church of St.
Oaen.

So, though little but the foundations remain of the
original Hotel de Ville in the Rue de la Grosse
Horloge, yet the stones of its successor are still
there, and the belfry that rang out its messages is
much more than a name ; so I have thought it con-
venient to attach to them a few memories of the people
of Rouen as they lived in the days before the great
changes of the sixteenth century. In my next two
chapters I shall have to pause for a moment over the
English siege, and the death of Jeanne d'Arc, but
the tenth chapter will deal with a few of the number-
less churches of the town, and the eleventh with that
Palais de Justice which is the triumphant signal that the
sixteenth century had begun. If I am to give you,
then, a glimpse, however short, of the people themselves
in earUer years before they are overshadowed by the
great names of prelates and of princes, this will be my
hat opportunity.

If any Norman were asked what was the most valu-
able of the privileges which he possessed by right of
citizenship in the earliest times, I suppose he would
answer without hesitation that it was the Charte aux

K 145

The Story of Rouen

Normandsy that confirmation, granted by Louis X. in
1315, of the old " Custom of Normandy ** ascribed by
tradition to Rollo and traced by record to William the
Conqueror. It was also called the *< clameur de haro,"
and affectionate antiquarians derive the word from the
" Ha Rou ! " with which a suppliant cried to the first
pirate duke that ** wrong was being done." It is no
mere artifice of fiction^ that this same consecrated phrase
might have been heard among the Englishmen of the
Channel Islands early in the nineteenth century, and
even to this hour, that cry of " Haro ! Haro I a Taide
mon prince, on me fait tort ! " preserves the custom of
Normandy, and of Rollo the Dane, in Jersey, so that
the sound of it << makes the workman drop his tools, the
woman her knitting, the militiaman his musket, the fidier-
man his net, the schoolmaster his birch, and the ecrivain
his babble, to await the judgment of the Royal CoorL"
It was soon after this confirmation of their ancient
rights of justice, that the citizens lost for a time the
privileges of their mayoralty owing to a financial dispute
in 1 320, which necessitated the intervention of the King.
The second epoch in the history of the commune be-
gan, and penalties were adjudged for all cases of mis-
demeanour or of shirking office. The equal, in Court-
precedence, to a Count, the Mayor of Rouen was not
merely the head of the Town Council, but sovereign-
judge in matters of goods or of inheritance, with his
own court and guards and prisons. On Christmas Day,
to the sound of " Rouvel's " welcome, he marched in
state to the Hotel de Ville, surrounded by his peers
and counsellors and sergeants, all in livery with wands
of office. But the Mayor was not allowed to collect
his rates from the citizens unfairly, and the dispute

1 See Mr GUbert Parker's novel, " The Batde of the Stroog,''
in which Jersey is carefully described, on p. 189, "A Norman
dead a thousand years cries Haro I Haro I if you tread upon
his grave," and p. 360.
146

La Rue de la Grosse Horloge

which followed Tbomas du fiosc's attempt to levy
the Gabelle, or tax upon salt, led once more to Roy^
interTeotioD — the Kmg "put the communes under hit
hand" as the phrase went, until the quarrel had been
settled. The importance of the salt trade in Rouea
has been already noticed, and the little salt-porter
carred upon the Church of St. Vmceot, and now
looking out from the south-east angle over the Rue
Jeanne d'Arc, is a sign
that the same trade lasted
for some ceotunes later
io the development of ■■■

Rouen's commerce

It was not merely in
peaceAil ways that the
expansion of the civic
power may be traced at
this time. For the long-
drawn misery of the
Hundred Years War
began in 1337, and nine
years afterwards the King •'
had to hurry to Rouen to ,j
oppose the advance of -^
Edward III., who was
already at Caen and
threatened the capital of -n t
Normandy. All ihe >t » nceht in thi soe junni
woods of Bihorej, sajs da«c

the chronicler sadly, had to be cut down to make
" hedges and palisades around the menaced ci^
After the defeat of Creasy, the men of Rouen had a
(till sharper taste of the realities of war, for the militia
of the town, who had been hurried forward to re-
IDforce the broken jrmy of the King, while their
comrades at home were strengthening the defences of
Rouen, came up with an English regiment near Abbe-
'♦7

7 be Story of' Rouen

ville, and contributed a heavy share to that loss of ^ six
thousand men of the communes" which Fioissart
chronicles.

That the town stood in grave need of all these war-
like preparations, as well against internal disorders as
against enemies from without, may be imagined ftom
the disquieting scenes of 1356, when Eling John
came to the castle with a hundred men-at-arms, and
arrested with his own hands Charles le Mauvais, King
of Navarre, and four of his suite who were Bdsely ac-
cused of treason. The Count of Harcourt, the Sire de
Graville, Maubue de Mainnemare, and Colinet Doublet,
were all beheaded on the Champ du Pardon that night
in April, while the King looked on. The resistance
of the citizens to this high-handed act of injustice was
only quelled by the spreading of the news of the King's
presence. But Philip, the brother of the King of
Navarre (who had been sent to prison near Cambrai),
took instant vengeance by ravaging the suburbs of
Rouen, and calling in the Duke of Lancaster's
English troops. It was in resisting this allied attack
that the French King was beaten and taken prisoner
at Poitiers. As soon as Charles le Mauvais got his
freedom, two years later, he returned to rehabilitate the
memory of his friends in Rouen. The body of the
Count of Harcourt had been secredy removed from
the public gibbet by his family. The three other
corpses were taken down and borne to the Cathedral
with great ceremony, where their innocence of treason
was solemnly proclaimed. Excited by this open de-
fiance of authority, the populace of the town rose
against the Dauphin's men, seized the casde, and
destroyed the Priory of St. Gervais with which
they had a private quarrel of their own on the
burning question of taxes. The commune only
secured amnesty for its offences, and reconciliation
with the Regent, by paying 3000 florins as a fine.
148

La Rue de la Grosse Horloge

No doubt the revolt had had some obscure connection
ivith the horrible excesses of the Jacquerie which at
the same moment had been desolating Paris. The dis-
orderly bands of ruffians who had been discharged from
the French army were, at any rate, a direct source of
annoyance to Rouen later on, as indeed they were to
almost every town in France in that unhappy time, and
Bertrand du Guesclin himself had to come to Rouen in
1364 to organise the army that finally crushed these
licentious freebooters, and their ally, the King of
Navarre, at Cocherel.

Ever since the middle of the thirteenth century,
frequent references occur in the records of the town
to the various trades that, in spite of every drawback,
continued slowly to progress towards riches and con-
aolidation. Though the early commerce with England
now died down, home industries flourished, and of them
all, the making of woollen draperies soon became the
pre-eminent commerce of the town, which in 1362
dgnalised the fact by placing the lamb or sheep upon
its civic seal, which henceforth appears upon the arms
of the town, and is also placed so prominently on the
archway of the Grosse Horloge, Rabelais will tell
you of the prosperous merchants who bought flocks
of sheep from farmers like Dindenault, to make the
** bons fins draps de Rouen," for Pantagruel and Pan-
urge journeyed with Episteraon, Eusthenes, and Car-
palim to Rouen from Paris, on their way to take ship
at Honnefleur, and they will explain to you (for I
cannot) why the towns that grow so thickly round the
capital become more sparsely scattered towards the sea,
and in their excellent company you may appreciate the
gallantry of Eusthenes towards the Norman ladies, and
even savour faintly, as from afar, the bouquet of that
Vin blanc d'Anjou which Pantagruel bought in some
old hostelry beside the Eau de Robec. " Mouton de
Rouen," says the old proverb, " qui a toujours la patte

149

The Story of Rouen

lev^," and her sons were ever ready from the earliest
years to go their ways, " gaaignant,'* through all the
trade-routes of Europe, where French and Spanish
wines were to be bought and sold. And beyond
them too ; for in 1 364 they had joined the manners
of Dieppe in an expedition to the far Canaries, and
even helped towards a little settlement upon the coast
of Africa, from which the good ship " Notre Dame de
Bon Voyage " brought home a cargo of pepper, ivory,
and gold-dust that caused much speculation on the
quays of Rouen. In 1380 a few actual forts were set
upon the Guinea Coast, under the command of that
brave Norman admiral, Jean de Bethencourt, the cham-
berlain of Charles VI., who styled himself the King of
the Canaries (most fascinating of titles ! ) before he died
in 1425.

But even commercial enterprise could not save the
city from the ravages of the Black Death. In 1379
it swept over the town, and carried off an enormous
number of the bread-winners, for the extent of Rouen
had now almost widened to the lines of the modem
boulevards, and its population had steadily increased
from the 50,000 of a century before. The plague had
left a famine in its tracks, and as a " rich city,*' Rouen
had been severely taxed for the necessities of war, so
that when the regents of the young King ground down
the citizens with more oppression and ill-considered
taxes, there is small wonder that their patience came
suddenly to an end, and they burst into open revolt
in February 1381. These exactions came upon the
citizens with a double sting. For not only were
they exhausted by previous misery, but the good King
Charles had upon his death-bed remitted these excessive
imports, and left his heart to the Cathedral in token of
his eternal good-will to the town of Rouen, where he
had so often sojourned. So the explosion of popular
indignation was instantaneous and terrible. While
150

La Rue de la Grosse Horloge

"Rouvel" claDged wildly from the belfry of the
town, the cttizeas attacked the tax-gatherers, umet

m piecei their tax-rolls, and then

their offices,
closed the city-
gate* and put up
the chains acroas
the end of every
street.

In a tumultu-
ous aod cheer-
iag crowd, the
citizens poured
towards the
centre of their
dvic life, in the
RuedelaGmiK
Horloge; Robert
Deschamps, the
Mayor, was put
to instant flight
for daring to give
baiting counsels,
and his private
prisons were
broken open.
" No King can
make the people,"
cried the mob.

Ring," and
forthwith they " a«i>iie horlooi and tui:

Kized on poor tow «l,«v

honest Jehan le Gras, a quiet, seemly draper; they
robed him in a cloak that had just served its
torn in the last Myatery Play, and they bore him
in raucous triumph to the open square before St.

"but
going

J he Story of Rouen

Ouen. << I forthwith abolish the taxes ! " stuttered
the royal phantom in high dismay, while his subjects
cheered vociferously, and every market-place roared
approbation. " I deliver up the tax-gatherers to
justice ! " and in a trice every tax-gatherer, and
Jew, and usurer, and fiscal agent was haled towards
the bridge and there beheaded, till the Seine ran
red beneath. " I deliver up your cruel Mayors
to justice ! " went on the quavering monarch, and
forthwith five miserable men who had once been
mayors of Rouen, fled from the Rue du Grand
Pont, from the Rue Damiette, and from the Rue
aux Ganders, and took shelter in the nearest ceme-
teries, while their burning houses lighted up the town.
" I deliver up the proud monks of St. Ouen to
justice ! " continued poor Jehan le Gras, seeing
that the mob had already begun to batter in the
monastery gates,^ and in a moment more the archives
and the ancient charters of the privileges of St. Ouen
were in tatters on the ground, or burning among the
desecrated walls they had protected for so many cen-
turies. In his death-agony the trembling abbot signed
the renunciation of his powers, while the crowd screamed
at him till he was borne back to die.

And now the mob was parted here and there by a
procession of strong men who bore something with
great pride and mystery, and held it, enveloped from
all harm, above their heads. A whisper went round
that grew at last into a shout of welcome and drowned
all other sounds. "The Charter of the Normans!
Hats off to the Charter ! God bless the good King

1 It had always been a bitter grievance that St. Ouen held a
monopoly of the public mills for their bakers, and the grotesque
procession of the " oison brid^," in which two monks carried
a goose by a rope every year to the Town Mill in the Rue
Coquerel, had not sufficed to win their pardon from the lower
classes.

152

La Rue de la Gross e Horloge

Louis ! God save the Charter ! '' From the inmost
shrine of the Cathedral, where it was kept beside the
relics of St. Romain, the famous charter had been
brought by four burgesses, bareheaded, upon a stand
with golden feet. For seven and sixty years it had
remained in holy keeping, with the great green seal of
Louis X. hanging from its yellow parchment, and now
the dean followed it into the streets with all his tremb-
ling canons behind him. There was business to be
done with them too, and they knew it only too well.
** The Chapter will forthwith renounce," says Jehan
le Gras, **that rent of 300 livres on the market-
halls of Rouen ; you will sign the deed or take
the consequences." So they signed, and the crowd
passed on breathlessly to the next entertainment ; for
on a scaffold hastily erected, there stood the King's
Bailli, Thomas Poignant, reading (much against his
will) the provisions of the sacred charter, while the
crowd waited with pickaxes and hammers ready to
rush and pull down his house at the least sign of
hesitation.

So in a silence that was filled with possibilities, and
broken only by the sound of the indefatigable <' Rouvel,"
who continued tolling feverishly night and day, the
sentences of the charter of Normandy echoed over the
square before St. Ouen, and when it was ended all the
company swore upon the sacred cross to keep it faith-
fblly, the royal draper first, then what few remnants of
civic magistracy were present, then the canons and the
whole clergy of the town, then the men of law, and
lastly every citizen in sight Before night ended all
the bloody doings of the day, the gibbet of St. Ouen

i called the "fourches Patibulaires") had been torn
own and burnt at Dihorel, and a solemn oath of
amnesty for all acts of violence was exacted from every
one who had suffered from the outrages of the mob,
and at last poor Jehan le Gras was allowed to go home

«53

The Story of Rouen

to his shop, without the faintest notion of what all the
uproar had been about, and very thankfbl to give up
his royalty and be an ordinary draper as before*

Unfortunately the crowd, drunk with success, did
not cease their riot with the deposition of their King.
The next morning they attacked the casde Philip
Augustus had set up in the Place Bouvreuil. But the
garrison repulsed them ; Jean de Vienne, High Admiral
of France, brought troops into the town ; the King's
Commissioners were sent down in haste with r^nforce-
ments, and heads began to fall with startling rapidity
on the scaffold in the Vieux March6, for the town
prisons were choked with the rebels who had been
arrested. To all demands for pardon, the quieter sort
of the inhabitants were ruthlessly told, *^ Go to your
own King, Jehan le Gras, and let him save yoo."
But the worthy draper had taken care to fly firom
Rouen as soon as he could get out of his house, for he
found the pains of royalty far outweighed its privileges.
At last when Easter Eve dawned on a most unhappy
town, news came that the young King with his uncles
the Regents was waiting at Pont de I'Arche and would
only enter armed and by a breach, into the town which
had rebelled against him.

So they battered down the walls by the Porte Mar-
tainville, and the wives and mothers and sisters of the
men condemned to death in prison helped the work,
weeping at their task; and as they wrought, it was
sure some woman's heart that had the sweet imagination
to deck the town with joyous emblems, that so, by the
mercy of God this young monarch of only thirteen
years might perchance be moved to compassion, and
bethink him of their former loyalty. So when the
King came in, his eyes lighted only upon banners, and
tapestries, and evergreens ; and flowers fell upon him
from the windows, and the leaves of the forest strewed
the roads beneath him, and from every comer came

'54

La Rue de la Grosse Horloge

the cry of *« Noel, Noel, long live the King ! " The
welcome had at first been the desperate cry of people
in sore straits ; but at the sight of the boy himself, it
turned into a genuine shout of admiration, for, says the
chronicle, **he was of sovereign beauty both m &ce
and body, and full of loving-kindness, and sweet charity,
insomuch that all men who saw him were in great joy
and love of him."

But the Duke of Anjou would not allow the young
filing's feelings to be moved ; and it was the Duke who
as they p^sed the belfry bade <' Rouvel " to be taken
down, because he had rung out the signal for revolt
Yet the cries of " Noel, Noel ! '' continued every step
of the progress through the town, until they gave way
to a sUence that had an even greater effect upon the
impressionable boy. For he was welcomed at the

geat western gate of the Cathedral by the Archbishop
uillaume de Lestrange, and by him was led before
the sepulchre in which the heart of Charles V. lay
buried, bearing testimony for ever to his love for
Rouen. Then the King remembered how his father,
each holy week, had signed many pardons, in memory
of the God who had pardoned in those days the sins
of the whole world. So he spoke the words of deliver-
ance to Lestrange beside him, while the population
crowded, still terror-stricken and uncertain of their
fate, into the Cathedral, and filled its aisles with anxious
feces, and climbed upon the pillars to try and get some
view of the litde King near the altar, upon whose will
so many lives depended. Then at last appeared the
Archbishop, standing high where all might see him,
and as he read the words of pardon which had just
received the royal signature, you may imagine how
the roof rang with a greater "Noel," a louder
«<Vive le Roi" than ever had sounded in the
Cathedral before.

From every prison and jail in the city the prisoners

'55

Ibe Story of Rouen

were hurried to the Mother-church ; with their fetters
still upon them they fell on their knees and thanked God
and the King for their deliverance, while their families
hung round their necks and sobbed for joy to see them
again alive. It was that moment on the eve of the
great festival when all the bells of Rouen began to
herald the coming of Easter. The great paschal
candle had been lit in the Cathedral, and as the
Archbishop turned from the joyfiil throng before him
to the King still standing by the altar-steps, he welcomed
the beginning of a reign that was blessed by^e giving
of such happiness. And as the people crowded noisily
out into the Parvis, and each wife took her husband
home again, few thought of the misery, and the mad-
ness worse than death, that was coming upon the young
King who had set the prisoners free.

There is one more tale, a very different one, that I
must tell of this same life of the people round the
belfry of the Grosse Horloge, if only to give you
the contrast of the dealings of Louis XI. with the
good citizens of Rouen, and to emphasise the moral
of their sturdy independence. For though the com-
mune was practically suppressed, in spite of the
King's pardon, and though the results of this famous
** Revoke de la Harelle " were felt until the society
in which it had occurred had almost ceased to be,
yet the character of the burgesses remained the same
under whatever laws they lived, and their freedom of
opinion continued under every rule. So that when
every door in the Rue de la Grosse Horloge flew
open on a morning in 1490, when every shop was
filled with gossips eager for the news, and even
" Rouvel ** himself was tingling faintly with sup-
pressed excitement, you might be sure that another
royal attempt was being made upon the liberty of
these touchy subjects. And indeed a most astonish-
ing thing had happened. For a horseman of the King

156

La Rue de la Crosse ttorloge

had suddenly spurred hot-foot through the town, and
alighted at the shop of Maitre Jehan le Tellier, with
the stupefying request for the hand of his only daughter
Alice in marriage, by virtue of the King's command
signed and sealed in his pocket. The belfry-fountain
was humming like a swarm of bees as all the chamber-
maids and goodwives in the street rushed up to fill
their pitchers at the very moment when Le Tellier's
housemaid happened to be filling hers.

But the loudest in outcry of them all was a young
merchant whose shop happened to be opposite, and
whose complaints against these outrages on civic in-
dependence and unwarrantable extensions of the royal
prerogative would have warmed the heart of the most
crabbed constitutional lawyer. His appeals to the
sacred charter of Normandy were far louder than the
rest, his invocations of the sanctity of the paternal tie
far shriller. " What right," he cried, " had this Louis
XL to reward the ruffians of his Court with pretty girls
and dowries when his royal purse was empty ? What
had made him choose Rouen, of all towns, for so
unjustifiable a caprice ? " As a matter of fact, it was
about the worst choice he could have made, and
Madame Estiennotte about the most unlikely mother
he could have picked out for the prosperity of his
experiment. She began by putting off the horseman
until her husband should come back from market, and
the moment his back was turned, she fiew down the
street to the Hotel de Ville, with half her neighbours
at her heels, and laid the King's letter before the Town
Councillors. Many of them were at once appalled by
the royal seals and sign-manual. But fortunately, one,
Roger Gouel, spoke up for the ancient privileges of the
charter, loudly proclaimed that the business was not
one of the public weal, but of private concern to Dame
Estiennotte alone, and avowed himself her champion.
It was perhaps lucky for Councillor Gouel that Tristan

'57

J he Story of Rouen

I'Hermite was out of the way, bat the citizens were
soon ready with their plan.

Desile was bidden to Le Tellier's house, and met
there, somewhat to his embarrassment, the entire
regiment of the worthy merchant's relatives, including
the girl's great uncle, Abbe Viote, one of the
Cathedral dignitaries, who eyed him with a sancti-
monious calm that gave him his first tremor of un-
certainty. Demoiselle Alice was formally summoned
into the family gathering, and announced her intention
of remaining single with all the innocent and unafiected
purity of a novice at a convent. After which, Madame
presented the disappointed suitor with a letter for the
King, wherein was duly set forth how that *^ she had
received the royal letter asking for the hand of her
daughter in marriage for the King's squire ; that as for
herself and her family, both themselves and their goods
were at the service of His Majesty ; that unfortunately
her husband had not yet returned from market, and
therefore other answer was as yet impossible save that
her daughter in presence of the family had declared
her unwillingness to marry ; that she prayed God to
bless His Majesty with long and happy life, and was
his humble and obedient servant, Estiennotte, wife of
Jehan le Tellier."

The wrath of King Louis, the sarcasms of Tristan
I'Hermite, the laughter of Olivier le Daim; these
things you must imagine for yourself, when that letter
was read before His Majesty. But the fact remains
that other and more pressing business called Desile
away to foreign wars, and Demoiselle Alice consoled
herself for her royally appointed suitor by giving
distinct encouragement to the merchant opposite
who had laid such stress upon the inviolable privi-
leges of the "Charte aux Normands." The story
went the round of Rouen, from the Rue du Hallage
to the Hotellerie des Boos Enfants and back again,

158

La Rue de la Grosse Horloge

and you can almoet bear

I echoes still in that old

"des lieas ptgnoni algua
comme de> ^plnei dorsalea
Bombant les anglet concigues
Sur lei Bolivet tranvera^ea

Etl'oml

And you will pardon me that for a moment I have
tistenea to that muttered gossip, to the scandal that
one old roof- tree
whispered to another
whilst It leant across
the narrow street,
aa some old woman
mumbles secrets to
her neighbour with
bleared eyes wmk-
ing beneath her
shaggy brows
There was far more
talking in the streets
then than there is
DOW, especially in
inch crowded little
IS this

a corniptH
the Mait
Haulage where

taxes on the corporations and on goods sold in the
market-halls were lened For in the fourteenth
century for the 228,000 inhabitants of Pant there
were only twenty four ' hotels " and eighty-six
"ta*ems, ' and die similar disproportion in Rouen
waa only made up for, in the case of the " genuine
>S9

^he Story of' Rouen

travellery'' by the unstinted hospitdity of sach monas-
teries and hospitals as those at St. Catherine, St
Vivien, or St. Martin.

But the taverns or wine-shops did a roaring trade.
On their benches the burgesses sat every afternoon
discussing business matters with their lawyers over the
light " vin du pays," or bought a few bottles of the
** vin de choix," which was the recognised offering to
preachers, judges, councillors, and kings alike.^ It
was, in fact, no bad thing to be the advocate in a case
when a rich monastery was concerned, for the Abbey
of St. Gervais records about this time that it gave its
judges and lawyers in one very critical lawsuit, a dinner
at their favourite hotel, comprising fish and pears and
meat and hypocras (no less ! ) and ginger and sugar
and a hundred oysters. Not ip that order let us hope,
though the bowels of men of law are traditionally
tough, and the hospitality of the intention is undoubted.

Till the end of the Sfteenth century mine host was
called the " Seigneur " of his sign, as the " Seigneur
de I'Ours, Seigneur de la Fleur de Lys ; " and though
by the close of the sixteenth century we still find a
"Dame de la Croix Rouge" for the hostess, her
husband had become (I quote from the accounts in the
Archev^che] "maitre du Pilier vert," or "mattre de
I'Ecrevisse. But even earlier than the • fifteenth

^ The Town Accounts are filled with such cheerful business
entries as the following : << Avec Mons. Jehan Deiammarre qui
fii clerc de la ville, a PEscu de France auprds la Madeleine le
darrenier jour de septembre, is."

''Pour boire au matin avec les advocas chiez Jehan le
Bucher, 4s. Sd."

" Pour boire avec le lieutenant du Maire,"and so forth. The
fifteen taverns mentioned in the accounts of the jovial town
clerk from 1377 to 1381 are all to be found going very strong
in the sixteenth century. M. de Beaurepaire has preserved
their fascinating names : — L'Asne Roye, Les Petits souliers,
Le Fleur de Lys pr^s St. Maclou, Le Cygne devant St. Martin,
Le Singe prds de la Madeleine, and many more.

160

Ld Rue de la Grosse Horloge

century it wai already powible Co get good lodging for
the night at an hotel in Rouen, for a contract of 1395
haa been preserved, made between Guillaume Blanc-
baaton and Guiilaume Marc to fumieh forth a hoBtelry,
much at we may imagine the Hotel dea Boot En&oti
wa» furnished in its youtli. " Four casks of good wine
at ten iivres," says this docu-
ment ; " twelve good beds with
twenty-four pairs of sheets ;
eight cups and a goblet with
a silTer foot ; a dozen ' hanaps '
of pewter," with pots and pans
and pewter dishes innumerable.!
In such an old courtyard as
this of the "Eons Enfanta,"
with its overhanging balcony,
and queerly managed stables,
or in other old inns like No. 19
Rue des Matelas, or No. 4 Rue Etoupee with its charm-
ing "signboard," men sat and talked of their various
trades, the cobbler, for instance, who is carved on the
Cathedral stalls, with the clog-maker, and the wool-
comber, and the carpenter, all met and gossiped of

I No. 41 Rue del Bone Enfant) ii a capital example of the
Fifteenth Century Timbered iDD. To the right of the inner
yard » gallery juts out on crooked pQlan, the "ayant-tolieri"
to common In medixial itreeti, and ihown in LeIIeur'i diaw-
\n%». Queer gables Hm Into the air at odd comeri, and il
you are Bufficiently hardened I0 medizval atmotpheres you
may discover other stablea than the big shed at the entrance,
and you will underttand the reason for the Notice "On ne
r^pond paa det accident) qui peuient arrixr aux cheiaux."
Through a dark narrow alit che phantom of a cobwebbed
itable.boy will lead you into the blackened aged alabUi, and
the ipire of the abandoned church of St. Croix da Pelletieri

wine; hot sleep were poeiibiy unwiie, though "Room
Number Ten" is almoit too &Kinating an apartment to
radit.

L 161

The Story of Roken

their latest piece of profitable business, while the lawyers
discussed the never-ending question of the Privilege de
St. Romain with some learned clerk over their **vin
blanc d'Anjou." By the fourteenth century the list
of the prisoners released by the Cathedral Chapter
begins to be very full and detailed , and we can quite
imagine what was talked about in every tavern of the
town as Ascensiontide drew near.

In 1360, for example, the King's Mint was already
established in the Rue St. Eloi, and you may still see
it at No. 30 in that street as you go up on the
right hand from the river to the Place St. EloL The
'< Hotel des Monnaies " has been all whitewashed
over, but there is a strong and ancient look about
the windows on the street facade that warns you to
go through the little passage-way, to find the soldiers
of the Douane lounging about the courtyard inside.
On the back of the houses that look out upon the
street you will see the arms and cipher of Fran9oi8
Premier, which show that in his days the Mint still
remained in a house that was far older. And in 1360
the " Officer of the Mint of the parish of St. Eloi,"
who quarrelled about the price of his chicken in the
Parvis, "voulait avoir de la poulaille a son pris."
He must have done his bargaining in very strong
language, for one of the three brothers Sautel who
kept the shop, smote him that he died, and it was to
these brothers that the privilege of raising the Fierte
St. Romain with pardon for this crime, was in that
year granted.

Only three years afterwards, Blanche, Dowager-
Queen of France, had laid her hand by way of justice
upon Jehan le Bourgeois of Neufchatel in spite of the
fact that his murder had been pardoned by the canons'
Privilege de St. Romain ; and from this case, and the
following one in 1 39 1 , it appears that the pardon given
to a prisoner involved that (apart from "civil"
162

La Rue de la Gross e Horloge

restitutions) he was released from any <* criminal "
fine that might have been laid on him, and was of
right to be restored to ail offices and goods held by
him previous to his arrest. More than this, the
Bailli of Rouen was not allowed to condemn any
prisoner at all during the month that intervened
between the <* insinuation of the privilege" and the
actual ceremony of the pardon ; the " insinuation ''
being the technical word for the annual formality by
which the legal authorities were informed that the
Chapter would inquire into the various prisons of the
town> and proceed to make their choice before Ascen-
sion. In one case a prisoner condemned to death
{Robert Auberbosc in 1299) was only just saved
though he was not finally chosen for the Fierte) at
the last moment from the gallows, whither he had
been taken during this sacred period, contrary to the
rights of the chapter; and again in 1361 the Bailli had
actually executed a man in the same interval before the
canons knew, or could prevent it; and he was then
and there solemnly excommunicated until full amend-
ment had been made, for that he had been so wicked as
to " violer le previlege et libertes de Feglise de Rouen,
en vitup^re de la dicte eglise et de Monsieur St.
Romain.''

The first woman to whom the famous privilege was
accorded was Guillemette Gomont in 1380, of whom
nothing is recorded ; but in the next year strangely
enough another woman carried the Fierte, by name
Jehanne Helart, the wife of Robert Cariel, who had
slain Jehan Vengier ; and in 1 388 Estiennotte de
Naples, who had been brought from Louvier to marry
Guillaume Luart, of the parish of St. Vincent in Rouen,
was pardoned by the Chapter in spite of having murdered
her husband. In this example, as in many others, to
our modern eyes, the motives which persuaded the
canons to pardon the criminal they chose are scarcely

163

The Story of Rouen

intelligible, and I can only imagine that the key to the
tragedy has been lost in most of such cases. But it is the
women who are at the bottom of nearly all recorded
crime in the long story of the Fierte, and when they
are themselves chosen it is often at the end of a drama
that surpasses in interest all the tales of mere masculine
malefactors in the most interesting criminal record I
have ever seen. I shall have occasion to speak of them
later. For the present I can only take note of the
cases that have been most prominent before the time ot
the £nglish siege.

The ceremony of the •* Levee de la Fierte " did
not invariably meet with the approval of the people,
as may be seen from the last case I have room to quote
from this period. In 1394 Jehan Maignart, of the
parish of St. Maclou, murdered Rogier le Veaatre^
with the assistance of two accomplices, Pierre Robert
and Jehan Marie. After the procession of the public
pardon on Ascension Day was over, the members of
the Confr^rie of St. Romain were leading Maignart
in triumph through the streets of Rouen, with a wreath
of roses on his head, when suddenly a poor woman
appeared at the corner of the Rue de 1* Ecole, and
screamed to the prisoner that he was a disloyal traitor ;
praying St. Romain that for his next crime he would
not escape the hanging that was his due, for that now
he was only screening the true criminals from punish-
ment.^ The indignant Chapterhouse were only preyailed
upon to overlook the crime of insulting their released
prisoner by the full repentance of this woman. But
*^ the Law " had heard her too, and it laid its hand
promptly on the two accomplices. The canons io-

^ Her exact words were carefully recorded by the horrified
confr^rie : '' Ha 1 faux traltre, meurdrier, tu as pris ie fait sus
toy, pour delivrer autruy ; tu t'en repentiras. Je pri si dieu et
a Monseigneur Saint Romain que tu faches encore le £ut de
quoy tu saies trainn^ et pendu/'
164

La Rue de la Groste Horloge

atantly objected, and a valuable precedent waa created
by the decieioo of the King, before whom the Boal
appeal of the case waa laid. By the royal charter,
aigned in February 1395, the full privileges of the
canons were upheld. The proc^a-verbal still exists
upon a roll of parchment fairly written, nine feet in
leogtb, with the evidence of eighty-eeven witnesses.
The canons laid down ( i ) their right to the pardon ;
1 the

who "prinst e rou
CD tubjectioD un g ao
•erpent ou drag o

this commein o

should be prese ed

(+, s, 6, 7, 8) h
various details

be b-

fbrmality 1
served from

suspension o
capita] punish m
Ascension, the vi
of the prisons,
the choice of
cnminal, to the p
procenion ; (9
most important)
crinie he confe se to tn c
which he is th p so

he is restored to h hi
and all hie ace m d

full pardon (wi seq

It had b«eo re ognued

The Story of Rouen

previous crimes were pardoned, for the act of pardon
granted by the bailli to Nicole Lecordier in that year
speaks of him as << d61ivr6 franc et quite de tous forfis
. . • quielz qil soient, del tens en arri^re jusques au
jor duL" And by 1 446 the charter of Charles VII.,
which is still preserved in the archives of the Cathedral,
announces in May of that year that the prisoner who
raises the Fierte " est absolz du cas pour le quel ii I'a
lev6e et de tous crismes precedents.'' So that we
reach the astonishing proposition that the Chapter-
house of Rouen enjoyed a far greater power than ereo
the royal prerogative of mercy, which only pardoned a
specified crime ; whereas the Chapterhouse by a kind
of baptism and regeneration from sin, started their
prisoner afresh on a new life without any reference to
his past misdeeds. What this involved I shall show
when opportunity arises ; but the release of the accom-
plices as well as the prisoner was an even more extra-
ordinary extension of powers. It had abeady taken
place before this test case, in a tavern brawl in 1370,
in the crime of two drapers in 1 3 56, and in a very im-
portant example when Guillaume Yon with another
man of Pavilly were released after the slaying of a
butcher; and the Seigneur d'Esneval gave sworn testi-
mony that when a friend of the dead butcher publicly
called the accomplice in the crime " a murderer,** that
accomplice would have been delivered up to justice if
the principal had not carried the Fierte. The retro-
spective action of the pardon on the principal also
extended to his accomplices, who began life afresh just
as he did. And this extension was solemnly confirmed
at the inquiry, from which I have just quoted. There
is no doubt, however, that so excessive a " prolonga-
tion" of the powers of pardon cannot have been
allowed throughout the whole history of the Fierte ; for
public opinion could scarcely have permitted a gang of
ruffians every year to return to the full privileges en-
166

La Rue de la Grosse Horloge

joyed by their more honest comrades. So at the end
of the fifteenth, and again at the end of the sixteenth
century, we find it laid down that only those crimes
named by the prisoner should be pardoned, if the
Chapter thought fit, and that only those accomplices
who appeared with him in the procession should share
in his pardon.

It was only in April 1407 that this long appeal was
finally decided in favour of the two accomplices of
Maignart, who bore the Fierte thirteen years before.
But the Chapterhouse took good care that so much
tedious and costly legal work should not be thrown
away, and the strength of the precedents and charters
they secured at this time was never entirely lost while
the " Privilege " existed in Rouen at all.

There is only one other matter much concerning the
life of the people at this period for which I have space
left, and that is their Mystery Plays. Two celebrated
instances occur in these years before the invasions of the
English and the siege of Rouen. In November 1365
the King gave two hundred crowns of gold to a troupe
of " dancers and musicians " who had played before
him at the castle in the Place Bouvreuil. In 1374 the
Confr^rie de la Passion was instituted at the Church of
St. Patrice, and on Holy Thursday held a proces-
sion in which all the instruments of the Passion of
Christ were carried through the streets by children in
the garb of angels. The Mystery that followed was
given by the direct sanction of the Church in presence
of the King, and in 1476 these representations became
a regular annual performance, and the Confr^rie had
developed by 1543 into a strong rival of that more
famous Confr^rie de la Conception, or Puy des
Palinods, of which I have already traced the beginning
(see p. 69), in the verses of Robert Wace.

The first of these old Mystery Plays had been merely
copies of those F6tes de TEglise, of which I have

167

The Story of Rouen

spoken in suggesting the origin of the ceremonial at the
Levie de la Fierte St. Romaio, and were in fact
" tableaux vivants " of the religious office. Then
dialogues were added, and the ** Drame Liturgique "
appeared within the churches themselves. But the
inevitable element of caricature and buffoonery soon
necessitated an '^ outside show/' The traces of this
transition may be seen in the Chapterhouse Records of
Rouen. In 14519 for example, die Christmas mystery
is performed ^'cessantibus tamen stulticiis et insolenciis,
and in 1457 ^'ordinaverunt quod misterium pastorum
fiat isto festo nativitatis decenter in cappis.'' The
" jeux de Fous " had been forbidden by the Town
Council in 1445 to be l^eld in the churches, and so was
the " Procession de 1* Ane " (from which the anthem
^' Orientis partibus adventavit asinus " has been so often
quoted) with its prophets and sibyls, and the poet
Virgil.

But in 1374 the Confr^rie de la Passion led their
procession in all solemnity on the fUte day of St.
Patrice from his church to the parish of their warden,
and all the poor school children went before, and the
last twelve wardens followed after, each leading a
beggar man by the hand, whose feet they washed dur-
ing the performance of their Mystery. And this
continued until 1636. The last written << Myst^re du
Lavement des Pieds " t^at exists was by one Nicolle
Mauger, who laboured under the disadvantage of living
in the same century with Comeille.

168

CHAPTER VIII

The Siege of Rouen by Henry V.

** War's ragged pupils ; many a wavering line

Tom from the dear fat soil of champaigns hopefully tilled,

Tom from the motherly bowl, the homely spoon,

To jest at famine. . . .

Over an empty platter affect the merrily filled ;

Die, if the multiple hazards around said die."

*T^HE Mystery Plays which I have just mentioned in
*• the last chapter were undertakings at once so
solemn and so popular that I can give no better idea of
coming trouble than is contained in the fact of the post-
ponement of the Mystery arranged by the Confr^rie de
la Passion for 1410. On the 28th of March that year
die sheriffs decided that, owing to the heavy obligations
pressing on the town by reason of the quarrel with the
Duke of Burgundy, and of the severe war-taxes
depleting both private purses and public revenue, these
entertainments must be given up. We find that this
Confir^rie was not to be put off in 1415, and even
repeated its play at Pentecost thirty years later ; but in
1 410 their disappointment was only one of many signs
of that disorder and poverty which finally laid Rouen
open and defenceless before the English army.

Already, in 1383, commerce and industry had
tarred cruelly from the municipal anarchy which
followed the suppression of the commune, and from the
heavy fines for its rebellion imposed by the King. It
was not for more than three centuries that the famous
mayor re-appeared ; and this is no solitary instance of

169

The Story of Rouen

such an obliteration in the country, for though French
Communes actually began before the Free Boroughs of
England, they had not any of the qualities of perma-
nence they showed in the nation where antiquity is more
traceable in institutions than in such buildings as are
still scattered in profusion over France. Another
quaint little episode that shows the uneasiness of the
town occurred in 1405, and is to be found in the
deliberations of the Hotel de Ville for the 27th of
September. Before Guillaume de Bellengues, Captain
of Rouen, and his council, the question was discussed
of the arrival of a certain Spanish captain, Pedro Nino,
Count of Buelna, from Harfleur. Seventeen days
afterwards he came, and it is interesting to observe
that, in spite of relations with Spain which had begun
long previously, lasted until after Corneille's day, and are
still recorded in the name of the Rue des Espagnols, the
good citizens of Rouen were very much upon their guard
when Pedro Nino sailed up the Seine, and only allowed
him to stay in their port and revictual on very hard
conditions, one of which was the entire surrender of
all offensive and defensive weapons. They also insisted
on mooring his three galleys in a certain spot, keeping
a strict guard over them, and not allowing any of his
men in Rouen during the night.

It happens that the personality of Don Pedro is not
unknown to us, from other sources, and the bombastic
account ^ written by his faithful squire, Gutierre de
Gamez, has so many interesting points in it about
Rouen at this date that I must refer to it, if only to
bring out of its obscurity a book that is hardly known,

1 The '* Cronica " beeins as follows : — " Este llbro ha
nombre el Victorial, 6 fabla en ^1 de los quatros Principes que
fueron mayores en el mundo. ..." It was published in
Madrid in 1880, 236 pp. 4to, and was translated from the
original Spanish by MM. Circourt and Puymaigre. (Paris,
Victor Palm^, 1867, 590 pp. 8vo).

170

The Siege of Rouen by Henry V.

and almost deserves to rank near the more famous
and extended chronicle of the " Loyal Servitor " of
Bayard. Without going at any length into a life
which does not concern us, I may say briefly that after
his education at the Court of Castile, which he is said
to have owed to his descent from the royal house of
France, Don Pedro was commissioned at twenty-five
years of age to attack the Barbary Corsairs in the
Western Mediterranean. Ever since Du Guesclin had
deposed Pedro the Cruel, and placed Henry of Tras-
tamare upon the throne of Castille, the alliance between
that power and France remained a political tradition ;
and at about this time Charles VI. being at war with
England, asked for help, with which Don Pedro was
sent. He actually took a town in Cornwall, laid Port-
land under contribution, and burnt the town of Poole.
Returning to Harfleur, he was prevented by contrary
winds from again crossing the Channel, and therefore
decided to sail up the Seine and winter at Rouen.
The luxury of the French nobles was only one of the
many reasons of the weakness and disaster of the nation,
and Don Pedro's voyage up the river seems to have
been made pleasant to him by every chatelaine upon its
banks, until he reached the Cios des Galees (which is
rightly described in the "Victorial"), and met the
somewhat gruff demands of the authorities of Rouen.

They must have very soon changed their opinions,
however; indeed, from the fact that in July of that same
year the welcome and the gifts offered to Louis, Duke
of Orleans, by the sheriffs were entirely contrary to the
wishes of the population, who had just rebelled against
his taxes, we may infer that a friend of that Duke, as
Don Pedro showed himself to be on visiting Paris a
little later, was not likely to have long been treated
with hostility or even indifference by the civic officials.

It is, therefore, hardly surprising that we soon
hear of a love-affair in Rouen, and that too with the

171

The Story of Rouen

daughter of M. de Bellengues, the captain of the town
himself. This lady had but just become awidow^after
her marriage with Renaud de Trie, Admiral of France,
which took place from the Hotel du Bee, before a large
assembly of her father's friends in their parish church of
St. Lo, with sixteen " Farceurs *' dancing before the
procession to amuse the people. '* She is too good-
looking," said the Captain, '< for me to prevent anyone
from seeing her ; " and by this brilliant ceremony he
gave a decisive check to the prevailing custom of secret
weddings in a private chapel.^ The description of the
Chateau of SIrifontaine, near Rouen, where the gallant
Don first met the old and sickly admiral and his pretty
wife, is as complete as almost any other I have seen,
as a picture of a great French nobleman's house at
the beginning of the fifteenth century.

I have no space to quote the " Victorial " unfortun-
ately, and from its pages I can only hint at the abun-
dance you may gather of the ordered beauty and quiet
of the place ; of the chapel with its band of wind-
instruments and minstrels ; of the gracious orchards and
gardens by the stream ; of the lake that could be
drained at will, to choose the best fishes for the
Admiral's table ; of the five and forty sporting dogs
and the men who cleaned the kennels ; of the long
rows of stalls, each with its horse, in the spacious
stables; of the falcons and their perches and their
keepers; of the separate lodgings of my lady, joined to
the main building by a drawbridge, and filled with
dainty furniture. There, too, may be read how Madame
went forth so soon as she had risen from her bed, with

^ M. de Bellengues lived in Michel Leconte's house, called
the Manoir de la Fontaine, which was disputed by the parishes
of St. LfO and St. HerbUnd. In it was a little chapel very
fashionable for private weddings, and a mysterious apartment
which could be hired for honeymoons. The Manor was
bought in 1429, for the convenience of monks visiting Rouen,
by the Abbaye du Bee, from which the street took its name.

17a

The Siege of Rouen by Henry V.

her ten maid s-in- waiting, to a shrubbery where each sat
in silence, with her rosary and her Book of Hours ;
how they then set to picking flowers till it was time for
Mass; how breakfast followed, with chickens and
roasted game upon a silver dish, and wine ; how they
all rode out together of an early afternoon, taking
what gentlemen were there, and singing blidiely till
the fields echoed as with the songs of Paradise. Into
this delightful abode the old Admiral had invited the
sea-captain, who was a guest of Rouen. The Spaniard
was welcomed with a banquet on his arrival, at which
his host, too feeble now to ride or hunt, did the honours
of his house right courteously, providing sweet music
during all the dinner, and a ball afterwards, at which
his wife danced for an hour with the gay Don Pedro.
After a ride round the castle grounds the visitor went
ofF to Paris, and can hardly have been surprised, when
he returned to Rouen and found the Admiral had died,
to receive a message from the pretty widow to come up
and hear the news.

But the lovers were unlucky, for she might not
wed again so soon after her widowhood, and he was
under orders for the war, and had no permission for
such dalliance from his master, the King of Castille.
So he sailed away towards Harfleur, after many pro-
testations of affection on each side, during an eclipse of
the sun which came on as he left Rouen harbour, and
much terrified his sailors. And the end of his little
story is that he married Dona Beatrix of Portugal,
and died in I453 ; while Jeanne de Bellengues
espoused as her second husband Louis Mallet de
Graville, Sieur de Montagu, Grand-Master of the
Arbaletriers of France, and died still in her youth, in
1 41 9. She was buried in the chapel of the Trinity in
Rouen Cathedral, and all her husband's lands were
confiscated by the English King. The intimate con-
nection that existed at this time with Spain is exempli-

>73

The Story of Rouen

(led again by the marriage of Robert de Bracquemont,
who surrendered Pont de I'Arche to King Henry dur-
ing the English advance on Rouen, with Inez de Men-
doza, daughter of a high functionary at the Court of
Castille, where he had been the French ambassador,
and owned estates in Fuentesol and Pennarenda.

I have mentioned the irritation of the populace when
Louis d' Orleans was received so well by the sheriffs.
But their disgust at '< the six barrels of wine, and the
bales of royal scarlet " then presented may not have
been merely political ; for many must have remembered
how in 1390 the Hotel de Ville had actuaUy been
seized for debt owing to the extravagant gifts of silver
plate presented to Isabeau of Bavaria. The family of
Mustel in fact had " fait mettre en criees et subhasta-
tions le manoir de la ville/' And in times of such
distress the citizens may well have objected to any
useless ostentation on the part of their officials.

Disturbances continued rife in Rouen through these
terrible years of the weakness of the King. Chains
had to be fastened permanently across many squares
and streets in the town, which had become absolutely
depopulated owing to the misery of such riots as that of
141 1, or the still more serious outbreak of 141 7, when
the perpetual quarrels of the Armagnac and Burgundian
parties were reflected in the factions of the town. The
burgesses declared for them of Burgundy, who posed as
the " Progressives," or defenders of the people s rights,
and therefore objected to the Bailli and the Chateau,
as being the representatives of the Conservative and
aristocratic Armagnacs, the gatherers of those hateful
taxes, which had been doubled that year, and had
thus made still more diflScult a commerce already
crippled by constant changes in the currency. Per-
petual imposts and extraordinary war-subventions had
drained the town of its resources for some time. Every
religious community had been forced to forego all

"74

The Siege of Rouen by Henry V.

privileges and contribute like the rest. And after
Bernard, Count of Armagnac, had assumed official
direction of the Government, his excessive exactions
made it easy to add the loss of Harfleur and the defeat
of Agincourt, to the many sins of his party. The
brigandage and violence of an Armagnac, Jean Raoulet,
all along the Seine, brought home to the people of
Rouen with an even more startling clearness the
necessity for trying what the other side could do for
them.

So John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, had an
easy part to play as the champion of the downtrodden
people. On the 24th of April he sent a political mani-
festo into the town (very much of the kind to which
modem France has become accustomed) promising
relief from taxation. Before swallowing the bait
entirely the burgesses submitted the seals to examina-
tion in Paris, but the drapers of Rouen scarcely waited
for confirmation before they attacked the royal tax-
gatherers with cries of" Long live Burgundy ! '* There-
upon d' Armagnac sent three commissioners with a troop
of Bretons and Genoese cross-bowmen from Paris.
But the townsfolk would not let the mercenaries enter,
seizing the keys of the town from the officials and
mounting their own guard at every gate. The three
commissioners, powerless without their escort, took
refuge in the Chateau. The King's bailli, Raoul de
Gancourt, refused to leave his post. He seems to have
been a man brave enough to make his mark upon the
stricken field of Agincourt, and intellectual enough to
win a local reputation as a poet, a nature in fact some-
what akin to Charles d' Orleans. But though he could
make no head against the rioters he would not leave
his honour behind him in the Rue Beauvoisine, and
gathered round his hospitable hearth a few of the choice
spirits of the town who joined him in deploring the
excesses of the populace.

175

The Story of Rouen

Outside in the market-place Burgundian orators
were rousing the passions of the mob, and chief among
the leaders of the people were Alain Blanchart and
De Li vet, a canon of the Cathedral, then in charge of
the diocese during the absence of Louis d'Harcourt, who
much preferred the amusements of a courtier to the
pious seclusion of an archbishop. As soon as the news
of all this reached Paris, the Dauphin himself, vdth a
brilliant suite, set out for Rouen, and encamped in the
fortress on St. Catherine's Hill, to the south-east of
the town, between the Aubette and the Seine. A
message sent him by De Gancourt, intercepted by the
citizens, put the finishing touch to their resentment.
Three men were picked out to rid them of the baillL
One of them was Guillot Leclerc (afterwards beheaded
for his crime), but Alain Blanchart had no share in
the assassination, whatever you may imagine to be the
meaning of Monstrelet's remarks. At midnight on
the 23rd of July (the day of the Dauphin's arrival on
St. Catherine) some masked men went to De Gan-
court's door, begging him to receive a malefactor they
had arrested. The moment the bailli appeared they
fell upon him and left him dead in the gutter. Directly
afterwards they rushed on to the house of his lieu-
tenant-general, Jean Legier, seized him and his nephew,
and threw them into the Seine, together with other
prominent members of the Armagnac faction.

The only result was a short blockade of the town
by the Dauphin's troops and a military demonstration
from the Chateau, which could be reinforced from
outside through a postern to the west of the Porte
Bouvreuil.-^ The citizens then surrendered, the Sire de
Gamaches was made bailli, and Jean d'Harcourt (a
relation of the absentee archbishop) was made captain
of the town, with command of the castle ; but the
Dauphin's party was not strong enough to punish as
^ For the whole of this chapter see Map &
176

The Siege of Rouen by Henry V.

they wished, and Rouen was left in a state of ill-
suppressed disloyalty. This broke out once more into
rebellion at the beginning of the new year. Robert
de firacquemont, made Admiral of France in April
141 7 (whose Spanish alliances I have mentioned on
p. 1 74), was sent down with troops as lieutenant-general
of the King in Rouen, Gisors, Caux, and Honfleur.
But he could not get into the town, and had to wait
in the fortress of St. Catherine. During his short
tenure of office the negotiations (preserved in the
archives of Dieppe) which he was obliged to attempt,
in order to secure some sort of coalition between the
hostile factions against the English army, are a lamentable
revelation of the dissensions of the time. When the
supremacy of the Burgundians became inevitable, he
went away, as we have seen, to Spain, leaving his
opponent, Guy le Bouteiller, to take command of the
castle of Rouen, and bring back with him Alain
Blanchart with other democratic exiles ; and these two
are prominent names in the siege that is to come, for
Blanchart was made captain of the picked burgess-
troop of the Arbaletriers of Rouen, Guillaume d'Hon-
detot was made bailli, and Laghen, the Bastard of
Arly, was made lieutenant.^ The Royalist Armagnacs
were definitely abandoned, but, as we shall see, the
unhappy town gained little in the crisis of her fate
from her Burgundian sympathies.

During all these days of civic anarchy the English
troops were steadily advancing to their goal. Though
no predetermined plan is proved to have existed in the
mind of Henry V., the movements of his army resulted
in a very definite and successful campaign. Landing
on the elbow of the coast of Normandy, where no one

^ During the same changes, Pierre Poolin was g^ven the
office of Procureur-G^n^ral of Rouen, and Jean Segneult exer-
ciied the functions of the Mayoralty, though without the actual
name.

M 177

The Story of Rouen

expected him, he cut the strength of her resistance in
two by a rapid march from north to south, paralysing
the warlike nobles of Cotentin, and forcing the hostile
Angevins and the uncertain Bretons to remain neutral.
Then, after sending out detachments to east and west,
he concentrated on the Seine, crossed it above Rouen,
and seized Pont de I'Arche so as to cut off her best
communication with Paris, crush her between his fleet,
his army, and his garrison at Honfieur, and ensure the
conquest of Normandy beneath her walls.

While the toils were thus closing in upon her, while
she was being slowly cut off from crippled France,
from Paris, where the citizens had nothing better to
do than massacre the Armagnacs, Rouen sent hurriedly
for help to the Duke of Burgundy. They only got
brave words from his son, the Count of Charolais,
who used all the taxes of the northern towns to
fight against — ^not the English, but the Armagnacs.
Paris showed a greater sympathy by instantly sending
300 archers and 300 of their own militia. At last
the Duke of Burgundy gave to a selfish policy
what he had refused to patriotism, and realising that
when his own party was in power the English were
more enemies than allies, he sent 4000 men-at-arms
to help the beleaguered city. In January Guy le
Bouteiller had brought 1 500 more with him into the
castle. The town itself could provide 1 5,000 militia,
loo arbaletriers, 2000 artillerymen, and 2000 troops
from the rest of Normandy, who had fled to Rouen
when their own towns were destroyed, giving a total
of 2 5,200 fighting men.

Taught by the bitter experience of Caen, the burghers
began their preparations by devastating the buildings in
St. Sever on the south side of the bridge, and before
the invaders were close up, they practically levelled to
the ground nearly every house in the faubourgs outside
the fortifications. With the stone thus sacrificed, they
178

The Siege of Rouen by Henry V.

rq)aired the breaches in their wallSf and itrcngthcnrd
every tower, sowing ^'chausse-trappcs/' or MhAr)) threC"
pronged irons in the fields all round the city. DeiidcM
the cannon on the walls, each tower had three iMrae
guns pointing in different directions, and eight NmHllet'
pieces for fast firing. Antiquated weapons werr preisecl
into the service as well, the balista, the three- mouthed
trebuchet (the tappgete, or tryppgettc of the Ungliiih)f
and the sling for hurling heavy darts and urrowi let up
on the Porte Martainville. Besides this, they MnK
every boat on the Seine, above or below the town^ m\A
even burnt their two royal galleys when the progrfM fif
the siege compelled them to prevent the Knglf«h from
the advantage of their capture. Further iaxen Wft^
raised and cheerfully paid by layman^ eeclcmu^iiCf Htui
soldier alike, and orders were isMJcd^ by the ttfUMi //f it
tnmmet in every public square, that efery bofiMrhokl^f
ahooid get in proritions for tiim mofithn, Mtt ftimffH m^
possible feat considering the scarcity r>f all UfdtS m Htft*
mandy at the time. Finallv, v>me ihffomutfU (4 th&
poorer classes were betoithed Cfot (A the U/wt^f ^hd n
few drifted as ^ as Beaii^au and PatM, hoft th^ tMfff'
ity wcfc swept back agwr* mt/> RfAier^ Ivy the -v/iv?f«#kf >y
increasiBg tide of ha/ffd^m di.i^'n \t^p rlr*e ^Aty hy the
Ei^fisb, to make fjie cask fA Uefikv^ v, tv^ivy ^k^)em
months nore dhicukr The r«to(fs Wfre^ hi<i*/yt4 -jrh^m
the £jnaie cane.

On tiut Eof^zsh isdf^ ^.e K'ln^t v^rv .Kvm mimlv^M
: 61,400 of all arm% du» (Uvxtin^^rA ^A ni* •r-fi*i#vi4 ^,^^
tsBfls aod borons wMnnted 'A t^^^yA^ UwMulm^ k^i^r^y

loco carjcno^ri ind »'V^4.tvn r^WwM "V ^itiy,
fcv:. »n^:n*»^^?, «(i>o^"''i» ^md .-niri^^ ; ti-
the men vH^ i»?r>»r{ -}i#! :*r*^\Wj. Tni^ #aN»
tiieferce -aiac .nt Rn^^lan/i, wi4 »ny -fimirtijfwv?!^ in •»»
by bpse it ame knrf irr r#v», •]»»*«* ti/v-* *Ji<wi .-wM** i*>
by eke iKiiitorcAiwnts -vf rh*? i^:«r: V yK-^r^^M, ^ ^

T'he Story of Rouen

Duke of Exeter, of Sir John Talbot, and the Prior of
Kilmaine. So that the total of the army that besieged
Rouen was, at least, 45,000 men. This large force
was brought across the Seine, partly by the old bridge
of Pont de I'Arche, partly by a light and ingenious
pontoon bridge made of planks supported on water-
tight leather boats, which could be packed up and
carried with the army on the march.

The first appearance of the enemy was when the
Duke of Beaufort (who had been Earl of Dorset in
1 41 5), appeared before the walls to summon Rouen to
surrender on terms. The citizens answered him with
an attack of cavalry. On Friday the 2 9th of July, Henry
V. set out from Pont de I'Arche by the right bank of
the river, with a cloud of scouts before his army, savage
half-clad Irishmen, armed with Hght shields, short jave-
lins, and long knives, who plundered all the countryside,
and rode into camp at night astride of the cattle they
had stolen. That same evening, " the Friday before
Lammas day," the King reached Rouen and placed his
troops all round the town under cover of the darkness.
The citizens awoke next morning to find Rouen girdled
with English steel. The die was irrevocably cast.
Abandoned by their king, by both the factions into
which the rest of France was torn, the hardy burgesses
resolved to stand firm for the honour of a nation which
had left them to their fate. And, at first sight, the
mighty walls, and moats, and towers must have made
even the English hesitate before attacking a town that
hadprepared so stubborn a defence.

The account of the siege has very fortunately been
preserved by two eye-witnesses, and we are able to
check any French sympathies that may have crept into
the accounts of Monstrelet, or of the Monk of St.
Denys, of Juvenal des Ursins, or of the "Journal
d'un Bourgeois de Paris," by comparing them not
merely with the worthless " Chronique de Normandie,"
180

The Siege of Rouen by Henry V.

at with Pierre Cochon'g " Chronitjue Normande,"
but with two far more impoitant aad more authoritative
dcBcriptions, one preserved in Paris, the other in the
British Museum. Both were written by men in the

army of Henry V., whose names are unknown. The
first is called the " Chronicon Henrici Quinli," which
was brought to France by Pierre Pithou, and is now in
the Bibliothfifue Nationale (MS. 6239). The aecortd
i8t

The Story of Rouen

18 a poem in contemporary English called the << Sege of
Roan," of which 954 verses were published by Mr Cony-
beare in ^' Archaeologia Britannica" (vol. xxi.), and
676 verses by Sir Frederick Madden CiL vol. xxii.).
Of English contemporary authorities, Otterbourne and
Stow have something to say, but Walsingham is useless.
Rymer's ** Foedera" has some important documents (vol.
IV. iv.) and there are finally, of course, the archives of the
town itself, which emphasise in many details the heroic
patriotism and constancy of the citizens amidst the suf-
ferings, as terrible as can be imagined, which preceded
the ^1 of the town and the consequent subjugation of
Normandy to England for thirty years.

There is not much that you can still see of the city
that was so splendidly defended, but 1 can at least point
you to the very spot where King Henry the Fifth
had his headquarters. By going eastwards out of the
city, along the Rue d 'Amiens, which starts from the
Place des Fonts de Robec, you reach the boulevard
Gambetta, north of the streams of Aubette (along
which runs the road to Nid de Chiens, the Norman
dukes' sporting kennel) and south of that branch of
Robec which passes by the Tour du Colombier.
Though that part of Rouen's fortifications has dis-
appeared, you may still see at the south-east angle of
the old walls, a remnant of that Convent des Celestins
founded by the Duke of Bedford during the English
occupation. A little further northwards you pass the
end of the Rue Eau de Robec, " ignoble petite Venise "
as Flaubert called it, with its queer bridges and over-
hanging gables, and finally in the Place St. Hilaire you
will find the Route de Darnetal. Walk eastwards
straight along it, until a small suburban road turns out
of it upon your right hand, called the Rue de la Petite
Chartreuse. This soon leads you to a large expanse
of enclosed ground on the left of the road, surrounded
by a fine bit of fifteenth-century wall ; the entrance-
182

7 be Siege of Rouen by Henry V.

gate 18 marked with the number 4. Within are several
ruined buildings dotted about a quiet abbey close whose
strange religious atmosphere has never changed in more
than four and a half centuries. Close to the gate, there
rises an ivy-covered column of dilapidated ancient
masonry, which holds a much more modem seventeenth-
century shrine, still commemorating " Notre Dame des
Roses," as the laundresses call her.

Far behind your right shoulder rise the spires of
Rouen; away to the left is the church tower of
Dametal; in the opposite horizon the great slope of
St. Catherine rises to the sky. Within this quiet
square Archbishop Guilkume de 1' Estrange built the
Chartreuse de Notre Dame de la Rose, in 1386,
rather more than a mile from the Porte St. Hilaire, in
that cool valley between St. Catherine and Dametal,
which is shut in by the interlacing arms of Robec and
Aubette. Some fifty yards beyond the shrine I have
just mentioned, you will see a half-ruined mediaeval
building, which must have been the great hall of the
convent. Traces of fourteenth and fifteenth century
work have been found in it by the eye of faith, though
the lower floor is now a kind of granary, and the upper
storey is used as a big drying-ground by the laundry
girls who live close by in the pretty old house that used
to form a set of lodgings for the monks. Above its
walls in 141 8 floated the royal flag of England, and
within them the last act in the tragedy of the siege of
Rouen was playea out. It is my good fortune that
the drawing of this historic spot, made for me by Miss
James, happens to be yet another picture in this little
volume of a scene that has never, to the best of my
belief, been given to English readers before. The
King's headquarters, though close to Mont St. Cath-
erine were beyond the range of the cannon of those
days, and between him and the fortress Lord Salisbury's
men were placed, with Lieutenant Philip Leech on the

183

The Story of Rouen

south side, and Sir John Gray to the west. Opposite
the Porte Martainville was the Earl of Warwick's
camp; and Edmund Beaufort, Count of Mortain,
who became Duke of Somerset when he was made
governor of Normandy, held the north side of
the Aubette and completed the investment of St.
Catherine's.

North of the King's camp, Sir William Porter had
at first held the ground before the Porte St. Hilaire, but
the Duke of Gloucester was given the position as soon
as he came up from Cherbourg, placing his two lieu^
tenants on each side of the stream, the Earl of Sufiblk
to the south, the Marquis of Abergavenny northwards.

Leaving the side on which the King's camp was so
well guarded, if you passed west and northwards round
the battlements of Rouen, you would have seen Thomas
Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, guarding the Porte Beau-
voisine, having as his lieutenants Lord Willoughby de
Eresby and the Lord Chamberlain, Henry Fitz-Hugh,
to the east, and John Lord Ross westwards. The
Castle of Rouen and the Porte Bouvreuil were besieged
by Lord John Mowbray, second son of the Duke of
Norfolk, whose lieutenants were first Sir William
Hanington, and later on Sir Gilbert Talbot, the father
of the famous Earl of Shrewsbury. The fest gate, the
Porte Cauchoise at the lowest western angle of the town,
was beleaguered by Thomas Plantagenet the Duke of
Clarence whose camp was in the ruined abbey of St.
Gervais ; above him was the Earl of Cornwall ; and
James Butler, Earl of Ormond, closed the investing
lines towards the river. A glance at map B will
make all this clear.

Across the Seine, the whole of the ruined faubourg
of St. Sever was under the command of John Holland,
Earl of Huntingdon, whose business it was to guard the
barbacan, or fortress at the south end of the bridge,
and to keep up the English communications with the
184

7 be Siege of Rouen by Henry V.

south of Normandy. To do this he had a numerous
stafF of lieutenants, Sir Gilbert d'Umfreville, Lord
John Nevill, eldest son of the Earl of Westmoreland,
Sir Richard Arundel, and Lord Edmund Ferrers.
Finally, Thomas, Lord Carew, was given a roving
commission to scout and forage with his light Irish
troops and a body of hardy Welshmen under Jenico
of Artois who is mentioned both by the English
anonymous poet and by Holinshed.

Within the walls of Rouen the roll of the defenders
has but very modest names to contrast to the flower
of English chivalry opposed to them. Of Guy
le Bouteiller, captain of the castle at the Porte
Bouvreuil, I have already spoken. One of his lieutenants,
Jean Noblet, held St. Catherine, and the other, Laghen,
the Bastard of Arly, kept the Porte Cauchoise with
the goodwill of all the citizens who firmly trusted him.
One of his subordinates is called <<Mowne-sir de
Termagowne'* by the English poet. The names of
all those who kept the walls are chronicled either by
this authority or by Monstrelet. But the most famous
of them were Alain Blanchart, captain of the Arbale-
triers, who seems to have taken command of the whole
militia and was the life and soul of the town's resistance,
and Canon Robert de Li vet whose devotion and ardour
inspired every non-combatant to assist the soldiers in
their weary task and to bear their sufferings with a
fortitude he was himself the first to show. 1 have
mentioned 2000 refugee-warriors from other places.
They seem to have been led by the men of Caen
under a Lombard condottiere called Le Grand Jacques,
or as the English poem has it: —

" Guaunte Jakys a werryour wyse."

The real operations of the siege began with a
desperate sortie of the citizens from every gate at
once, which was repulsed with slaughter. The follow-
ing days were filled with spirited attacks on every

i8s

Tbe Story of Rouen

English captain who had not had time to fortify his
post, attacks which only ceased when a huge ditch had
been dug all round the town, with regular posts and
covered ways, the whole under the guidance of Sir
Robert Bapthorp, who was afterwards rewarded with
the " Maison a I'enseigne de FOurs " in the Rue de
la Vicomte. Meanwhile the English continued to
make sure of their communications with Harfleur down
the Seine, and to cut off the same route to the French.
The Portuguese fleet helped them to blockade the
mouth of the river, and even advanced upstream as far
as Quilleboeuf. Most important of all, they built the
Bridge of St. George of solid timbers sunk into the
stream between Lescure and Sotteville, four miles
higher up than Rouen, and guarded it thoroughly from
all attack. Finally, Jean Noblet, cut off from all pro-
visions in St. Catherine, had to surrender on the thirtieth
of August, and a few days afterwards, Caudebec, the
last hope of the city down the stream was forced to
swear complete neutrality and to abide by the same
terms which were eventually won by Rouen, an instance
of heroic partisanship which proves the solidarity of
Normandy and the loyalty of every outlying town to
the capital.

The results of all this were very soon visible, for the
Seine was now completely in the power of the English,
and the only problem that remained for the King to
solve was to get his war-galleys high enough up the
Seine to protect St. George's Bridge. He could not
think of sailing past the town itself. He finally
determined to drag the vessels across the narrow neck
of land that lies at the southern angles of the great
curve on which Rouen herself is set. The space at this
point between the villages of Moulineaux and Orival is
scarcely ^vq miles, as may be seen on map A. The
galleys were hauled across under full sail with a favour-
ing wind on huge greased rollers, and then indeed the
i86

T'be Siege of Rouen by Henry V.

men of Rouen were face to face with the reality of a
blockade which held them fast by land and water ; so
they burnt their own last warships and set fire to the
^unoos Clos des Galees.

Henry V. had before this written to London for
proyisionsy in a letter to the Lord Mayor which is still
preserved in the archives of the City, and took nine
days to get to him. "And pray you effectuelly,"
writes the King, "that in al the haste that ye may,
ye wille do arme as manie smale vessels as ye may
goodly with vitaille and namly with drinke for to come
Harfleu and fro thennes, as fer as they may, up ye river
of Seyne to Roan ward, vith the said vitaille for the
refresching of us and our said boost." The royal
request was cheerfully welcomed, and the city of
London hasted to send " Tritty botes of swete wyne,
ten of Tyre, ten of Romency, ten of Malvesey, and a
thousand pipes of ale and bare, with three thousand and
five hundred coppes for your boost to drinke " — a "bote "
being about 1 26 gallons. At the very moment when all
this good cheer reached the thirsty Englishmen, the
first pinch of hunger came upon the men of Rouen, as,
one by one, their last communications were cut off.
Their attacks upon the enemy became more frequent and
more desperate every day. With artillery, with every
weapon they could scrape together, obsolete or not,
they kept a continual hail of missiles on the English
camp, especially harassing the quarters of the Duke of
Gloucester, absolutely preventing the King's soldiers
from ever approaching near enough to mine their walls,
and giving not an hour of rest to the English army.

But Henry V. was too wise to waste a man. After
he had cut off every avenue of help or hope, he sat quite
still and waited, for he knew that death and disease
were on his side, and that against inevitable starvation no
city in the world could stand for long. The horror of
this long-drawn agony was now and then relieved by

187

The Story of Rouen

such single combats between the lines as that when
Laghen beat the Englishman who had challenged him
before the gate of Caux, or by the hanging of a new
French prisoner in the English lines and the retaliation
of an execution on the walls of Rouen. But rations
were growing pitifully small now, and another effort
was made to get help from the King and the Duke of
Burgundy. A messenger got through the lines and
brought the stem warning of the citizens to those who
had abandoned them. For Rouen cried " Haro ! "
before the throne, and gave notice to the princes that
if she was compelled to surrender to the English, there
would be no bitterer enemy of the Crown than the
capital of Normandy. They got the usual promises,
and every bell in Rouen (save the captive " Rouvel" )
rang to welcome the good tidings of the messenger
on his return. But nothing happened, and both at
Alengon and at Pont de I'Arche the English King
was easily able to put off the negotiations which were
the only sign of help that Rouen got from Paris.

And now famine itself began to grip the citizens by
the throat. The Register of the Cathedral Chapter-
house shows signs of scarcity of food only three weeks
after the siege began, for fines are then imposed in loaves
of bread. Then the bread usually distributed was given
up, and money substituted. The last entry stops short
in the middle of a pathetic sentence ..." parce que,
dans le necessite du present si^ge, le pain ..." and
it was not until the gates were opened that a clerk was
found strong enough to go on writmg. By the end of
September all the meat had disappeared, every horse and
every donkey had been eaten, and wheaten bread was
sold at a sovereign a loaf. The horrors of starvation
need not any further be revealed ; but by the first days
of December they had a peculiarly terrible result. To
save their own lives, and keep enough miserable fodder
for the soldiers to stand upright behind the walls, the
1 88

^be Siege of Rouen by Henry V.

burgesses of Rouen had to turn out of the town all the
refugees who had fled for safety to her walls from other
cities taken by the English. Some fifteen thousand of
them, men, women and children, tottered out of the
gates and made feebly for the English lines. The
chronicler himself was moved to pity : " Have ye pitee
hem upone " he cries to the English King, " and yeve
hem leve thens to gone '* ; but when they tried to pass
through they found a row of pikes as pitiless as the shut
gates of Rouen behind. Beneath the chill December
sky these famishing spectres had to take refuge in the
open ditch below the ramparts of the town. Without
any shelter, ragged, defenceless, and feeding only on
roots and bitter grass, grubbed from the war-scarred
ground, they perished in hundreds every night, they
died by the chance missiles of one side or the other,
they went mad and hurled themselves into the watch-
fires of the English. From the walls above, a priest
sometimes would lean down with a blessing, or draw
up an infant newly born into all this misery, baptise it,
and lower it again to die ; but never a crumb of bread
came out of starving Rouen. The Canon de Livet,
whose stout heart no horror of the siege could break,
was almost overcome at this last infamy of fate ; and
standing high upon the ramparts he cursed the English
army, and pronounced the anathema of excommunica-
tion against its king.

The citizens made one more attempt to break through
that inflexible ring of death. Ten thousand of the
strongest men who could still carry arms were picked
out from the garrison, and every atom of eatable
substance in the town was swept and scraped together
to give them such a pittance as was grimly supposed to
sustain them for two days. Two thousand of them
dashed out of the Porte St. Hilaire and feverishly made
for the headquarters of the King. Their very despera-
tion sent them momentary victory, but their movement

189

Tbe Story of Rouen

was only inteDded as a blind to the main attack arranged
from the castle gate, behind which eight thousand un-
daunted skeletons rattled in their armour and prepared
to deliver their last blow for freedom. Their front
ranks were already past the moat, and the weight of
their main column was upon the bridge, when suddenly
the massive timbers groaned beneath them, and some
thousand men-at-arms fell down into the ditch beneath.
Cut off from their own men, those who had already
passed were shot down at leisure by the English, while
the ditch was filled with maimed and dead. Those
who had not had time to cross were obliged to make
a circuit and try to give assistance to their isolated
friends outside by way of the Porte Bouvreuil further
to the north and east. The miserable heroes who
had attacked the royal camp were only got back into
the town with fearful loss. To the discouragement of
the failure was added the bitter suspicion of treason, for
the great beams of the bridge were found to have been
half sawn through. Their despair was accentuated by
the death of the brave Laghen, who had at last suc-
cumbed to the fatigues of fighting without proper food.
At the imminent peril of their lives, but preferring
death in the open to the starvation of rats in a hole,
four nobles and four burgesses got through the English
lines once more, with a last appeal to the Duke of
Burgundy and the King, roundly denying all allegiance
to them if no attempt to help were made. The Duke
himself was base enough to answer that on the fourth
day after Christmas help would come, and this though
he must have known that there was no real chance of
succour. But with a pitiable confidence in their leaders
the envoys dragged themselves back to Rouen and bade
the garrison hold out only for another fifteen days, and
then they should be rescued. To men already starving
we can scarce imagine what the delay of another fort-
night meant. It was drawing near to Christmas.
190

afttt ^i^iiBfa conrotwo piusa "were kssd iikhnmnii^
thoBr yhaimnnfe cif still Kombie tiuinHimy i^ut
flOPEScftisd tfasir -fiffihlfliii; urmB id iuiinRm ^^nn i^ oxj
HOflL ITiff ikiing "wbf Bending &od Bn£ dmiiL id lihesn
lor tbr low of Him -viioe iarck -whe nrMiraigd cni tie
■mmiw- T^hf* miBsrebk cigHUu g fc atr and fbsnk "vinib
laAeiinifi cnes "i^wr hnui^^it xfac Huu'vjiig ^jBrriBaD id lie
viBs HD WHTch ttffim ; fam "^aex mtv g»™w^ xbr BcrcDgdi
to adfer Tiaiii a ^iirV longer, door i^ nesi dinr the
GmilBfih Jina cloBed ut> la^xoi und hd man- fctod w id
bekii.

Odc hhb? tns&r dk^ipoiicanfim dir rmTSHro vfrt
doDBed Id mfer iefiurr istc end ctciiKi. Ftdtid thr
i^gptt bank oF liie Senu^ rvd Narz32:i! iicibk&. .lacqu»
iftlaDOZsairt and liif Sire: d£ MareuiJ iirrtrmfiLcd tD drsT
tke Eineiid) inxo jsl mnbiiiiraidc TTiirr iiad cmlr tvd
ihwiwrnifl men, iiiii tfarr mipfa: "wdl ixsTfr CT-euied
d mertfi'ju to nnder n TictcirioiB isJlj jowdiaii?
tdie CCT, for ::ii* £«n|rii^ inifcgiDed i: mu thr
ni^ BTxxnr nf rc»::u£ =:niit- i:: Ihbl. But 'Liit f^g^
jB'Diii :^ -vAvk :t iLciuo. ^ttiijl i^ mprrfiraBhpD
lieir Eonn«r:~Jcnt tut it* fngh: :»t t 6ir Hm<Jif:
bodj <of !di£- imsnrr. anr iiii:r iuic ijci|p& fad*'d iit^ drv
beftirc liiir fiun. Tiist -tit iutefiJ nrMfn-n'Titi erf
cam*- imr -^'cni^ -wEuyin l Hir*^ af TOTiL or
iieh^ J or rwi, mcr* miKruuif: dsyi t:i»
TTHtfifd ir THiu arc ii:r ti'J irrrx -tiiCiuiaTid
ixad died uf siniint dif istrr yimi: trf BU'^*mitr.
-wilk -wert BiiL mtar- "Sti*?!* ticii'U ai- Binin ai
r, Sue flsmcioL ns^pix t:, -matt r^tTamiu* y-sacijci
lie enenrr'i arrilisrjr uai :#?*ri :if n:- i'vai- Ss;

the — ^'^^g ii lilt H.yi*i :i* V Ji*. vric yin t:* :«i-irF

TbcT vansersi n. ran v\m. ;»ii» :a«in '-^ m\'XJwr„
vntol ther v*rt yrmpei •-: ::"-«i '-•^'fr *-: :»i i/r^tr, aiic
tlieie lirr fuuzc Sr S-iliitrr. r 'Viiif:r»-ilit, whok

- r 1

The Story of Rouen

NormaD lineage perhaps made him kinder than the
rest. He was at last prevailed upon to take them on
the second day of the year, a Monday, into the presence
of the King. Though every hour meant a prolonging
of their torture, the ambassadors fought foot by foot
the conditions of surrender and calmly argued every
sentence of the treaty with that Norman love of litiga-
tion which now rose to its highest and most impassioned
point. In the great hall of the Chartreuse de la Rose,
they saw the cold, impassive, handsome countenance of
the young English King, with that touch of sadness on
it that foretold his early death, ^ and the detached
nobility of manner which fitted a King who had ex-
hausted every pleasure before he took, and worthily
wielded, the responsibilities of power.

The first request of the ambassadors was for the
succour of the poor outcasts in the moat all round the
town. But Henry only announced his firm resolve
to take Rouen and all its citizens and to make those
who had opposed his will '* remember me until the
Day of Judgment." At last an armistice of two or
three days was granted, and on the third of January a
solemn meeting of the picked ambassadors of either
side took place between the Chartreuse and the Porte
St. Hilaire, where all the splendour of the English
noblemen's caparisons and furniture was displayed, and
the starving commissioners from Rouen made the bravest
show they could beneath the Fleurs de Lys of France.
Close to all this magnificence was the yet living horror
of the moat, which was now almost filled up with
dead. From time to time the heap of rags and withered
anatomies heaved slowly, and the little spectre of a child
crawled out, imploring food. And all day long the
solemn arguments went on beneath the sumptuous
pavilions of the English, until, after three days of

1 The prophetic word " Jamais " was in the device upon
the tapestry above him.
192

The Siege of Rouen by Henry V.

disciunon, the ambasudon of Rouen weat bock, nn-
Batialied, into their city.

"We aakid mykUle," taja the poet, "thef praferid una).

That ii yuelle Co acconle with alle.
Tho thay tretid an xlHj nyit
And zic accorde they ne mjit."

Both sides were indeed so resolute, that they "might
have argued for a fortni^t without coming to an

agreement." But the people of the city had starved
long enough, and they drove back their emissaries to
the Porte St. Hilaire, after one proposal, bom of mad-

The Story of Rouen

nessy had been made, to 8et fire to the town and then
by every gate at once to pour out i^n the English
camp with the whole population in a flood, and so
win through or die at least with weapons in their
hands. Some news of this despairing possibility may
have suggested to King Henry that the representations
of the Archbishop of Canterbury were not without
their value. At anyrate he yielded to solicitation,
granted another truce, and on the ninth of January
opened negotiations once again.

This time the pressure of famine was so hard upon
the ambassadors themselves that they went on with
discussions night and day, burning torches and candles
when the sun set. At last a definite instrument was
signed and sealed that guaranteed life and a free pass to
the garrison, their goods to the citizens, and great
portion of its privileges to the town. But the
terms were hard enough. Three hundred thousand
crowns of gold ^ was fixed as the ransom of the city ;
the chains were to be taken down from every street ;
ground sufficient for an English palace was to be given
up, which was eventually chosen at the south-west
corner of the town near the river ; nine persons, among
whom were the Canon Robert de Livet and Alain
Blanchart, were exempted from the capitulation and
" reserved to the mercy of the King,** which in one
case at least meant death.

Upon a throne, and dressed in cloth of gold, Henry
V. received the keys of Rouen from Guy le Bouteiller,
in the Chartreuse de la Rose. Then the Duke of
Exeter, as captain of the town, set up the English
standard over all her gates and above the donjon of
the castle ; and at daylight on the twentieth of January
the French garrison filed out of Rouen across the Seine
towards the Bridge of St. George on the left bank, and

Eighteen million francs would represent the relative value
of this sum nowadays. It was not fully paid eleven years later.
194

The Siege of Rouen by Henry V.

were stripped of everything, save one suit of clothes,
by the English soldiers, as they went. Only two thou-
sand men survived out of the six thousand who had so
gallantly come into Rouen to help resist the enemy.
While they escaped sadly into desolated Normandy,
King Henry V. was advancing from the Chartreuse;
he moved slowly round the city to the Porte Cauchoise,
and behind him was borne a fox's brush swinging upon
a lance.^ The bells rang and the cannon roared salute
as he entered Rouen, but of the inhabitants scarcely one
had strength to stand upright, not one had voice to
cheer, and all besought for bread. Alone of the nine
prisoners, Alain Blanchart was beheaded. But thirty-
three burgesses were picked out to pay a special tax in
ready money and imprisoned till it was delivered.^ The
main sum of the ransom was disputed with the true
Norman delight in legal quibbling, and not fully paid
(or at least "arranged for ) till 1430.

The imposition of this huge sum on a community
already at the end of its resources had a lasting and
terrible effect upon the town. The Chapterhouse were
obliged to remit half their rents from the farmers ruined
by the war. All debts had to receive special postpone-
ment, and commerce suffered almost as fatally as
agriculture. All over Rouen houses were continually
being put up to auction for public or private defalca-
tions, to be bought by those Englishmen who had not
been already given estates as a reward for their services.

1 No one has ever explained this to my satisfaction. But
visitors to Heidelberg will remember the connection of a fox's
brush with ttie Court Fool Perlieo, and various other legends
of Renard which give the symbol, I fear, anything but a
courteous significance for a foe beaten but not disgraced.

3 The Englishmen recorded that some of their prisoners were
put in the "Ostel de la Oloche dont avoit la ffarde Jehan
Lemorguc." By this changed name is meant the humbled
Hotel de Ville, where prisons had been managed in the
lower stortys early in the fifteenth century.

'95

"The Story of Rouen

The buildiogt of the Ahbey of St. Ouen were entirely
occupied by the men of the Duke of Suffolk, so that
the archbi^op of 14^23 waa unable to paM the oight
before hie entry Id the abbey, as of immemorial custom,
because the English lilled up every inch of it. Of the
exquiate east end we can see now, not much more
than the beautiful little "Tour aux Clercs" of the
older abbey was standing in I419. But it may be

Eut down as one of the few things creditable to the
[Dgliah occupation that part of the nave was cert^nly
finished uoder thnr eocouragement (see Chap. X.).
Meanwhile the King
took care to strengthen
the castle at the Porte
Bouvreuil, and the
barbacan at the bridge ;
and his own palace
began to rise near the
Tour Malsifrotte and
the Porte du Pr^ d«
U Bauille. Nothing
now remains of it save
the name of " Rue du
Vieux Palais " in the
Quartier St. Eloi (see
map D). But it
served in the Urst years aa a residence for the Duke
of Bedford, and for the young King Henry VI.

After the conquest of Rouen, one town after another
fell mto the English hands. On September 23 in
1419, the last resistance in Normandy was quelled
at Chateau Gaillard. Mont St. Michael alone re-
mained free until the English domination ceased and
France joined her in her freedom. The King who took
the dty of Rouen was seen there twice again. Id i 42 1 ,
with Catherine of France, his wife, he opened the
Estates of Normandy. In 1421 he was borne through
196

The Siege of Rouen by Henry V.

Rouen on his funeral bier; two months before the
crown of France would have been his.

The Rouen besieged by King Henry V. can be
almost exactly traced along the lines of the modern
boulevards shown in map B. The extension east-
wards, which is given in map £. with this chapter, took
place chiefly during the fourteenth century when Rouen
was rapidly growing to be the second town in the
kingdom. In making the circuit of the walls you will
remember passing the Tour du Colombier between the
Porte Martainville and the Porte St. Hilaire. It is
represented now by a picturesque old house standing
four-square upon a buttressed wall above the stream, at
the extreme eastern verge of the great enclosure of the
hospital. It is still called the Maison des Celestins,
and aged men over sixty are preserved there to live out
in peace the autumn of their days. Both the name and
the present occupiers are an appropriate reminder of
one who is connected with some of the better memories
of the English occupation, the Duke of Bedford
who founded the Convent des Celestins, that was
ruined by the Huguenots in 1 562, upon the land for-
merly occupied by his Chateau de Chantereine, called
"Joyeux Repos.

This convent, which was also known as the ^< Val
Notre Dame," is not the only trace which the Duke of
Bedford's benefactions left in Rouen. He also took
the Carmelite brethren under his especial protection,
being no doubt supported in this charitable action
by the English Carmelite confessor of Henry V.,
Thomas de Valde, who died at Rouen in 1430. But
his most intimate connection with ecclesiastical Rouen
is recorded in the archives of the Cathedral, where we
are told that he left the chapterhouse in his will a
beautiful golden chalice garnished with gems, a pair
of golden censers and a silver-gilt crucifix, in memory
of his being made a canon at his own request. And

197

The Story of Rouen

there is some irony in the thought that at the moment
he was giving these proofs of his affection for the town,
his councillors were, with his consent, pursuing Jeanne
d'Arc with every subtlest form of legal and religious
torture.

Scarcely a year after Jeanne had been burnt in
the Vieux Marche, the Duke's wife, Anne of Bur-
gundy, died at the early age of 28, and in addition to
this private loss he had to submit to the consequences
of a grave error of judgment in his second marriage to
Jacqueline, daughter of Pierre de Luxembourg, Count
of St. Pol, an alliance which gravely ofiended the
whole house of Burgundy. In 1 43 J he died himself
on the 14th of September, ^^die exaltacionis Sancte
Crucis " as the chapterhouse entries record, in the same
Chateau of Rouen where Jeanne d'Arc had suffered her
last imprisonment. His body was embalmed and buried
in a leaden cofHn in the choir of Rouen Cathedral by
the side of the dukes of Normandy and the English
kings his ancestors, beneath a magnificently sculptured
tomb.

He left the Celestins of " Joyeux Repos," near the
Tour du Colombier,^ a small legacy, and benefac-
tions to many other abbeys and churches in the town.
Though the canons did not get their golden treasure
by any means intact, or indeed get any part of it with-
out protracted struggles, they always took good care

1 After the Duke of Bedford had given the Celestins their
Monastery, Charles VII. further assisted them by taking off
all taxes on their wine. In recognition of this a monk used
to dance and sing in front of the Monastic barrels as they
were rolled past the Governor's house. Occasionally the
combination of good claret and freedom from taxation over-
came the monk's discretion, and the old proverb " VoiU un
plaisant C^estin " preserves the memory of some such amiably
festive ecclesiastic. The "Olson brid^" of the monks of
St. Ouen was another instance of the way in which feudal
privileges were commemorated by queer ceremonials which
long outlived the society that gave them birth.
198

I'be Siege of Rouen by Henry V,

of his tomb, which was certainly in excellent preserva-
tion before the Calvinists of 1 562 began a destruction
which was completed by the Revolution. An inscrip-
tion, however, was left on an adjacent pillar, and this
was copied by Dugdale. The ostrich feathers and the
order of the garter were shown upon the brass besides
the epitaph. In 1866 his cofHn was found still in its
original position on the right side of the altar, and
nothing more is now left of him in Rouen.

>99

CHAPTER IX

Jeanne (T Arc and the English

Occupation

« Je s^ay bien que les Angloys me feront mourir, croyant
qu* apr^s ma mort ils gagneront le royaume de France ; mais
quand meme ils seraient cent mille godons de plus qu'ils ne
8ont pr^sentement) ils n'auraient pas ce royaume.''

OF the many interesting processions which must
have taken place in the fifteenth century on the
occasion of the great ceremony of the Fierte St. Romain,
surely few can have been more impressive than that in
which the Duke of Bedford, in his capacity as Canon
of the Cathedral, walked among the ecclesiastics
towards the little chapel in the Place de la Haute
Vieille Tour where the freedom of the prisoner was
declared before the assembled people. For in him all
might see the outward and visible proof of an English
occupation in its most intimate connection with the
ancient traditions begun under his ancestors the Dukes
of Normandy. But his presence is not the only sign
that can be clearly traced of the interest which the
English inevi^bly felt in the most extraordinary
privilege of their new possession. As usual on every
occasion when a new set of officials came in touch
with this astonishing and deeply-rooted custom, their
contact is marked by fresh expressions of dissent. So,
just as Philip-Augustus had to uphold, against his own
officials, the custom which every prince before him had
sanctioned, in exactly the same way we find Henry V.
200

Jeanne d^Arc

affirming that the Privilege of St. Romain was of right
to be exercised by the canons of the Cathedral accord-
ing to their ancient precedents. And it is instructive
that though his verdict was first pronounced in a case
by which a native prisoner benefited, it was only in the
next year, and again on some other occasions, that an
Englishman was chosen to bear the holy shrine and
win pardon for his sins. So strangely, indeed, and so
strongly was the privilege exercised during these years
of foreign dominion, that I cannot avoid the reflection —
humiliating to Rouen as it is — ^that an attempt at least
might have been made to exercise it in the case of the
most famous prisoner ever in the donjons of the city,
of the woman who would have been most worthy of
those upon the roll of mercy to benefit by the protec-
tion of the Church. But if any attempt was made in
favour of Jeanne d' Arc, it has not been recorded, and
this is one of the strongest reasons for my regret that,
full as they are, these records of the Privilege are often
only too obviously imperfect.

The case io which objection was first raised was very
naturally the first which occurred after the English flag
had been unfurled above the city. In great surprise
at the confidence shown by the good canons, the new
bailli, Gauthier de Beauchamp, demanded an enquiry
which was promptly held in his presence before the
Cardinal Bishop of Winchester. On learning of the
dispute Henry V. at once wrote to declare his rever-
ence for the privilege established " En I'onneur et
reverence du diet glorieux confesseur monsieur sainct
Rommaing '' ; so Jehan Anquetil was duly delivered
to mercy, after a crime to which modem civilisation is
very rightly and unswervingly severe, and his accomplice
was claimed by the Chapterhouse and delivered also.
I confess it is beyond my powers to suggest the reason
for so solemn a prerogative having been exercised by
the highest dignitaries of the city's Cathedral in ^vour

20I

The Story of Rouen

of a prisoner convicted of rape.^ If a privilege that
can only have resisted official competition for so long
because it was based on deeply-rooted popular support,
could survive a choice of this kind, it is one of the
strongest proofs of the changes in society and in public
opinion which have fortunately appeared in civilised
communities since the fifteenth century.

In 1 420 a still more interesting case arose, which is
the first that suggests to my mind the possibility of the
canons' choice being occasionally influenced by those
in authority, and if by them, then it is only too probable
that other suggestions (not strictly religious in their
nature) may have been made in other years when
*< equity," according to our notions, does not explain
their triumph over " law." For in diis year the manu-
script records, ^'Pierre Lamequin, de la paroisse de
Vize, en Angleterre, diocese de Salisbury ; ** an entry
which inevitably suggests to English ears that Peter
Lambkin of Devizes was the lucky prisoner. He

^ In 1 43 1 another prisoner, Souplis Lemire, of Yvetdt, was
pardoned for exactly the same crime. By a lie he induced
Jehanne Corvi^re to mount behind his horse, rode with her
into a country lane, where in the words of the manuscript, '< il
la f^ry et frapa de plusieurs orbes coups, plus de i'espaoe de
quatre heures, et lui fist la char toute noire et meudrie en
plusieurs parties de son corps, et tant fist que il oult violem-
ment et oultre le gt€ d'elle sa compaignie par grant force et k
plusieurs clameurs de haro." In this case it was evidently the
influence of the offender's family which procured him the
Fierte, and his victim raised the *< clameur de haro " during
the ceremony itself. For this she was obliged to apologise to
the canons, but Lemire's conduct throughout had been so
disgraceful that, though the Fierte had absolved him definitely
of all criminal penalty, after eight years of discussion he was
condemned in the civil courts to pay damages of 250 livres
tournois to Jehanne. In 1540 the same principle was upheld,
and it generally seems to have been the custom that any
prisoner chosen should give surety for the payment of his
civil penalties before he was released by the Fierte from his
criminal sentence.

202

Jeanne d^Arc

killed a merchant at an outlying village, with a French
friend to help him. Other instances occur in which
the foreign army profited by the native privilege. In
1429 the entry reads: "Thomas Grandon, anglais,
de la paroisse de Hanniquem, diocese d'York/' whp
killed two Scotchmen at Chambroix. In 1434 we
find : " Guillaume Banc, anglais, de la paroisse de Saint-
Bin, diocese de Carlisle,'' who slew one Saunders in a
brawl, helped by a friend named William Peters. In
1437, <^ Jehan Hotot, laique, de la paroisse de Sainte-
Marie de Heln3rngan, diocese de Norfolk,'' who killed
a pair of Englishmen in the country. In 1438,
<^ Jennequin Bene ou Bent, anglais, de la paroisse de
Bosc-Chatel, dioc^ d'H^reford, dans le pays de
Galles," who killed an Englishman. In 1439,
<*Jehan Helys, anglais, de la paroisse de Hest-
Monceaulz, diocese de Cantorbery," who had stolen
goods in Rouen, in company with one John Johnson
and Thomas " Kneet."i In 1447, "Jean Houcton,
anglais, de la paroisse de Langthon,en Ciindal, diocese
de Dublin," who was charged with stealing a horse,
alleging, in defence, that foraging was a common
privilege of soldiers, and was subsequently convicted
of robbing an innkeeper near the bridge of a silver cup
six ounces in weight. Now that these names are
brought to the knowledge of English antiquaries with
more science and leisure at their disposal than are mine,
I await with interest to hear whether any traces of

^ This Ellis was particularly lucky, for the first prisoner
chosen had been Denisot le Charretier, who was claimed as an
ecclesiastic by the Archbishop, Louis of Luxembourg, who was
also Chancellor of France for the English King. They tried
to secure his deliverance, but the Chancellor was too strong for
them, and the dispute was settled by the intervention of Talbot,
Earl of Shrewsbury, who came in person to the Chapterhouse
and persuaded the canons to renounce their right and choose
another prisoner.

203

The Story of Rouen

these freebooters exist in the parish records of their
Datiye towns.^

But, after all, the pririlege was not always exercised
in one direction. Occasionally the feelings of the con-
quered population had evidently to be consulted, as in
1425, when Geoffroy Cordeboeuf was chosen to bear
the shrine, who had murdered an Englishman at Saint-
Aubin-sur-Mer. There was a lengthy discussion over
this, during which it is recorded that the year before,
the disputing canons in their ecclesiastical costume had
gone to the tayem of the Lion d'Or to drink with
Lieutenant Poolin, their opponent, in flat disobedience
to the Cathedral statute of 136 1. It came out in the
evidence presented that the canons were actually allowed
to keep the keys of the prisons during Ascension Day
and the three Rogation Days before it, and that they
questioned the prisoners alone, without the jailers being
present. In 1448 the same cause evidently suggested
the liberation of no less than eighteen prisoners at once,
who had banded together in the village of St. Trinite-
de-Tankerville, and killed four Englishmen. The
soldiers thoroughly deserved their fate, for they had
brutally ill-treated two women, and killed one of their
husbands, before the villagers took vengeance into their
own hands.

There is but space to notice very briefly the other
more interesting cases in this period. In 1428 a
woman, named Estiennote Prisart, who had stolen a
silver cup from a priest, was pardoned. In 1441 some
workmen on the Palace of the English King near
"Mai s*y Frotte," who had thrown some trouble-

^ These queerly distorted names are not the only ones that
recall the English occupation. A still more vivid memory of
it may be found in their old bowling green, which is still the
** Boulingrin " of theBoulevard St. Hilaire(see Map B\ a word
with which Brachet compares " flibustier," " poulie," and
others. The " redingote " for our riding-coat is at once a more
familiar and more modern instance.
204

Jeanne d'^Arc

some brawlers into the Seine, bore the shrine. The
next year the privilege was enjoyed by a husband who
had several times discovered his wife's infidelity with a
neighbouring knight, and had killed her on finding that
she also extended her &vours to a priest. This is one
of the most intelligible instances of all; and in 1454
its circumstances are almost exactly repeated in the case
of Michel Manant, who also slew his unfaithful wife.
Indeed, a French jury even of to-day is never very hard
upon the <^ crime passionel,'' with which that nation has
always had so much sympathy. A similar case of the
** equity'' I have sometimes fancied I could trace
occurs in 1446, when Nicolas Hebert stole four cups
of silver, two belts studded with silver, twelve silver
and ten gold spoons, having been unable to get any
wages paid him after nine years of service with an
advocate of Falaise. He was condemned to death
and pardoned by the canons.

I have already mentioned the famous Talbot (see p.
203 ) in connection with the Fierte. He appears again
in its records (as the Comte de Sursberik) in 1444 with
a refusal to allow the canons to visit the prisons of the
castle, because they contained Armagnacs and other
treasonable enemies to the King's Majesty. But the
usual processions and popular enthusiasm with which the
canons replied soon made him change his mind, and
the prisoners were duly visited both in << La Grosse
Tour " or donjon, and in every other jail. His refusal
had been particularly ill-advised, because in May of
1 430 the canons had appealed from an obstinate jailer
to the Duke of Bedford, and had obtained his per-
mission to visit the donjon according to their
ancient custom. That very winter the castle of Philip
Augustus in the Place Bouvreuil was to hold its most
famous prisoner. For when Jeanne d'Arc was brought
to Rouen in December 1430, the prison of the Baillage
(called *Mef prisons ou la ge61e du roi ")» whose arch-

805

The Story of Rouen

wav( you majr mil see near the stairway of the Rue da
Bailkge, had been destroyed by fiiv in 14SJ ; and it if
particularly mentioned thu she wu not ^iced either in
thfl cells of the Hotel de Ville, where I ham *lread)>
recorded that an Endirii jailer had beni jJaced, or in
the " Ecclesiastical Prifons" of die Rue St. Romaio
near the Cathedral, althou^ her whcde trial wu
coodacted by ee-
deoaMics, but a
the "Chateau de
Ronen," irtiere (id
Talbot'swords)
"priscHien of war
and treaioBable
febns" were espe-
cially guarded.
■hf-g^ At the (iege of
|i^' Com[>iigiie,oii May
"'' 2+. i+30t Jeanne
d'Arc had been
taken priaoDer by
one of the men of
John of Luxem-
burg, and from the
Eagliflh camp at
Margny the was
sent further off to
the Chateau of
BeauUeu. Within
two days the Vicar-
General of the
, and the Univereity of Paris, had de-
manded that she should be delivered over to the "Justice
of the Church." And behiod both was a power
stronger than either, the hatred of the English. They
soon found a ready instrument in Pierre Caucfaoo, who
had been made Bishop of Beauvais by the Dulte of
m6

Jeanne d^ Arc

•

Burgundy, was chased out of it by the party of Charles
VII., and now expected to get the Archbishopric of
Rouen by the help of the English. It was he who
bore the King of England's request to John of Luxem-
burg that he would give up Jeanne d'Arc for ten
thousand pieces of gold to the Church to be judged.
Neither Charles VII. nor any French ecclesiastic (save
the Archbishop of Reims) made any movement, so
she was surrendered at the price of an army. After
being taken to Beaurevoir, to Arras, and to Crotoy, she
was moved by way of St. Valery, Eu, and Dieppe
to Rouen. She entered the town by the valley of
Bihorel, past the spot where the Gare da Havre now
stands, and by way of the Rue Verte was led to the
castle of Philip Augustus and placed in an iron cage,
so that the smirched authority of English rule might be
re-established by proving her, in the formal processes of
law, a witch.

Of the castle itself the only tower that now stands
still bears her name. Almost the last scene of
her imprisonment took place within the walls that you
may visit here, though originally she was not placed in
this donjon itself. For the original castle, built by
Philip Augustus in 120$ to consolidate his role over
John Lackland's fresh- won province, had consisted of
an almost circular building, with six towers, a demi-
tower, and this donjon which was built upon two thick
curtain - walls and entirely interrupted the guards'
<<chemin de ronde,'' on to which no door opened
from its massive circular walls. The Castle of Arques
(1038), and of Chateau Guillard (119$), are indeed
older than this of Rouen, but the ruins of their donjon-
keeps do not show anything like the character of the
Tour Jeanne d' Arc, which is itself earlier in date than
either Coucy (1228) or Pierrefonds (1390). More
than this, a document of 1202 preserves the most
interesting fact that this tower was planned after the

207

The Story of Rouen

dimensions and shape of the ^mous Tour du Louvre, of
which Paris now possesses only a circle of white marble
to mark the site of the royal tower that once stood
where the south-west corner of the Louvre courtyard
is now.

The walls of Rouen's donjon are 4 metres 20
thick, 46 metres in circumference at the base, and 30
metres high. These last two measurements show a
difference of only two metres from those of the van-
ished Tour du Louvre. Before this chapter closes I
shall be able to explain how it is that you are able to
see in Rouen the most perfect presentment of a.
thirteenth-century donjon in France, with two- thirds
of the present building in its original masonry. Within,
it took place most of the stirring events of histoiy after
a change in dynasty had left the castle of the Norman
dukes to develop gradually into a commercial instead
of a royal or military centre. One of these, the arrest
of Charles le Mauvais, and the execution of his four
friends by King Jean le Bon, I have spoken of in
earlier chapters. This, too, was the fortress that held
out longest for the King when the Revolte de la Harelle
Was at its height in 1382. Before its walls Sir Gilbert
Talbot and Sir William Hanington sat down to besiege
Guy le Bouteiller, who as captain of the garrison had
it in his especial charge. Within it the eighty hostages
for the ransom of the city, and the thirty burgesses
especially punished with lugh fines, were imprisoned
when King Henry V. took the town. It was still
held by the English garrison when Jeanne d'Arc was
brought to Rouen as a prisoner. It is the last visible
relic of the royal homes of Rouen, for every other one
has disappeared, from the first keep of RoUo to the
Haute et Basse Vieilles Tours of his descendants, to
the Palace of Philip Augustus and of the English
kings, even to the fortresses of St. Catherine's Hill and
of the barbacan beside the bridge.
ao8

^ . <<„ .* J - 1 'j-.:.^si. ■

Jeanne d' Arc

Once his prisoner was safe within the castle, the
Bishop of Beauvais proceeded to ''pack his jury/'
and choose his companions for the trial. His right
hand man was Jean d'Estivet (or " Benedicite ").
From Paris arrived Jean Beaup^re, who took Gerson's
place as Chancellor, with Jacques de Touraine, Nicole
Midi, and Thomas de Courcelles, all brilliant and
authoritative theologians. From Normandy itself
came the Prior of Longueville, the Abbe of Jumi^ges,
Gilles, Abbe of F6camp and councillor to the English
King, Nicolas Loyseleur, a canon of Rouen, and
others. One alone, of those invited, Nicolas de
Houppeville, objected to serving, because his direct
superior, the Archbishop of Reims, had already dis-
approved. He was only just saved from being
murdered. No one else dared to differ with Pierre
Cauchon, and several affirmed later on that they had
voted in fear of their lives. Both the clerk of the
court, Manchon, and Massieu, the doorkeeper, found
their sympathies too perilous to express. This was
because, though scarcely an Englishman was actually a
member of the Court, the English kept the whole
proceeding directly under their thumb, and to every
appeal the same answer was returned — "The King (of
EnglandJ has ordered it." The King's two upcles,
of Bedford and of Winchester, watched that the
orders were carried out ; and the price of every one is
still recorded in the exact account-books of the time.
The English never let her leave their castle till the
end, so that any slight '' judicial error " might always
be corrected if need were.

They kept her first in an iron cage, then in one of
the castle towers, with irons upon her feet, chained to
a log of wood, and guarded night and day by four
common soldiers. On the 9th of January 1431 the
Bishop of Beauvais summoned in Rouen the council
chosen for the trial, and appointed its officials. On

o 209

The Story of Rouen

the aoth, Jeanne, being summoned to make her appear-
ance before the court at eight next morning, b^ged
that her judges might be more fairly chosen, and that
she might hear Mass. She was refused both, and
appeared on the 21st, in the chapel of the casde.
Asked to answer truly upon oath all the questions
put to her, Jeanne replied — ** I do not know on what
points you wish to question me. You might perhaps
ask me things which I will not tell you." After this
she told how she was called *^ Jeannette " at home, and
Jeanne ** in France," and knew no surname ; how she
was baptised and born at Domremy, of Jacques d'Arc
and his wife Isabel about nineteen years ago; she re-
fused to promise not to escape if she could ; and would
only recite the Lord's Prayer in confession to a priest.
After Cauchon had begun, the next day's questioning
was more gently taken by Jean Beaup^re, to whom she
told of her care of the house at home, and of her skill
in needlework, "as good as any in Rouen." The
inquirers then went on to reveal the story of her
"voices," and she firmly repeated her refusal to
bind herself by a general oath as to every answer,
saying that she had more fear of God and of her
" voices," than of her conduct in that trial. Asked
whether she was sure of the favour of God (a double-
edged question at which some even of her judges mur-
mured) she passed the danger by saying, " If I am not,
may God help me to it ; and if I am, may God pre-
serve me in it."

BaiBed at this point by the innocent faith of this
country girl, the university professor changed the attack,
and approached questions of a more political importance,
cleverly interwoven with the first appearance of her
** voices " when she was a girl of thirteen at Domremy.
But neither of treasonable partisanship nor of local
superstitions could he convict her. She gave the names
of her heavenly councillors as St. Catherine, St. Mar-
?io

Jeanne d^ Arc

garet, and St. Michael, the same saint whose fortress
held out inviolable against every English attack among
the quicksands and the rushing tides of the north coast*
Unable to find anything heretic or infidel in her replies
on religious subjects, and only getting candid common
sense in return for their suspicions, her judges turned to
the idea of satanic inspiration and support. But it
proved equally useless. Her patriotism shone clear
above every trivial element in her long examination.

The last public hearing of her evidence before all her
judges was on the 3rd of March. The result of the
inquiry was then collected to form the basis of a fresh
interrogation in her prison, which was conducted on
the loth by Jean de la Fontaine for a whole week.
At the end of it Jean Lemattre himself arrived by order
of the Chief Inquisitor. Nothing was added to the
information already gathered, and nothing shook the
firmness of the girl's replies. For only explanation
she repeated, " It pleased God to do this by means
of a simple maid, in order to rebuff the enemies of the
King." Throughout, her negligence of trifles, her
insistence upon the important points, her swift common
sense, were the more conspicuous, because her judges
persisted in reading their own meaning into all she
answered to their subtle questions. Did they ask her,
for instance, "Does God hate the English?*' she
would reply, " I know nothing of the hatred or the
love of God for Englishmen, but this I know, that
they will soon be all thrust out of France, save those
of them who leave their bodies here."

On the much-disputed question of her masculine
attire, she said she would wear woman's dress only
when she heard Mass, and woman's clothing at her
execution, if it came to that. The judges were per-
fectly well aware of her proved maidenhood, and of the
real reason for her dress, but they persisted — without
result — in trying to trap her into dangerous replies.

211

The Story of Rouen

She was fax too direct and simple to be caught, just
because she saw no << heresy" in an act of simple
prudence.

Her judges, strong and clever men as most of them
were, themselves were tired out by the closeness and the
duration of the trial. Yet this young girl, ^sting even
from her prison-fare, was resolute enough to keep her
head, and reply steadily through it all. But she refused
to be troubled with unnecessary or merely reiterated
questions, and claimed her right to feel as tired as were
her judges when she felt it necessary. She was in &ct
perfectly natural and frank throughout, even when the
open expression of her thoughts was hardly politic for
one in her position. Without the help of counsel, or
of any to assist her, French or English, layman or
ecclesiastic, she was even deprived of the friendly
countenance or signs of anyone whose sympathy over-
came for the moment his very justifiable fear of her
persecutors. Even the consolations of her religion
were denied her. The only semblance of advice she
got was in the base and hypocritical attempts of a
scoundrelly canon of Rouen Cathedral to teach her
certain answers which might afterwards be used against
her by her accusers.^ It is a shameful thing to have
to record that the Earl of Warwick helped the Bishop
of Beauvais to complete this villainy, and took clerks
with him to listen at the door, but they refused to lend
themselves to such dishonourable methods.

Early in the week of Palm Sunday she was formally
summoned to the great hall of the castle to hear the

^ There is a quaint suggestion of repentance for all this in
the cathedral of to-day. If you enter by the Portail des Li-
braires and stand beside the north-east pillar of the great
lantern, at your feet is the tombstone of one of these unjust
judges, Denis Gastinel, and beneath it is the great Caiorifi^re
that warms the building, a suggestively gruesome foretaste of
the punishment which the modern canons evidendy think his
conduct towards Jeanne d'Arc deserves.

212

Jeanne d^ Arc

seventy articles of the Act of Accusation against her.
The web of calumny that had been spun out of her
replies then first must have been apparent to her, and
though silent for the most part, she quickly contra-
dicted some statements, and pointed out the fallacy of
others. Reproached for her unwomanly behaviour, she
replied at once, "As for woman's work, there are
plenty of other women who can do that " ; and asserted
that before fighting at all, she had made every effort to
obtain her wishes peacefully. She even recited the short
prayer it was her custom to make when she needed the
counsel of her heavenly visitors.

After this the seventy articles were reduced to
twelve, which resumed the whole accusation, and
became the pivot of the prosecution. They were
never communicated at all to the prisoner. They were
based on her visions, her wearing of a man's dress,
her attitude towards the Church, which meant, in &ct,
her obedience to Poitiers and to the Archbishop of
Reims, instead of to Pierre Cauchon, his subordinate.

On Thursday the 6th of April Erard Emengard
held a meeting in the chapel of the Archbishop's
Palace at Rouen to deliberate over the twelve articles.
You may still see the place where this went on. As
you enter the gateway of the Screen to the Portail
des Libraires from the Rue St. Romain, on the left of
the forecourt before the great carved door, you will see
an old building which in the August of 1897 was being
repaired and reconstructed to provide a school for the
children of the Cathedral choir. This house forms
itself the western side of a courtyard into which a
door has no doubt by this time (December 1898)
been opened from the Rue St. Romain, between the
large turret that projects on the left of the old screened
entrance in the street and the next octagonal turret with
a sharply pointed roof that is built on the wall of the
Cathedral buildings. By whatever entrance practic-

*»3

.11

The Story of Rouen

able, you must go into this courtyard and see the private
chapel of the Archbishop, the old ''Chapelle des
Ordres " which touches the north wall of the Cathe-
dral choir. Within this chapel the council was held,
that by its approval of the Twelve Articles of Accusa-
tion pronounced the death-warrant of Jeanne d' Arc.^

In the midst of all these machinations the prisoner
herself fell ill. Doctors were harried to her cell to
save her for the vengeance of her judges, and the
** processes of law *' were pushed forward more hastily
than ever. On the 2nd of May she was once more
confronted with the accusations made against her, in
a long speech by the Archdeacon. She would add
nothing to what had been already said. << Even if I
saw the flames before me I should say what I have
already told you, and do what I have done ; " and
the clerk writes '^Superba Responsio" opponte the
entry.

Determined to leave no means untried to overcome
this resistance, her judges summoned her on Wednesday
the 9th of May into the ** Grosse Tour du chateau de
Rouen," the donjon which you can visit in the Rouen
of to-day, by turning to the left as you go northward
up the Rue Bouvreuil (see Map D). The room in
which Jeanne stood to answer her accusers has been
carefully restored, but it is obscured by the huge plaster
cast of a statue by Mercie. The vaulting is the original

1 The actual death-sentence, pronounced on the 29th of May
by the forty-two judges in full council ran as follows : —

" Mandons . . . que vous citiez ladite Jeanne a comparaitre
en person ne devant nous demain, heure de huit heures du matin,
au lieu dit Le Vieux March^, pour se voir par nous d^clarfe
relapse, excommuni^,h^r^tique, avec Pintimation a lui faire en
pareil cas — Donn^ en la Chapelle du Manoir archi^piscopal de
Rouen, le mardi 29 mai, Pan du Seigneur 1431, apr^s la fete de
la Trinity de notre Seigneur."

Yet there is not a single mark or inscription to record the
fact of which this lonely and neglected chapel was the scene

214

Jeanne d^ Arc

work intact, and on the keystone is carved the oldest
existing shield of the arms of France, the six truncated
Fleurs de Lys of Philip Augustus, which are repro-
duced more clearly on the huge and lofty cowl above
the chimney. Beneath the floor there is still the old
well that supplied the garrison, a little to the left of the
entrance, and rather further round is the small spiral
staircase leading to the upper rooms, which are not so
large.

She was brought here because there was no room in
her former prison for the instruments of torture, and
the executioners' gear with which her courage was
finally to be tested. Pierre Cauchon directed the
proceedings, with Lemattre and nine others, of whom
three were members of the Chapterhouse of Rouen,
and one was Massieu the clerk. Besides these, the
ushers and the guard of English soldiers lined the walls.
Here it is recorded how she was threatened with tor-
ture ^< if she did not avow the truth," and shown the
instruments and the officials who were ready to admin-
ister it. I will not attempt to translate the few words
Jeanne d*Arc ever uttered whose echoes we may still
imagine beneath the very roof that heard them. There
is hardly a single other ^ place of which the same thing
can be said.

^ With all that happened before Jeanne came to Ronen I
have no concern here, and I must take it for granted that you
know at least the outlines. But to confirm the sentence to
which this note refers, I may add that they still point out to
you at Chinon the well where she alighted off her horse, and
the house of the <' bonne femme ^ who sheltered her. Of the
Tour du Coudray in the Castle of Chinon, as of the great hall
on the first floor where she met the King, little save ruined
stones remain. And it is not often that even so much as that
is left of other places in which she is known to have stayed,
such as the chamber in the Castle of Crotoy, the tower at
Beaurevoir, the gate-tower of Compi^gne, or any of the celb
in which she was confined within the Castle of Rouen itself

aiS

The Story of Rouen

In answer to the first threatening question the manu-
script gives her reply as follows : —

"Vraiement, se vous me deviez faire detraire les
** membres et faire partir I'ame hors du corps, si ne
^* vous diray-je autre chose ; et se aucune chose vous
'^ en disoye-je, apr^s si diroye-je tousjours que vous le
*^ me auri^s fait dire mr force.

^* Item^ dit que, a la Sainte-Croix, oult le confort de
" Saint Gabriel : * Et croiez que ce fust sainct Gabriel ; *
*< et I'a sceu par les voix que c'estoit Saint Gabriel.

*^ Item^ dit qu'elle (a) demande conseil a ses vcnx
'^ s'elle se submectroit a FEglise, pour ce que les gens
** d'eglise la pressoient fort de se submectre a I'Eglise,
^* et ils lui ont dit que s'elle veult que nostre Seigneur
<< luy aide, qu'elle s actende a luy de tous ses fais.

" Item^ dit qu'elle sgait bien que nostre Seigneur a
'* est^ tou jours maistre de ses fais, et que I'ennemy
*< n'avait oncques eu puissance sur ses faits.

^^ Item, dit qu'elle a demande a ses voix s'elle sera
'< arse, et que les dictes voix luy ont repondu que elle
" se actende a nostre sire, et il luy aidera.

" Item, du signe de la couronne qu'elle dit avoir est^
** bailie a I'arcevesque de Reims, interoguee s'elle 8*en
" veult rapporter a luy, respond ; * Faictes le y venir, et
»< que je Foe parler, et puis je vous respondray ; ne il
*' ne oseroit dire le contraire de ce que je vous en ay
" dit.' "

In 1455 the " Proems de rehabilitation " recorded the
testimony of Mauger Separmentier, the executioner,
who saw her during this scene in the donjon, whither
he had been summoned, with his assistant, to administer
the torture, if necessary. " She showed great prudence
in her replies," he affirmed, "so that those who
heard were astonished ; and this deponent retired with
his assistant without touching her " (see Quicherat,
"Proems," vols, i., ii., iii.). It is evident that if she
had given them the least excuse, by any mistake in her
216

Jeanne d^Arc

replies, her judges would not have allowed the execu-
tioner to depart idle.

There are very few other places to which I can
point you as witnesses of her tragedy. But, besides
that chapel you have already visited, there is in the
same district, between the north side of the Cathedral
and the Rue de la Chaine, a whole labyrinth of twist-
ing streets wherein lived the ecclesiastics who plotted
her death.i

In the Rue St. Nicolas (which turns eastward after
the Cathedral Parvis from the Rue des Cannes) there
is a small open square just opposite the opening of the
Rue Croix de Fer ; within the walls of a house there
are still preserved a few ruined stones of the Church of
St. Nicolas le Paincteur, at the end of a courtyard. If
you go round into the Place des Carmes, it is still
possible to trace (at Nos. 27 and 31) some old vaults
beneath the soil, by the ventilation holes just above the
pavement. Close to this Church of St. Nicolas was
the house of Jean Rub^, Canon of Rouen, with whom
lodged Pierre Cauchon when he came to preside over
the trial. It was there that, with Nicolas Loyseleur
and others, those sinister discussions went on between
every public examination of the prisoner. And in the
house that rose above those vaults lived Loyseleur him-
self. The present facade has been so altered since
18 18 that only in the interior courtyard (if M. Laurent,
Mayor of Rouen in 1897, and M. Sarrasin, the his-
torian of Jeanne d'Arc, are kind enough to allow it)
can you realise the age of the building. The thick
walls and deep-set windows leave no doubt of the age of
their construction. The vaults beneath are still more
extraordinary relics of antiquity, with their massive
round arches and double sets of substructures. The
house itself was most probably given to the Cathedral
in those days by the Duke of Bedford, who had already

» See Map C.

217

The Story of Rouen

done much in the same direction ; and it was therefore
very appropriately albtted as a lodging u> diat ooe <A
the canons who was helping the English most effec-
tually in their iniquitous task. ,
iUter the canons left the main block of Cathedral-
bmldingg to go into lodgings in this quarter so near at
hand, they still kept
"•-=- —1, their;
d their,
a n the'
Co dAlbane. Tbs
qu 1 tie quadrangle
s one of the pretuest
nooks of old Rouen
and I am fortunate
nough o be ahle to
show n ih d awing
on p 2 8 how well
woith while s to
find the en an e to
ju north of he
Tour St. Rom □ id
he angl of h Rue
de Quatr Ven s.
I wa p b bly fi St
bull fo lo ters and
3 emetery andafte
wa d used me ely as
a deamb 1 to m
THco AN ra Bthbkyofhe
" *" "■ chapterhouse, which
remained here for so long, was always renowned for the
purity and goodness of its bread, and loaves from it were
often presented to distinguished visitors on occasions
when the civic authorities were obliged either to rise to
jewellery or to descend to nats. The " Salle Capitu-
laire," now bdng restored from M. Sauvageot's designs,
ai8

Jeanne d^ Arc

used also to open on the cloister, and in it the canons
transacted their temporal and spiritual business, includ-
ing their famous choice for the Fierte St. Romain, and
their trials of ecclesiastical prisoners. Crimes of ^< out-
siders " committed "within the Cathedral limits were
tried by a special tribunal in the Porter's Lodge, and
he guarded the prisoners in the dungeon beneath the
Tour St. Romain. Another more interesting duty of
the same official was to care, during daytime, for the
dogs who were loosed in the Cathedral at night to keep
out sacrilegious robbers, a custom which lasted down to
1760. But the Cour d'Albane took its name from
the founder of that school for choir-boys with which
it is most intimately associated now. Pierre de
Colmieu, the Archbishop from 1236 to 1245, was
also Cardinal d'Albano, and from him was named the
institution he endowed to educate three priests, three
deacons, and four subdeacons. Paid singers were
unknown at that time; the services were long and
pompous, and it took some time to learn them, so
these men, all over twenty-one, were chosen as much
for their ability to read and sing as for their good con-
duct. They benefited again in 1401 by the bequests
of Jacques Cav6, who is buried beneath the Tour de
Beurre. There were seven of these singers in 144O,
and it was one of Jeanne d' Arc's judges, Gilles
Deschamps, who left money to provide the little choir-
boys with the red caps they wear to this day to keep
their little shaved heads from the cold. In 1459
painters and sculptors were allowed to exhibit some of
their work in this beautiful courtyard, <*if it was
decent " ; and every year the canons and the clerks
lit in this open space the ^* Feu de la St* Jean," and
even planted their pious Maypole.

But the memories of this quarter are not exhausted
yet. Turn down into the Rue St. Romain. From
No. 8 to No. 14 are the old canons' lodgings, where

2x9

The Story of Rouen

more of Jeanne's judges lived, and especially Canon
Guillaume le Desert, who survived the trial longer than
any of his companions. Near No. 28 is the Rtie des
Chanoines. Close by, at the ** Ecu de Prance,'' lived
Jehan Salvart, the architect who built the palace for
Henry V. near Mai s'y Frotte. Within his house a
workman saw, it is recorded, the iron cage made by
Etienne Castille, in which Jeanne was chained by hands
and feet and neck. At the tavern called ** Maison de
Pierre ''1 Manchon, the clerk of the court, used to
take his wine of an afternoon. On the nde next the
Cathedral were the ecclenastical prisons, whose deepest
dungeon was beneath the Tour St. Romain. Just
opposite the screen of the Portail des Libraires is
No. 74, a strange old house, carved with two bishops
on the beams of the first floor, and three more upon the
brackets above. The door may well be original, and
the whole house is as old as the nfteenth centuiy. On
the other side again, and just in face of the opening of
the Rue Croix de Fer, is the "Maison Jeanne d'Arc,^
which has no right to that name beyond the possibility
of her having seen it. For this strange remnant of
Gothic woodwork that juts out above the pavement is
no doubt contemporaneous with the trial that we are
following out now. In August 1897 the Municipal
Council announced its determination to pull it down.
The Journal de Rouen^ which deserves well of every
honest lover of antiquity, at once published a letter
from M, Paul Dubosc, in which that zealous writer
pointed out the unnecessary vandalism of the proposal ;
Englishmen in Rouen at the time were not afraid to
add their protests even in an alien tongue ; when I left it
last year it had, at least, been standing long enough for
Miss James to draw it (see p. 206) on the left hand
side of an illustration that gives a very good idea of the

1 Most of the dwelling-houses were of wood, which explaiot
why so few are left

120

.Jj

Jeanne d^ Arc

Rouen of the fifteenth century. The little Renais-
sance doorway in the distance, at the angle of the Rue
des Quatre Vents, is an entrance to the Cour des
Comptes, which at the same date had just been freed from
ruined encumbrances, and its lovely courtyard opened
to the Rue des Cannes on the other side (see p. 288).

This same old house was a canon's residence, and
the property of the Chapter of the Cathedral before the
Revolution. Some furniture-dealers bought it at the
general sale of ecclesiastical effects. In 1893 it was
sold to the State for 36,000 francs by Mr Dumont,
to whom the Civil Tribunal had awarded it. The
loss to the Rue St. Romain would be a serious one, if
the house were finally pulled down. A fatal passion
for << alignement " has Haussmannised Rouen quite
enough already, and to strip the Cathedral bare of
all appendages would be to forget the main object of
mediaeval architecture in France. I have pointed out
elsewhere that it was owing to a more settled state of
society that the English Cathedral rose from the turf
of a broad quiet close, as at Salisbury. In France the
houses of the Cathedral towns crowded close round the
walls that were their temporal safety at well as their
q}iritual salvation. The Parvis of Notre Dame is a crea-
tion of modem Paris. Many a church in Provence
still shows by the machicolations and loopholes on its
walls and towers that it could have played the fortress
with a good grace whenever necessary. And it was
no doubt because a French cathedral rose above the
clustered houses round its base that its lines of archi-
tecture spring so boldly to the sky, and that its detailed
carving within easy vision was so close and excellent.

This old Rue St. Romain may have received its
name from the Hotel St. Romain mentioned in it in
1466. In any case the name of the city's patron saint
could hardly have been given to a more characteristic
thoroughfare. By 1423 it seems to have been called

221

T^be Story of Rouen

the Rue Fftvnnerie, which it btereeting, becauae the
workere in metal (whose trade u preBerred in their aid
quarter of the Rue Dinanderie) were not natiTes of
Rouen, bjt all came from Lomdne, and especially
from Urvitle, a town within a few leagues of Dom-
riiay. So that Jean Moreau, a maker of co[^r
flagons in the
Rue Ecuy^re, was
especially chosen
by Pierre Cauchon
to go to his nattre
place and make
inquiries as to the
truth of Jeanne
d' Arc's statement
about her birth and
upbnnging.

The next place

Roui

ally

that

Jeanne herself was
the open space
round the rising
naTC of St. Ouen,
then called the
Cemetery, where
we have already
watched the
farcicaJ royalty of
the Revoke de la
Harelle (p, 152).
In thus tracing her footsteps, where we may still find
them, I shall be showing you what little is left of
the Rouen of the English occupation. Few of the
towers and spires that rise now above the roofs of
Rouen were nanding then. " Rouvel " indeed
wa< in the Towo-Belfry, but uttered never a sound

Jeanne d^ Arc

in his captivity. Of the Cathedral the Tour de
Beurre did not exist, the Tour St. Romain was scarce
two-thirds its present height, the western facade was
far simpler and smaller. St. Maclou was not com-
pleted when Jeanne d'Arc died, nor the Palais de
Justice begun. Of St. Ouen only the eastern end of
the nave, the apse and the choir, with the far older
Tour aux Clercs beside them, were being built; neither
its central crown nor its rose windows yet existed.
The French architect chosen by the English was at
this time Alexander de Berneval, who had carried on
the work of Jean de Bayeux and his son, the archi-
tects from 1378 to 142 1. And you may still see
where Jacques Theroulde (for Antoine Bohier) carried
on the work which Bemeval's son left unfinished in
1441.

From their scaffolding round the uncompleted
arches the architect and his apprentices must have had
a good view, on the Thursday after Pentecost in 1431,
of those other scaffoldings erected in the Cemetery
below them, on one of which sat Pierre Cauchon with
the Cardinal of Winchester, while on the other stood
Jeanne d'Arc. The ceremony, called the Abjuration,
was a last attempt to frighten Jeanne into confessing
that her " Voices ** had deceived her, and her mission
was untrue. It succeeded only because of her physical
weakness, and in forty-eight hours her moral courage
repudiated it entirely. Proceedings began by a long
sermon from Guillaume Erard, a celebrated preacher.
When he called the King of France <* heretic and
schismatic " she interrupted him at once to contradict.
When he commanded her own submission to the
Church, she replied that she was ready to answer to
God and to the Pope for all, and that for all she was
herself alone responsible. This was a confusing reply
for her judges, when made before the great concourse
of people who had assembled to witness this young

223

The Story of Rouen

girl's examinadon. They could only retort that the
ecclesiastics there present were the representatiyes both
of God and of the Pope, and that she must submit to
them. They then ondered her ** to abjure '' publicly
the various things of which she was accused. She did
not understand what was required of her. Erard
exclaimed that she must ^< abjure " or be burnt at once.
At last he began to read her sentence of condemnation.
Then, though she was conscious of no evil, she at
last said, *< I submit myself to the Church.'' They
hastened to read over the twelve articles of accusation
already given, and the poor girl agreed] to them, pro-
mising never to sin again and to submit herself to the
justice of the Church. Massieu read to her a formula
<<of some eight lines," according to his testimony
afterwards.

There was some murmuring among the crowd dur-
ing this long ceremony ; for while Jeanne was alive
the English soldiery dared attempt nothing fresh ; and
they only saw in her refusals to *^ abjure " an immedi-
ate reason for handing her over from the ecclesiastical
justice to the secular, whose ways were swifter. But
merely burning Jeanne would not have been enough.
She had to confess her sins, to disavow her mission, to
be received into the bosom of the Church and pardoned,
and then — to be discovered in fresh crime. One of the
consequences of her ^' abjuration " was that she was
wearing woman's dress that very afternoon. Two
days afterwards (on Sunday) the ecclesiastics heard
that she had changed to masculine attire again. They
rushed to the castle to verify the ** relapse " they were
so ardently expecting, but the English soldiers drove
them out again, being very tired by this time of their
unintelligible delays. On May 28th Pierre Cauchon
questioned her, and she said that if they kept their
word, to free her and let her hear mass, she would
keep hers and change her dress, but that among men
224

Jeanne d^ Arc

2l man's dress suited her best.^ Asked if she bad
heard her " voices " again — a deliberate trap to secure
the certainty of proved " relapse " — she replied, ** God
has told me by Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret of
the pity and the betrayal that I have wrought in making
abjuration to save my life, and that I lost my soul to
save my life." To this the clerk added the fatal com-
ment, " Responsio Mortifera." Jeanne realised now
what her "abjuration" had really meant. The fear
that had inspired it had passed, and she boldly re-
affirmed her mission and her feith. It was all her
judges needed. ** Farewell," cried Pierre Cauchon to
Warwick and his English who waited in the castle-
yard, ** be of good cheer, for it is done."

By orders of the meeting of the 29th of May,
already mentioned as held in the Chapelle des Ordres,
Martin Ladvenu and Jean Toutmouille came to her cell
early in the morning of the next day, and announced
that she was to be handed over to the Secular Justice
and burnt. " Helas 1 " she cried, with all the natural
terror of a woman, " me traite-t-on si horriblement et
cruellement, qu'il faille que mon corps net et entier,
qui ne fiit jamais corrompu, soit aujourd'hui consume
et rendu en cendres ! " She then confessed to
Ladvenu, and after some discussion the sacred elements
were brought to her, without any of the usual cere-
monial accompaniments, and she received them with
deep devotion.

The last scene in her life now drew near. That

1 The '* Proems de R^abilitation " reveals, on the testimony
of Manchon the clerk, that her reply as recorded in tlie
•' Proems de condemnation " was not correctly set down with
reference to her change of attire. She resumed her male dress,
though it meant tier death- sentence, because, as both Massieu
and Ladvenu swore, several gross attempts had been made upon
her honour since the scene in the Cemetery of St. Ouen ; and
Pierre Cauchon cannot have been unaware that thin would
certainly occur.

P 235

The Story of Rouen

you may understand it, you must realise that the pre-
sent Place du Vieux March^ has little except its name
in common with the Vieux March^ where Jeanne was
burnt. The map I have reproduced from Jacques
Lelieur's plan of 1525 will show you very much what
it was like in the fifteenth century (see map F), and
will prove not only that it was far smaller in extent,
but that many buildings round it then have now disap-
peared without a trace of them remaining. In this cdd
map the ^* Rue Massacre " must be understood as re-
presenting that part of the Rue de la Grosse Horloge
which extended from the Porte Massacre (see p. 135)
to the Place du Vieux March€. When you stand in
the Vieux Marche now, if you imagine that the houses
of the Rue Cauchoise extended across the open square
to the beginning of the Rue de la Grosse Horloge,
you may realise how much less space there was in the
fifteenth century. In those days, too, it must be re-
membered that what is now the Place Verdrel was
called the March6 Neuf, and that the old Marche aux
Veaux has now become quite wrongly the Place de la
Pucelle. How this mistake arose will soon be clear.

M. Charles de Beaurepaire's untiring researches have
established from recorded documents every house that
stood round the Vieux Marche. The map shows that
the Church of St. Sauveur (now vanished) stood near the
Rue du Vieux Palais and the Rue de la Pie, with its apse
turned towards the Grosse Horloge. Within its cemetery
was erected the scaflxilding beyond the east end of the
church on which Jeanne's judges stood at her execution.
Near it was another stage at the end of the Market-Hall,
and in sight of both was the place where she was burnt,
marked by the " Escharfeut,*' recorded by Lelieur,
and known to have been in the same place since 1233.
It was well within the view not only of the judges but
of a crowd in the Vieux Marche and the Rue Cau-
choise, and its place is commemorated by the tablet
£26

Jeanne d^ Arc

you can now read at the corner of the new Market-
Hall.

The mistake of the " Place de la Pucelle " arose
because a monumental fountain was erected there for
the first time, when Cardinal Georges d'Amboise,
who really started the waterworks of Rouen on a
proper basis, used the Fontaine St. Filleul for the
benefit of the Quartier Cauchoise. The pipe was
brought into the Marche aux Veaux because the
level of the ground permitted a better fall for the
water, and the town took advantage of the opportunity
to turn the new fountain into a memorial of Jeanne
d'Arc. The actual spot where she was burnt was
never marked at all, until the tablet of to-day was
set up ; for although the ^^ Proc^ de Rehabilitation "
decreed that the scene of her execution should be
consecrated with a cross, that cross was placed on the
point of the wall of the Cemetery of St. Sauveur,
which was nearest to her scaffold ; and this for the very
good reason that the English (if for no other motive)
would not allow another *' sanctuary '' (as all crosses
were in the fifteenth century^ to be erected so near to
the cemetery which was alieady holy ground itself.
It was this commemorative cross which was replaced
by the Fountain of St. Sauveur just before the larger
monumental fountain was erected in the more con-
venient (though less appropriate) situation of the
Marche aux Veaux, now the Place de la Pucelle.

Over the hideous tragedy of the Vieux Marche I
have neither space nor inclination to linger. At nine
o'clock on the 30th of May 143 1 she left the chateau
of Philip Augustus in woman's dress, wearing a mitre
on which was written, " Her^tique, Relapse, Apostate,
Idolatre," with Ladvenu and Massieu beside her, and
seven or eight hundred men-at-arms accompanying
them. She wept bitterly as she went, and the people
wept to see her sobbing in the cart. Even Loyseleur

The Story of Rouen

was overcome by his remorse, and was bidden to leave
Rouen. In the Vieux Marche she had first to listen
to the sermon of Nicole Midi, who formally delivered
her to the Secular Justice. The Bishop of Beauvais
then pronounced her sentence of excommunication.
When Jeanne rose to implore the pardon of the people
and the prayers of the Church, insisting to the end on
the sincerity of her cause and of her King, there was
hardly even an English soldier who was not touched
with some compassion after the six hours of her
suspense. Massieu handed her a roughly-fashioned
cross which she placed in her bosom. She begged
Isambard de la Pierre to hold another before her
eyes until the end. The delay of the ecclesiastics had
been long, but the civil powers were short. " Do your
duty" was the only sentence she heard in the short
command ^ to the executioner. Then she wept again,
crying, ** Rouen, Rouen, mourrai-je ici, seras-ta ma
maison ? Ah Rouen, j'ai grand peur que tu n'aies a
soufBir de ma mort." The slow flames mounted from
the scaffold which had been built to bum her slowly,
and with the last word, *' Jesus,'' on her lips, she
died.

Her ashes were cast into the Seine. They were
scarcely cold before the rumour of her saintliness, and
the miracles of her passing spread through Rouen and
through France. Soon afterwards Pierre Cauchon,
Bishop of Beauvais, died of apoplexy. Nicole Midi
was struck with leprosy within a few days of her
death. Loyseleur died suddenly at Bale. The
corpse of d'Estivet was found in a gutter outside the
gates of Rouen.

^ As a matter of recorded fact no sentence was then pro-
nounced on her save by the impatient soldiers. The Bailli of
Rouen, Messire Raoul le Bouteiller, only said the words I have
given above, as his lieutenant swore in the second Proems, and
this is why the sentence is not recorded in the minutes of the
Baillage.
228

Jeanne d^Arc

Not a single attempt was made to rescue her in Rouen
at the last, not a solitary effort had been made before to
save her by the French. Judged by the Church, and
appealing for fair hearing, Jeanne was not supported in
her trial by a single French ecclesiastic. Not a single
reference to her death occurs on subsequent occasions,
when the Court of France had official opportunity to
make it. An age still so strongly imbued with the
principles of feudalism could not believe in that intense
patriotism and worship of nationality which was as
foreign to their instincts as was the doctrine of liberty
of conscience. This peasant-girl personified them both.
"II y a ^8 livres de nostre Seigneur plus que ks vostres,"
she had said in her first questioning at Chinon ; and
laymen and ecclesiastics alike were unable to reconcile
her with any scheme of philosophy they knew. In
English writings there is no contemporary mention of
her except a line in William of Worcester. Caxton's
English Chronicles only give the lie that Shakespeare
has preserved against her tainted purity. Thomas
Fuller classed her with the Witch of Endor. It was
not for twenty-four years that the very town which saw
her martyrdom was moved to declare judicially her
innocence. In the " Proems de Rehabilitation," begun on
the first of June 1456, everyone who had known her
came forward — too late — to testify to her innocence.
On the seventh of July, in the presence of her brother
and her mother's representative in the great hall of the
palace of the Archbishop of Rouen, it was ordered
that her memory should be publicly reinstated both in
the Cemetery of St. Ouen and in the Vieux March6.

The most astonishing thing in the whole story is, not
that the prophecies were fulfilled, not what she did
before her death, not even the memory of how she
died, but the woman herself, and that is why I have
reproduced as hx as was possible, from the text of
Quicherat's volumes, all that she is known certainly to

* 229

The Story ^ Rouen

have said and done id Rouen, aa b rec(»ded id the
contemporary manuKiipts which he hat reproduced
from the imouiea of her "Triale." The dcmjon of the
caade, where ahe nood before her judges, is for thU
reason the best memory of her that could poaribly hare
been preserved. No other monument will ever be so
appropriate, and in thdr patriodc and aucceaaful efforti
to preaerve this building, the citizens of modem Rouen
have done much to wipe out the shame of otlier days.
It preBerves not merely the heroism of Jeanne. She
had scarcely left it when the
brave Xaintrailles was im-
prisoned within its walls, but
he must have escaped or been
exchanged very soon, for at
the end of December in the
same year he was fighting the
English ag^n at Lagny. In
J. February of the following year,
^^%ft 1432, another famous name is
connected with the donjon, for
in that month Ricarville with
scarcely a hundred men behind
him was let in by Pierre Aude-
boeuf, and killed every one of
the English garrison except
the E^rl of Arundel, who was
governor, with his immediate bodyguard.

This remnaDt ba.rricaded themselves in the Tour
Carrie, which Henry the Fifth had built to the north-
west of the old rort,aJter the siege of Rouen. Ricarville
hastily retired for help to Miirshal de Boussac, and
during his absence his companions, attacked by rein-
forcements of the English, were obliged to take refu^
in the donjon, where they were hotly besieged by
artillery which seriously damaged the second storey of
the tower. Forced to surrender after three weelu of

JIANNI i/aIC

Jeanne d^ Arc

heroic resistance, the whole hundred were beheaded in
the Vieux March^. For fifty days this handful of men
had held the entire English garrison in check, and yet
not a man had thought of rescuing Jeanne d'Arc scarcely
a year ago.

Jacques Lelieur's map shows that by 1525 a new
roof had been put on the donjon, in the shape of a
platform with embrasures. By 1591 Valdory, whose
account of the siege by Henri Quatre I shall mention
later, records that it was almost ruined. In 16 10 its
remnants were spared, when the rest of the castle
was demolished to make a practice-ground for the
arquebusiers of the town. Aifter passing into private
hands, the tower became the property of a convent in
the eighteenth century. In 1796 it was sold to another
private owner, who was warned to be careful of the well
within the walls that was supplied by the spring Gaalor.
By 1 809 some nuns bought it again, and for long the
old donjon decorated incongruously a portion of the
garden in the Ursuline Convent. In 1842 M. Deville,
Inspecteur des Monuments Historiques, drew public
attention to its value, and was supported by M.
Barthelemy the municipal architect. The publication
of M. Quicherat's five volumes of the "Trials," in 1 849,
renewed the interest in all that had to do with Jeanne
d'Arc. After a long and most creditable agitation, a
committee, on which M. F. Bouquet served as secretary,
was formed under the presidency of the mayor, M.
Verdrel. The ground was bought from the Ursuline
nuns, the trained advice of M. VioUet le Due was
solicited, and by the active assistance of MM. Desmarest
and Durand the tower was finally restored as you may
see it now.

Though the filling up of the moat makes it look
shorter than it really is, a great deal of the old masonry
remains intact, and so carefully has the restoring work
been done that in the embrasures and recesses on both

3^1

The Story of Rouen

first and second floors you may still see the scratches
and inscriptions of prisoners or sentinels, much as they
are preserved in our own Tower of London. On
Wednesday, the i8th of February 1874, the work of
reconstruction was finished by the placing of the iron
vane with its great fleur-de-lys upon the summit of the
conical roof. It is the fourth floor, just beneath this
vane, that is the most interesting of all the new work,
as it presents a complete and accurate picture of
mediaeval defences, showing both the wooden hoarding
which projected beyond the walls in order to give
space to hurl down stones and boiling lead, and the
guard's chemin-de-ronde cut in the solid wall with its
openings that communicate with each side. Its walls
conjure up a flood of memories of the men and women
who saw tliose solid cliffs of masonry before they fell
into ruin and restoration : —

*< Berthe au grand pied, Bietris, Allys
Harembourges, qui tint le Mayne,
£t Jehanne la bonne Lorraine
Qu'Anglois brusl^rent a Rouen :
Oii sont-ilz, Vierge Souveraine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan ? **

On the loth of November 1449 Charles the Seventh
of France was riding through his own good town of
Rouen; by his side were Jacques Coeur, Ren^
d'Anjou, King of Sicily, and Pierre de Breze. The
English had surrendered Rouen, and all of them were
on their way home again who had not left their bones
in France.

a3«

CHAPTER X

A City of Churches

Et concupiscet Rex decorem tuuxn quoniam ipse est
Dominus Deus et adorabnnt eum. Et filiae Tyri in muneribns
vultum tuum deprecabuntur ; omnes divites plebis. Omnia
gloria ejus filiae reg^s ab intus, in fimbreis aureis, circmnamicta
varietatibus.

A WALK from Rouen to St. Sever will leave you
with the impression that Rouen has so many
churches that she has to turn many of them into shops,
while St. Sever has so many shops that several of them
have had to masquerade as churches. But the many
« sacred buildings '' you may see to-day are not much
more than half of the churches and chapels of the six-
teenth century which rose after the English garrison had
disappeared. With the few exceptions I have already
noted, Rouen has been almost entirely reconstructed
since 1450, and in nothing can this be realised so
well as in its churches. When Charles VII. first
rode into Rouen, of the greater churches only the
Cathedral was within a little of completion. St. Ouen
hardly suggested yet the building that appears to-day.

As I have said, it was during the English occu-
pation that the nave was begun. The beautiful central
tower was only finished by Antoine Bohier, who did
much to make perfect the building that we see to-day
as the fifth church on the same site. It received its
name from St. Ouen, who was buried in the second
church in 689. The monastery which was added
to the third church was under the rule of Nicohs

The Story of Rouen

de Normandiey son of the second Duke Richard, in
1042. This was destroyed by the usual fire, and
the rebuilding was assisted by the Empress Matilda
and Richard Cceur de Lion. The little remnant of
beautiful Romanesque called the Tour aux Clercs,
probably formed the northern apse of its transept
When this church in turn was burnt in the same
fire that destroyed the original churches of St.
Godard and St. Laurent, the monks fled to Bihord
with what could be rescued of their archives and
their << treasure.'' At last, Abb^ Jean Ronssel, called
Marc d' Argent, started the noble fabric that, muti-
lated as it is, is still one of the finest monuments of
later ^'Gothic" in existence. His first meeting of
architects and master-masons was called in 1321,
and then was in all likelihood decided the out-
lines of that mighty plan which took a century and
a half to approach completion — and well-nigh half
a hundred architects.

From the ancient refuge of his monks, the land on .
which their feudal justice was administered, from the
slopes above Bihorel, Marc d' Argent looked down
and watched the first walls and buttresses of his Abbey
rise from the soil. In that valley the quarries from
which he drew his stone could still be seen scarce
twenty years ago, with huge blocks of stone, rough-
hewn nearly five centuries before, still resting upon
mouldering rollers. He gathered funds from the
Abbey Forests (which gave their timbers too) and
from the generous donations of the pious. After
twenty-one years of work, in which all his monks
assisted the masons, he had spent about fiYe million
franc8^ (in modem values), and by 1339 had finished
the choir and chapels, the huge pillars beneath the
central tower, and part of the transept. Of the
first real "Maitre d'oeuvre," as so often happens in
the tale of the Cathedrals, nothing is known. But

234

A City of Churches

the monks carved the clear keen features of his tace
upon the funeral stone, 7I feet high and 4 feet
broad, that is in the Chapelle St. Cecile, and beside
it is a detailed drawing of one of the arches of the
choir. Jean de Bayeux went on with the work from
1378 to 13989 and his son Jean was Master Architect
from 141 1 to 1421/ How intensely enthusiastic the
monks were to complete their Abbey may be seen
from their quarrel with the Town Authorities in 1 41 2
and 14159 when every workman and every penny in the
town was gathered to help strengthen the fortifications
against the English. ' But the monks of St. Ouen re-
fused assistance in money or in kind, lest by so doing
they should cripple their beloved building. And their
confidence was perhaps justified in that Alexandre de
Bemcval, who was the architect from 1422 to 1441,
worked under the delibrate encouragement of the Eng-
lish garrison. His tomb is near that of the first un-
known Master, and the plan of his ^mous Rose
window for the south transept is carved as his most
fitting epitaph.

The two Bayeux had done the interior of the south
door of the transept, but it was Bemeval who did the
chapel of SS. Peter and Paul, and his son who,
after 1441, worked at the central tower, the gem of
the exterior. This younger Bemeval lies buried near
his father, and the plan of his octagonal <' drum " is
set above his grave. To that first magnificent con-
ception the crown was not added until Antoine
Bohier's days, between 1490 and 15 15, for whom
Jacques Theroulde worked chiefly. The same
Abbot completed the Sacristy, but the rest of his
additions were not so fortunate in their execution, for
the style of the end of the fifteenth century did not
mate happily with the earlier work. The carvings
and general style of the south portal, called <^des
Marmousets," is for instance a striking deterioration

135

l^be Story of Rouen

from the bold ccmceptioiu and brilliaDt handiwork
upoD the great transq>t gateways of the CathednL
He added four more bays to the oare, unog gunple
instead of double buttretsea, flamboyaDt work instead
of rose vnaAoiit, longer arches, and a lower line <tf
capitals. Under Cibo, his successor, the laet four
bays of the nave were finished, and a splendid be-

ginning made to the west front that has perished
utterly, and been replaced by the miserable monstrosity
of a fripd and ill-proportioned "restoration." Seldom
haa that much-abuted word so richly deserved all the
invectiTe that could be heaped upon it. By Lelieur's
plan we know that in 1 535 the western front of Cibo
scarcely can be said to have existed. But it cannot
336

A City of Churches

have been long after the reign of Francis I. that Cibo's
architect carried his west front between 40 and 50
metres high, because the crest and devices of that
monarch were preserved in the old work. In 1846
it will hardly be credited that so much of that old
work still remained as may be seen in the drawing,
copied from the sketch of a contemporary architect,
which I have reproduced on page 236. From this it
will be observed that one of the most ingenious and
original devices of the Middle Ages at their close had
been developed for the entrance to St. Ouen.

A glance at the western fagades of the Cathedral
and of St. Maclou will make clearer what I have to
say. For the Cathedral is in almost a straight line
along its west front, though the two towers at each
end give almost a suggestion of a retreating curve.
St. Maclou, on the other hand, shaped like the
eastern apse of most churches, has a bold curve
forwards from north and south, meeting in the central
door which projects some way beyond the side doors
on its own fa9ade, as may be seen from Miss James's
particularly instructive drawing in the frontispiece.
St. Ouen presented the only remaining third possi-
bility, a curve inwards, in which the central door was
pushed back, and at an angle on each side of it the
arched portals of the aisles curved forwards, and
above them rose two towers, each a reduced copy of
that larger exquisite central tower which crowns the
Abbey. Though the old masonry remained, and
though a complete working drawing of the whole
facade was discovered in the archives of the town,
the job of pulling everything down and building the
new and horrible spires was given to an architect who
had already destroyed an old tower in the angle of
the courtyard of the Palais de .Fustice, and had made
a "grille'' for its fa<;ade filled with inconsequent
anachronisms and errors.

*37

The Story of Rouen

After this, your only consolation will be to pssi
through the western gates as swiftly as may be to die
interior. Its whole length is 416 feet 8 inchet, and
the vault is 1 00 feet high ; the nave is 34 feet broad*
and the aisles 22 feet This magnificent £ibric has
had hard usage. After being sacked when it was
scarce completed, by the Protestants in 1 562, it was
turned into a museum by the Revolution, and io 1 793
was used as a blacksmith's shop for making arms.
Yet nothing can efface that first breathless senae of
soaring height and beauty which impresses you 00
your first entrance as you look up to the great windows
of the clerestory, with the saints upon their silvery
glass, set between the long slender shafts of columns
that spring straight from the ground, and leap upwards
like a fountain clear and undivided to the keystone of
the roof. Though I was unwillingly bound to confess
that even the old Rose windows disappointed me, the
bunch of glaring cauliflowers which is the new western
Rose is worse than anything in any building of this size
and general beauty. But the other windows are an
abiding joy, made of that exquisite moonlit glass,
in which the colours shine like jewels, and are set as
rarely.

Nor is the Church without its claim to right of place
in history as well as art. For the old Abb^ of
St. Ouen was one of the most considerable in Nor-
mandy. It held fiefs not only in the city, but in the
For^t Verte outside, and lands all over the province,
with the right of nomination to very many livings.
From the Pope himself the Abbot held, since I2j6,
certain valuable privileges in conferring minor digni-
ties, and in the list of those who held that splendid
post after the uncle of the Conqueror, are the names of
d'Estouteville, de Lorraine, de Bourbon, de Vend6nie,
de la Tour d'Auvergne, and lasdy Etienne Charles
de Lomenie de Brienne, who was found dead in his
338

The Story of* Rouen

bed when the warrant had gone out for his arrest in
1794. In 1602 only was the ceremony of the
"Oison bride" given up, which commemorated the
old privileges of the Abbot's Mills. Even longer
lasted the ancient ceremony by which the monks re-
ceived every archbishop on his entrance into Rouen,
and on his death watched for the first night by his bier
in their own abbey. In their cemetery you have
already seen Jeanne d*Arc go through her mockery
of "abjuration/' Within it, too, her memory was
"rehabilitated." In this church young Talbot was
laid to rest, who fell in the English wars. In its
cemetery was received James II. of Gt, Britain, who
was escorted, on his flight from England, by armed
citizens of Rouen from the Chartreuse of St. Julien to
the Abbey.

And it may be that the old Sacristan, for your good
fortune, will be living still to tell you of the greatest
Englishman he has ever heard of, John Ruskin, who
often looked into that quaint mirror of Holy Water,
and watched the strange reflection of the arches soaring
upwards in the nave.

It was in the Abbey of St. Ouen that on a May
Day of 1485, Charles VIII. held a great assembly to de-
liberate over the concessions to the town after his famous
entry into Rouen. To welcome him, poets, machinists,
actors, tableaux vivants, marionettes, songs, comedies,
and " mysteries," were gathered together regardless of
expense. The Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon had
arrived before him, and on the twelfth of April they
were presented by the Chapterhouse with six gallons of
wine of two sorts, and with loaves of the famous bread,^
in return for which each gave a golden crown to the

1 Perhaps it was in honour ot these legendary loaves that
the acrostic of SAC BL£ was composed from the six dioceses
dependent on the archbishopric of Rouen ; S^z, Alencon,
Coutances, Bayeux, Lisieux, Evreux.
240

A City of Churches

Cathedral Offertory. Two days afterwards arrived the
King himself from Pont de TArche with a large and
brilliant suite, including the second Louis de la Tremou-
ille, who fought on every battlefield from St. Aubin
du Cormier to Pavia, Philippe deCommines the historian,
the "Comte de Richemont," soon to be King of
England, and many others.

On his way from the Faubourg St. Sever to his
lodgings in the Chateau de Bouvreuil, five stages greeted
his progress with loyal allegories. Each bore its title
written above in letters of gold or blue or rose upon
tin plates. The first was labelled "Repos Pacificque,"
and represented by means of seven personages an acrostic
on the royal name of Charles. The second was ** Ordre
Politique," and was of a most amazing ingenuity, for
no less than forty-four persons were shown on three
stages one above the other which all turned round
slowly on one piece of timber. On the lowest appeared
John the Evangelist with a little angel by his side
pointing him upwards to the splendours of the Apoca-
lypse ; in the middle twenty-four aged harpers sat and
harped, with << lutes and rebecqs " in their hands ; at
the top shone the " Agnus Dei," the lamb of Rouen
from the civic arms, amidst a cloud of evangelists and
rainbows. On the third stage, labelled <' Uncion des
Rois," was figured, with divers changes of scene,
the coronation and anointing of David, all arranged by
Master David Pinel in token of the joy of Rouen that
Charles VIII. had been anointed with the holy oil at
Reims which had given strength to Charles VII. to
turn out the hated English. ^< Espoir en la croix " was
represented on the fourth by the victory of Constant! ne
over Maxentius, with several " tirements de courtines "
or changes of scene. The fifth, styled " Nouvelle Eau
Celique," showed the blessings of the new reign after
the sufferings of the old one by a fountain which watered
the Tree of the People, so that leaves by a marvellous

Q 241

The Story of Rouen

device appeared to flourish naturally upon it, ndiile wine
was poured out from beneath for every patiei^^ to
drink, and five fair damsels sang harmoniously. That
evening all the shepherds and shepherdesses and other
characters in these moving ^^ histories '' came down and
played a ^^ mystery" before the King. But periums
the thing that pleased the young Charles most of all,
was that gay procession of young gentlemen of Rouen
which caracoled before him on horseback, under the
leadership of no less a personage than his majesty the
King of Yvetot, the captain of the City Bridge. (See
footnote on page 36.)

In the next days he promised to confirm the charten
of the town, assured the canons in the exercise of the
Privilege St. Romain, and asked that the procession of
the prisoner might pass by his chateau, which was the
more appropriate as the man released had been con-
demned to death for killing a groom attached to one of
the royal suite, who had given wanton and continued
provocation. Not till the seventeenth of May were
the requests both of the ecclesiastical and the civic
authorities fully granted at St. Ouen ; the spokesman
for each had been Maitre Michel Petit, the ** chantre "
of the Chapterhouse, and by that one fact, if by no
other. King Charles must have been properly impressed
with the importance of the Church in Rouen.

Before he left the city, he could have seen the
exquisite little shrine of St. Maclou in all the fresh
untainted delicacy of its first achievement. **The
eldest daughter of the Archbishop of Rouen,** this
marvellous church was the result of one perfect and
harmonious plan, and inasmuch as the design of its
originator has been faithfully completed, it is far more
of an architectural unity than its larger rivals, the
Cathedral or St. Ouen. Of these three either one would
make the reputation of an English town alone, and the
jewelled chiselling and admirable proportions of the
242

A City of Churches

smallest of them make a fitting complement to the
heavy splendour of the Cathedral on the one handy
and to the dizzy altitudes of the Abbey on the
other.

The first Maclou, as may be imagined, was a
Scotchman. He fled to Brittany, became Bishop of
Aleth, and died in the Saintonge in 561. Ever
since the tenth century a shrine had been erected to
his memory outside the earliest walls of Rouen, in
that morass which gives its name to the Rue Malpalu
in front of the present church. Twice burnt and
twice rebuilt, it became a parish church within the
walls by 1 2 50. A larger building was soon necessary ;
even during the miseries of the English Occupation it
was determined to make the new church worthy of the
town that already held the Cathedral and part of St.
Ouen ; and before 1500 indulgences had been granted
by Hugues, the Archbishop, by Cardinal d'Estouteville,
and by twenty Cardinals of Rome, to raise sufficient
sums of money. In 1437 P^^ire Robin, one of the
royal architects from Paris, was paid 43 livres 10 sols
for a plan and work that must have been begun some
eighteen months previously with stone quarried in Val
des Leux and Vernon. In 1470 Ambroise Harel was
<<Ma!tre de I'oeuvre," and in I480 the same Jacques
le Roux finished it who worked in the Cathedral. Of
individual bequests that of Jean de Grenouville, who
was buried in the Chapelle de la St. Vierge in 1 466,
gave most help. From 14329 when the irreparable
ruin of the old church was first recognised, until 1 5 1 4,
the accounts for only seven years have been preserved.
In 1520 the spire of wood and lead above Gringoire's
lantern was placed on Martin Duperrois' platform, to
which a man might ascend without the help of any
ladder. In 1735 ^^^ ^^" removed, and b 1795 ^^
lead was melted into bullets, and the six bells of 1 529
were recast into cannon. In 1868 M. BarthHemy

243

The Story of Rouen

erected the stooe Pyramid 83 metres high to hold the
fine new bells.^

The famous canred doors have been attributed to
Jean Goujoo, though there is only one figure (die
" Caritas on the left panel of the central porch) that
I can believe to be his own workmanship. In all the
idea of plan is much the same. There are two difi-
sions, of which the lower contains the ** practicable
entrance," and is guarded by a caryatid on each side
supporting two male figures. Along the lintel runs a
line of brackets alternating with cherubs* heads sup-
porting seven figures, four males in high relief with
three females in low relief behind them. These figures
in turn carry a square panel, carved in high relief aboTe
them, representing different scenes on each door, chiefly
suggested by the story of the Good Shepherd which
is so appropriate to the staple industry of the town.
They were begun by 1527 and finished before 1560.
Jean Goujon was born in 1 520, and was killed during
the Massacre of St. Bartholomew while carving on the
Louvre. In 1540 he is known to have been at
Rouen, and in the next year he worked both here and
in the Cathedral. So that he may well have given
the design for what he did not personally execute,
though no documents exist to prove either.

But if the doors are a trifle disappointing, though
only so because of their great reputation, they certainly did
not deserve to be mutilated by the Huguenots in 1 562 ;
and in 1793 when a barrelmaker's child was slashing

1 M. de Beaurepaire has collected a few other names con-
nected with the building. It was first dedicated when Arthur
Fillon was the vicar, who was a friend of Cardinal d'Amboise
and afterwards Bishop of Senlis. After the disappearance of
Pierre Robin, the first architect mentioned, another stranger
called Oudin de Mantes is given control, with lodgings pro-
vided for him in the Rue du Bac. In 1446 Simon Lenoir of
Rouen (who took BernevaPs place under the English) worked
at this church.

244

ji City of Churches

the heads of the it
think of no better
femeux patriote ! "
to adorn, which
was protebly the
work of Ambroise
Hare I, I ha»e
already spoken in
deecribing the
exactly reverse
plan of the origi-
Dal west front of
St. Ouen. It is
one of the most
delightful tours
de force I know

and when Miu
James was draw-
ing for me the
froniispiece which

pointed out that
the idea of the
curve had been
deliberately eni>
phasised to the
spectator's eye by
building the side
porches narrower,

then

ning
with lower

with an axe, the crowd could

meot than " Celui-lk sera un

Of the facade they were intended

s the

case in the central entrance. The central tympanum
represents the Last Judgment, with the Pelican above
it that typifies the Resurrectioa> You may appreciate
»4S

The Story of Rouen

at once the delicate tracer? of lacework in Mone which
cavers this exterior and also the affectioD felt for its
beauties by their guardians, if you will examine the
model laboriously built up in wood and paper by aD
old vicar io the mx-
teenth centun. His
ten yeus of^ lonng
toil have beCB pre-
aeired in the Mut£f
dea Antiquity and
few better proofs entt
of contemporary ap-
preciation of the fine

The interior is
tcarcely less intereit-
iog, though it has
suffered very much
from modem religi-
osity. Only forty-
seven and a half
metres long, by
scarcely twenty-five
in widdi, its height is
nearly twenty- three
metres in the three
bays of the nave,
rising to thirty-nine
at the lantern. Its

is the exquisite
Escalier des Orgues,
from which the stair-
case to the organ loft at Ely was imitated. This waa
built in 1 5 1 9 for two hundred and five livres by Pierre
Gringoire, "Maistre Machonde Rouen." In examio-
ing more closely that fragment of it, of which a plaster
146

A City of Churches

CMt hai been made for the Musee du Trocad&u in
Paris, 1 could not help being atruck with the general
resemblance of its plaa to the more famous staircase
which adorns the exterior of the wing of Francis I. at
the great chateau of Blots in Touraine, which was
built almost at the same time, from the designs (aa I
have attempted to pioTe else-
where) of Leonardo da Vind, and
was decorated later on with statues
by Jean Goujon. This sculptor
was only bom the year after St.
Maclou's staircase was finished,
but the main lines of the structure
are so suggestive of the earlier
work that I cannot but imagine
this fine piece of French Re-
naissance to be a deliberate copy,
by a master strong enough to retain
his own originality of treatment,
of the main design that appears in
the courtyard of Blois.

Not all the churches of which
Rouen is so full can boast even
that measure of preservation which
storm and time and the more
devastating hands of man have
spared to the three noblest of her
religious monumeniB. Of St.
Andre, for instance, only the
tower remains, that stands alone
above the Rue Jeanne d'Arc,
like the Tour St. Jacques in Paris, a
specimen of the later Gothic architecture. A
still finer relic of an older past is that old church
of St. Pierre du Chastel, which is now turned
into a stable and coach-house at No. 4 1 Rue
Nationak. Unless you look for it, you will miaa
»47

] admirable

The Story of Rouen

altogether the great statue of David and his harp,
which is the one massive decoration of its strong
and simple tower, and the carvings which may still
be traced through the neglect and mutilation of
centuries upon its western door. More degraded
still, to even baser uses, is the Church of St. Cande
le Jeune, which has become some kind of an electric
manufactory, and may now be chiefly traced by the
huge chimney which obstructs the sky as you look
up the Impasse Petit Salut towards the Tour de
Beurre of the Cathedral. Just opposite the entrance
to the public library is another instance of barbarous
neglect: the Church of St. Laurent. Once used as
a magazine of shops of every kind, sometimes a lost
home for decrepit carriages, sometimes a drying-house
for laundry-women, these exquisite ruins of Renais-
sance architecture have at last been rescued by the
civic authorities, if not from evident decay, at any
rate from further mutilation. The tower alone — but
one among so many in Rouen — would be the proudest
possession of many a larger English town. The
balustrade is decorated by a pattern of letters, which
pathetically express their hope of better treatment in
the battered legend: "Post Tenebras Spero Lucem."
Close to these eloquent ruins is a church that has
had a somewhat better fate, for if St. Godard has been
rather roughly treated, the beauty of its stained-glass
windows has saved it from absolute destruction. In
the chapel of St. Peter, due east at the end of the
north aisle, is the great window that was made in
1555 to represent St. Romain, who is shown at the
top, on the left hand, dragging the Gargouille of
Rouen to destruction with his sacred stole (see p. 39).
Lower down, on the right, you must look at the King
seated in his royal chair, and the hounds at play before
him on the carpet. In the south aisle the correspond-
ing window to the east has a tree of Jesse in its upper
248

A City of Churches

pan, aod beneath it one of the finest examples of ux-
Ceenth ceotury paio^ng in Rouea work that reminds
you of the work of Rembrandt Of these five figure*
of old men, the last two on the nght are especially
worthy of attentive study They were done in
1 535-. To the right
of this window in
the same chapel,
looking south wiutlt,

window of about
the same date, said
to be copied from
a design by Raphael
and his school, of
the life and gene-
alogy of the Blessed
Virgin ; but it is not
so strong or original
in treatment a a the
last. Beneath it are
two kneeling figures
carved upon the
tomb of the family
of Bee de Li^vre.

In the Rue Jeanne
d'Arc is another
church, St. Vincent,
that must be vitited.
I have spoken al-
ready of the little
labourer in tunic and
breeches, with a sack of salt upon his back, who atanda
upon the outside of the buttress to the south of the
choir, and looks towards the river. It commemoratet
the fact that, by letters patent delivered by Charlet VI.
in 1409, the church (which was then much nearer to
149

T'be Story of Rouen

the river ) was allowed to take toll of every cargo of
salt which came into the port, a privilege which was
exchanged in 1649 for an annual payment of 140
livres. Begun in 151 1 — or, as some say, 1480-—
after the plans of Guillaume Touchet, St. Vincent
certainly comes after St. Maclou in order of merit.
Its choir alone is a magnificent specimen of the
architectural possibilities of the smaller churches,
and must have been finished before 1530, when
Touchet's supervision ended. The splendid flam-
bojrant western porch is not shown in Lelieur's
plan of 1525, and was probably a later addition.
The name of Ambroise Harel has also been con-
nected with the work, but I have been unable to
satisfy myself of the exact portions for which he
may have been responsible.

It is chiefly admired, and wrongly so to my mind,
for the treasures of its interior. These consist not
merely in the wonderful series of sixteenth century
tapestries, of which M. Paul Lafond has publi^ed
a detailed description, but in the stained-glass windows,
of which the most celebrated represents the ass of St
Anthony of Padua kneeling before the Holy Sacrament.
The design is taken, it is said, from a drawing of Diirer,
to whom also is ascribed the original suggestion for the
window at the west end of the first aisle, of the Virgin
and Apostles. North of the choir is an interesting
glass-painting of the buildings of Rouen.

But slightly west of the northern end of the same
street you will find windows in the Church of St.
Patrice which I think infinitely preferable, of their
kind, to those which are the especial pride of St.
Vincent. They are very justly placed in the first
class of the ** monuments historiques " de France. As
you enter the transept, turn due south, and the first
window on your right is the "Woman taken in
Adultery," which was moved here from the old church
250

A City of Churches

of St. Godard. The inscription on it is ** Honorable
homme maitre Nicole Leroux licentie es loix advocant
et Marie fiunel sa feme ont donne ceste vitreau moys
de may Ian de grace 1 549 priez dieu pour eulx." In
the right hand comer you may see the good William
praying with his son behind him, and his wife in black
is further otf to the left with her six daughters behind
her, two of them in *' cramoisy taffetas, trimmed with
northern peltry." In the Chapel of the Virgin in the
north transept, the left hand window of the three
over the altar depicts the life of St. Fiacre and St
Firmin, and was put up in 154O in the days when
Pierre Deforestier was in office, and Francois Baudoin
was prevot. Of the three you see when looking due
north, the farthest to the right in the transept was
placed there in 1583, '*a Phonneur du grand roy des
roys de St. Louis roy de France ; '' the middle window
shows St. Eustace suffering mart3rrdom in the brazen
bull which is being heated red hot, while above St.
Hubert meets his miraculous stag. The farthest
window to the left is dated 1538 ; it is the best, and
Jean Cousin has been suggested as its designer. The
donor prays in the right hand corner, and his wife
with a daughter behind her is in the left. A well-
drawn figure of an angel announces his message to the
Blessed Virgin who is reading, and in the middle of
the composition, near the bottom, lies a corpse in a
winding-sheet.

The large window at the extreme end of the north
aisle is also very fine. At the top is a woman in a
car triumphing. Below, on the left, are Adam and
Eve. Next to them is the Devil, and Death, whose
swarthy skin is wrapped in a winding-sheet that seems
to belly in the blasts of Hell. The story of Job that
is painted in the first window on the left in the north
aisle, also came from old St Godard. And all this
wealth of stained glass is shown off wonderfully well

asi

The Story of Rouen

in a church that is not too large to lose its full effect,
and is planned with only a few light colunuu in the
interior to impede the view of all of them from the
centre of the nave.

To three other of the many ecclesiastical buildings
of Rouen can I direct you before closing this Chapter
of Churches with the Cathedral that is mother of 'them
all : St. Eloi, St. Vivien, and the Abbaye de St
Amand. As you walk northwards from the river
into the town up the Rue St. Eloi, the church from
which it takes its name shows a fine south door that
closes the perspective of the street. The design of
the west entrance is bold and good, but the queerly
mathematical plan of the Rose window above it, with
its three triangles crossing in the circle, has not a very
happy effect. The church now is little but the ruins
of what was once a magnificent building and is used as
the " Protestant Temple." The whole of the Place
St. Eloi is worthy of a closer inspection than can be
gained by merely walking through it, which you will
be tempted to do at much too fast a pace on learning
that the Rue du Panneret at its north-east angle leads
directly to the Maison Bourgtheroulde in the Place de
la Pucelle. Another characteristic little square is the
Place St. Vivien which cuts the Rue Eau de Robec
in two portions. If you are lucky enough to be there
on a twenty-ninth of August you will see the famous
F^te St. Vivien in full blast, with booths and merry-
go-rounds, and travelling theatres, even a ** Theatre
Garric a 8 heures, Nouveau Spectacle ! " But do not
go on into the further recesses of the Eau de Robec
without looking at the church, and give your keenest
glances to the fine square tower with its octagonal spire
that is classed among the Monuments Historiques. Of
the ancient Abbaye de St. Amand there is perhaps
less left than of any of the ecclesiastical buildings in
this chapter. Its origin has been described already
252

A City of Churches

(see p. 71), and the gable with its buttressed wall that
you can see best in the Rue St. Amand from the
Place des Cannes are almost the only stones remaining
of an institution that once took a very prominent part
in the ecclesiastical ceremonies of Rouen.

For when an Archbishop died, the Abbess of St.
Amand took from his dead finger, as the funeral
procession passed her gates, the ring that she had
placed upon it at his installation. On the 19th of
July 1 493) that ring still shone upon the hand of
Robert de Croixmare, Whose corpse had just been
brought into the Cathedral choir, arrayed in state, with
mitre on head, and crosier in hand, with all his robes
of office on him. That night the bier rested in the
Abbey of St. Ouen, and as it passed the Abbey of
Su Amand on its way back to burial, the Abbess
must have wondered, as she claimed her ring, on
whom she would bestow it next. The canons of the
Cathedral were even more hasty in their eagerness to
settle the important question, and the body of their
late superior had been scarcely laid in state within their
choir before they were deliberating in the Chapterhouse
about his probable successor. As a mere matter of
form — and we know how tenacious were these canons
of their rights and usages — they had sent word to the
King that the election of the next Archbishop was
proceeding ; and their dismayed astonishment may be
imagined when a message came from Charles VIII.
that he << neither admitted nor denied tlieir privilege
to re-elect."

The King was not long in enlightening his faithful
subjects as to his wishes in the matter. Georges
d'Amboise, Archbishop of Narbonne, and lieutenant
to his friend Louis of Orleans in the Governorship of
Normandy, was clearly pointed out as the royal candi-
date, without any room for misunderstanding. The
Duke of Orleans himself joined in the " request " that

^53

The Story of Rouen

saroured far too much of a command for ecdeaiaalicil
independence. Ab if this were not enough, meteengen
from the Court arrived post-haste; Baudricourt, a
Marshal of France,, no less ; Jean du Vergier, a
financial officer of the town ; and M. de C16rieu,
the royal chamberlain; all these actually arrived to
" negotiate " (presumptuous word ! ) with the finee
and independent Chapterhouse. In great perplexity
were both the canons and the town officials, upon
whom commands, no less imperative, had also been
laid; for the Chapterhouse would naturally not hear
one single word from the civic officials on the subject
of their election, and even to the royal messengos
they would only reply that, at the election-day, some
three weeks hence, ^'His Majesty should have no just
cause for complaint."

Three weeks, however, gave them time for profitable
reflections. When next the royal messengers appeared
in the Chapterhouse, in the persons of the President of
the Parliament of Paris, and the Grand Seneschal de
Breze, their reception was not so chilling as before.
Every preacher in the town had exhorted his congrega-
tion to pray that God would direct their proper choice.
The revered shrine of St. Romain, that Fierte which
represented the proudest token of ecclesiastical liberty,
had been borne in solemn procession round the town.
Public sentiment had been intensely agitated by the
unwonted course events had taken. On the rateful
2 1 St of August the Cathedral was packed with
hundreds of the faithful, eager to be first to hear
the decision of the canons. By three o'clock the
ten bells of the Cathedral had summoned the canons
to the matins which preceded the election that was to
release the Church from widowhood, and give to Rouen
a new archbishop. At last the Chapter assembled,
the doors were shut, and every avenue to the Chapter-
house was strictly guarded. At the last moment an
254

A City of Churches

aged canon, rising from hit death-bed to exercise hit
most cherished privilege, tottered into the assembly to
select a fnend to vote for him, and went back to die.

Suddenly the door of the Chapterhouse opened
again, and £tienne TuTBche the Chancellor uttered in
a loud voice his last summons to all those who had the
right to vote that they should forthwith enter. When
it had closed again — for there was no reply — the solemn
oath was administered to every canon that he would
rightly and reverently choose the candidate he honestly
thought best. Any excommunicated person was warned
to retire, and Masselin the Dean began his exhortation
on the importance of their choice. When he had
finished, all save the electors themselves withdrew,
and on the flagged floor of the Chapterhouse the
canons knelt to the singing of the *'Veni Creator,"
and prayed for inspiration. Suddenly all leapt to
their feet at once with one united shout of '* Georges
d' Amboise shall be Archbishop ! "

At once the great bells rang out to the town that
the election had been made, while within the Cathedral
every wall re-echoed with the shouts of '^ Noel, Noel ! "
as the people heard that Georges d' Amboise had been
elected. A few days afterwards a still larger throng
assembled in the Parvis to watch the great ecclesiastic
of their choice advance on bare feet mm the Church
of St. Herbland and receive the episcopal ring from the
Abbess of St. Amand, with the words, '* Messire, je
le donne a vous vivant, vous me le rendrez mort."
As he came nearer to the western gates, Masselin, the
"Grand Doyen," formally presented to him the
Cathedral, and received his promise of loyalty and
honest government, sworn on the books of the evangel-
ists, and not till then did Georges d' Amboise mount
his episcopal chair and give his first blessing to the
people of Rouen as their Archbishop.

How well he fulfilled his vow, there are many things

«S5

The Story of Rouen

in Rouen to this day to tell, and the blessing diat he
gave his congregation was not limited to things spntnal
and unseen. His splendid public benefactions in regu-
lating the water-supply of the town have been ahneady
noticed, and may be better realised in Lelieur's carefbl
drawings. His Cathedral remembers him by her
western fa9ade, by the rich balustrades around the
choir, now vanished, by numerous costly shrines and
jewels in the Tresor, by that Tour de Beurre ^ which
held '* Georges d'Amboise " the greatest bell outdde
of Russia, that every outlying parish could hear, by the
magnificent building which future archbishops jusdy
called their palace. And the Province of which he
became governor when Louis d'Orleans rose to be
Louis XII., *^ avec le titre effrayant de reformateur-
g^n^ral,'' owed him the blessings of peace from brigand-
age and prosperity in commerce ; owed him, better than
all, the firm and permanent establishment of the Courts
of Justice. By all these, and more, he worthily has
won the right to be considered by far the strongest and
ablest Archbishop Rouen ever had. After his election,
his nephew, the second Georges d'Amboise, was the
only other primate the Chapterhouse was ever permitted
to elect. The tomb of both is in the Chapelle de la
Vierge of the Cathedral.

I have but too short space or time wherein to tell
you more of the interior of that great edifice, whose
building I described when Philip Augustus made
Normandy a part of France. But out of the multitude
of interests that will stay your every step beneath its
arches, there are a few things I must point out now,
and leave the most famous of its tombs till later.

As you enter by the western door, turn southwards
into the Chapelle St. Etienne beneath the Tour de

^ The name is said to have arisen from the fact that it was
chiefly built by the fines paid by those of the faithful who ate
butter during Lent.
256

A City of Churches

Beurre. The aecood moDumental atone on the right
is in memory of Nicole Gibotun, and it i« one of the
most exquisitely drawn face* that you vnlj see in aU
Rouen. This face and both handi are incised in white
marble, the rest of the body and dreu is indicated by
red lines cut lightly in the alone. At his feet liec a dog

holding a bone. After this, there is scarcely a monu-
ment worth looking at that can elude your notice ; but
as my business is to omit the obvious and point out the
beauties which might escape unwarned attention, I shall
direct you straightway to the choir, and more par-
ticularly to the carved oak stalls. The seats, as is
usually the case, turn up to form an additional rest for
» »S7

The Story of Rouen

priests who had to stand through long and numeroiu
services, and upon these under surfaces (called miseri-
cordes) is an extraordinary series of earrings which yoa
must look at, every one.

They were made between the years of 1 457 and
1469, and are in part owing to the munificence of
Cardinal Guillaume d'Estouteville. The stalls as a
whole are much deteriorated from their originally perfect
beauty. The work at Amiens will suggest how much
of the stalls of Rouen has been lost or wantonly muti-
lated. Without the Archbishop's throne, which has
been replaced by a heavy modem structure, the whole
eighty-eight, of which two have disappeared, cost 6961
livres to make, and the greater part of the figures were
done by Pol Mosselmen (whose Flemish name was a
terrible puzzle to mediaeval scribes) and Frangois
Trubert. Two other Flemish carvers, Ltaureos
Hisbre and Gillet Duchastel, occur in the complete
list of eleven sculptors who were paid by the piece as
recorded in the Chapterhouse accounts. The designs
were made by Philippot Viart, " maistre huchier *' de
Rouen, who received 5 sous 10 deniers a day for his
work, and employed workmen so nearly his equals in
skill that they got from 48. 6d. to 5s. for their time.
The names of the sixteen " carpenters " he had with
him are all preserved with the weekly account of their
payments ; and though most of the work of the Flemish
** sculptors" on the larger statues has entirely dis-
appeared, the more modest position of the little
carvings beneath the seats has probably saved them;
and these are the work, as I believe to be most probable,
of the Rouen "carpenters" whom Philippot Viart
collected.

Their names are very ordinary ones ; such as Eustache,

Baudichon, Lefevre, Fontaine, Lemarie, and the like;

and their work is nearly all dedicated to perpetuating

either those arts and crafts of Rouen with which they

258

A City of Churches

would be most familiar, or subjects similar to the med-
allions on the north and south portals which I have
already shown to be the stock-in-trade of the mediaeval
workman. Many of the misericordes indeed are no
doubt taken from the stone-work outside. As you
turn one seat after another to the light, the life
and habits and costume of four hundred years ago
stand clear before you. There are the musicians with
their cymbals, drums, and stringed instruments; the
wool-combers with their teasels; the sheep-shearers
and cloth-makers ; the cobblers and leather-sellers and
patten-makers ; the barbers and surgeons ; the school-
master with his pupils; the carver at work upon a
stall ; the mason chiselling a Gothic arch or modelling
a statue ; the blacksmith, the carpenter, the shepherd,
the fisherman, the gardener in his vineyard, the mid-
wife, the chemist at work among his test-tubes and
alembics, the chambermaid cleaning up her rooms.

Besides these records of the different trades, in one
of the confr^ries of which every workman on these stalls
must have been a member,^ there are many subjects
more fanciful or grotesque which urged the sculptor's
chisel to its work. Harpiea and sirens and lions with
human faces; Melusina's gracious body ending in a
serpent's tail ; all the characters of the famous <' F6te
des Fous " to the very " Abbe des Comards " him-
self; all the strange beasts of travellers' tales, and
many a dream from vanishing mythologies. Ever
since pagan times, the custom of disguising the danc-
ing worshipper in a more or less hideous mask, had
steadily persisted in certain of the more licentious
festivals, and the riotous horseplay of the Middle
Ages was the direct descendant of the Saturnalia of
Rome. Too often, as I have pointed out before,
the churches themselves were the scene of these
abuses, which took the form not merely of bestial

1 For the beginning of these confriries, see chapter ▼. p. 85.

259

The Story of Rouen

trave8tie8y but of diabolical disguises in which Satan
and his imps were represented with all the Tigoiir
of an intensely imaginative age. These were some
of the sources of the grotesque caryings. For they
were not symbolical. When they did not rep reie n t
a concrete fact seen by the sculptor, they essayed to
represent a composite thought by clapping together
two forms suggesting opposite qualities, aod leafing
the gap in their union to be supplied by the spec-
tator. That gap in continuity is very noticeable b
every real " grotesque."

The " Lai d'Aristote," which occurred in the ex-
terior carvings, is repeated here on the misericorde which
is the ninth of the top row on the southern side. The
gay young lady seated upon Aristotle's back wean
the high two-homed headdress of the fifteenth cen-
tury, and a long closely-fitting gown, with the open
bodice that was the mark of the oldest profession in
the world. She is controlling the philosopher with a
bridle and a most murderous-looking bit between his
teeth. I have already explained that Socrates and
Xantippe are by no means intended here, and that
the tale is represented of the downfall of Aristotle
in his attempts to prove to Alexander the Great how
easily the charms of woman might be resisted. The sub-
ject seems to have tickled the Middle Ages immensely,
and was especially likely to be popular in Normandy,
where Henry d'Andelys, the author of the poem called
" Lai d' Aristote," was born. A very similar tale of
the gallant adventures of the poet Virgil occupied one
of the lost stalls of this Cathedral, and in St. Pierre de
Caen both were represented among the carvings of the
church.

There is one more tomb that you must see

among the things that may most easily be omitted

before you end a visit to the Cathedral, that is meant
to remind you of what is usually forgotten. It is the
260

A City of Churches

small monument in the Chapelle de la Vierge, opposite
the great tomb of the d'Amboises, and next to the
magnificent sepulchre on which Diane de Poitiers
mourns for her lost husband. It is generally passed
over because its neighbour's grandeur, overshadows it,
and it has very little left to show its value except the
beautifully sculptured canopy and the exquisite carv-
ings and initials on the columns at the side. This
is the tomb of Pierre de Br^z^, Seneschal of Nor-
mandy, who married Jeanne de Bee Crespin, with
a dowry of 90,000 crowns; and it is he who
entered Rouen with the King of France in Novem-
ber 1449, when the English occupation ceased.
He was a brave soldier and a bold adventurer, both
then and afterwards. Tn 1457, filibustering on the
English coast, he captured Sandwich and took a
heavy ransom for the port. Six years afterwards
Louis XI. sent him across the channel again to
fight on the side of Margaret of Anjou. In the
war of the League of Public Weal, he stayed loyal
to his master, and was killed by the rebels at
Mondhery in 1465. << Pierre de Brez^ tomba au
premier rang," writes Commines, '^de la mort des
braves. Le premier homme qui y mourut ce fut
luy." The friend of Dunois and Xaintrailles could
have had no better end. But it is more with the
official than the man that I have here to do.

The Seneschal of Normandy is an official who is
found already at the Court of the Norman dukes
when the province was independent. In the matter
of justice and finance, he held supreme power next
to his sovereign, and is called '* La Justice de
Normandie " by Wace. He also presided at meet-
ings of the £chiquier de Normandie in both his
capacities, and it is known that such men as Odo
of Bayeux and William Fitzosbern held this honour-
able office. With the arrival of Philip Augustus in

a6i

The Story of Rouen

Normandy, the oflSce falls into abeyance until the
English appeared in the fifteenth century with the
Burgundian motto of freedom for the people^ and
restoration of the ancient liberties of gOTenunenL
The English officials were determined to carry out
their projects thoroughly, and when once they wete
fixed firmly in Rouen they began to look through
the old charters of Normandy to see what ancient
liberties they could restore. The Grand Seneschal
of the Norman dukes (who had also been English
kings) was soon discovered, and his office was
promptly revived, and given in turn to Richard
Wideville, William Oldhall, and Thomas, Lord
Scales. The title these men had held as soldiers,
with no idea of using it in its legal or financial
sense, Charles VII. continued, on his return to
power, as a suitable recompense for the services
such favourites as de Breze had rendered him in
his campaigns, and the sounding name of Grand
Seneschal of Normandy henceforth entirely eclipsed
the humbler title of Captain of the Garrison of
Rouen.

In 1457 de Breze was exercising the original
functions of the office in the Echiquier. Six years
before, as the commissary of the King in place of
Dunois, he had brought before the Assembly of the
Province the vital questions of the confirmation of
the Charte aux Normands, of the installation of a
special financial machinery for the Province, and
other measures necessary at the resumption of
authority by the French. Though he fell tem-
porarily into disfavour with Louis XL, and was
obliged to consent to the marriage of his son
Jacques with Charlotte, daughter of Charles VII.
and Agnes Sorel, he resumed his post of Grand
Seneschal on returning from his wars in England,
and died in office.
262

A City of Churches

His son Jacques de Brezej Comte de Maullvrier,
inherited the same distinction ; but having killed his
wife, whose birth had shown its unfortunate effects
too soon in flagrant infidelity, he was in turn dis-
graced and fined, but in turn was also reinstated.
His son Louis de Breze was given the apparently
imperishable family heirloom of the office of Grand
Seneschal in August 1490, and the great seal of the
Senechaussee of Normandy was henceforth his coat
of arms. More of a soldier and a courtier than a
man of law or of finance, this de Brez6 left the
duties of his office to a numerous staff, whose names
have been preserved in the registers of Rouen. He
married first Catherine de Dreux, " dame d'Esneval,"
and left his brother-in-law in charge of the duties of
his office, when he left it. During this period it was
that Cardinal d'Amboise organised the Supreme Court
of the Echiquier de Normandie (of which Antoine
Bohier, Abb^ of St Ouen, was a member), in the
last years of Charles VIII., which, when the
Due d' Orleans became Louis XII., was to blossom
into the Perpetual Echiquier in the new "Palais de
Justice."

The organisation of this court did away with any
practical necessity for a Grand Seneschal, but Louis
de Brez^ was still allowed to keep the honour of
the title, and even to take a seat in the court,
which was soon to be called the " Parlement de
Normandie ** by Fran9ois Premier. Louis de Breze's
second wife was the famous Diane de Poitiers, who
called herself " La Grande S^neschale '' until she
died, and who put up the magnificent tomb in
alabaster and black marble which has preserved her
husband's memory ever since his death in 153I9 long
after the •* Palais de Justice *' had been built to carry
on for ever those legal functions which had once been
a portion of the duties of his office.

26$

CHAPTER XI
Justice

'Or 9a' — nous dit Grippeminaud, au milieu de ses Chats-
fourrez — *■ par Stix, puisqu' autre chose ne veux dire, or 9a,
je te monstreray, or ca, que meilieur te seroit estre tomb^
entre les pattes de Lucifer, or 9a, et de tous les Diables, or 9a,
qu'entre nos gryphes, or 9a ; les vois-tu bien ? Or 9a,
maiautru, nous aliegues tu innocence, or 9a, comme chose
digne d'eschapper nos tortures ? Or 9a, nos Loix sont comme
toiie d'araignes; le grand Diable vous y chaotera Messe,
or 9a'.

TO appreciate what was involved by the building
of the famous " Palais de Justice/* which is
perhaps the greatest pride of Rouen, I must needs
bring before you a little more of the social life which
made a court of law and justice necessary ; and I can
make no better beginning than by quoting again, from
the Record of the Fierte St. Romain, those instances
after 1448 which throw the greatest light upon the
manners and customs of the years when the Echiquier
de Rouen first became a permanent assembly in its
own House.

In 1 453 occurs an entry which suggests that the
modern idiot who plays with a loaded revolver and
shoots his friend " by accident " has been in existence
ever since deadly weapons were invented. A car-
penter named Guillaume le Bouvier drew his bow at
a bird which was sitting on a tree-top. The arrow
glanced off a bough, rebounded from a stone, and
killed the son of the Sieur de Savary. Twenty-two
years before, a woman had been killed by a bolt from
264

Justice

a crossbow in almost the same way^ and in 14 $7 a
boy was shot by his brother in an exactly similar
manner. In 1474 Bardin Lavalloys provided another
particularly unfortunate example during a game which
was in great favour at Christmas time, and consisted in
throwing sticks at a goose which was tied by the leg
to a tail pole. Jehan Baqueler missed his shot, and
hit poor Lavalloys on the temple. A more serious
weapon, the *' couleuvrine," a long thin cannon, was
responsible for an accidental death in 1476. Guill-
aume Bezet had made a bet that he could shoot at a
gate better than his friends. His aim missed, and he
killed a man sitting by a hedge not far oflF. A case
that is still more instructive of the manners of the time
occurred in 1475. Guillaume Morin, who was
apparently making the best of his last chance of a good
meal before Lent, had gone to feast with some
neighbours on Shrove Tuesday, and when they had
finished the beef, he threw the bone out of the window.
It happened to be an especially large and heavy bone,
and unluckily his little daughter of seven was just
that moment returning from the tavern with more wine
for the company. It fell upon her head from some
distance and killed her. Another curious sidelight
is thrown on fifteenth century society by the record of
the next year. During a wedding-breakfast in Rouen
Pierre Rogart upset the mustard-pot over M. Gossent's
clothes. They quarrelled, the other guests took sides,
swords were drawn, and the prime offender's nephew
ran a man through; a crime for which the canons
pardoned him.

But these are rather of the nature of the modem
" manslaughter." The " crime passionel " and the
downright murder of malice aforethought, are even
more frequent In 1466 Catherine Leseigneur was
scolded and even threatened with a beating while in
bed by her mother-in-law. In a sudden passion she

265

The Story of Rouen

sDatched up a large stone and killed the other woman
with it* How a stone large and heavy enough for the
purpose happened to be in a bedroom we are not told,
but it is quite easily explained in the case of Jeban
Vauquelin, who was annoyed while working in the
fields by Lucas le Febure in 147 1 9 and killed him
with the weapon that is as old as the first murder b
recorded history, and seems to have been rather
favoured in the fifteenth century. The year 147 3 is
only notable because Etienne Bandribosc was deliv^ed
by the Chapter contrary to the expressed wish of
Louis XL, after he had killed a man who had in-
sulted him. But in 148 3 the element of romance
appears again. A priest called Robert Clerot, with a
sword beneath his cloak, was accustomed to pester
with his attentions a pretty seamstress in the parish of
St Eloi. Her legitimate lover interfered, and, when
the priest drew his sword, called in help and killed
him with his dagger. Twice more in this period is a
" couturi^re " the heroine of the Fierte. In the very
next year Denise de Gouy, whose previous history is
not pleasant reading, took service with a citizen of
Rouen, and by means of false keys provided by her
lover, robbed her employer of a considerable quantity
of linen, using her special knowledge to pick and
choose the best. She only escaped being hanged with
her paramour by being about to give birth to a child,
and was finally pardoned by the Chapterhouse. In
1492 a dressmaker was far less fortunate. She was
unable to satisfy a lady as to the fit of her stays, and
this angry customer, whose name was Marie Mansel,
gave her so shrewd a blow with her fist that the poor
little dressmaker died in a week. The canons appar-
ently so sympathised with the annoyances of a badly
fitting corset, that they gave Marie Mansel her
freedom. But the episode has its value in showing
that the modern muscular female is not so new an
l66

:t day he a

Justice

apparition ai she faacin. TradeemeD did not alwaya

get the worst of it, however, in such dispute* as

these ; for in 1 515 a butcher complained bitterly that

his hair had beeo cut too short, in a barber's shop

near St. Ouen. The mistake bo preyed upon his mtod

that when he met the barber d ' '

the head and ran away iato

the cemetery of St. Ouen

But Nicolas Courtil pursued

him valianily, armed only with

the instruments of his calling

and finally killed the butcher

by stabbing him in the neck

with a pair of scissors.

Priests are almost as interest
ing as the ladies in this extra
ordinary record. In i J30 a
curate from Marcilly hired
Germain Rou for two
sovereigns to hide a baby Id
a chalk-pit, and then fled to
Rome. The cries of the child
were heard two days after
wards by some travellers, and
Germain Rou, condemoed to
have his hand cut off and then
be hanged, was pardoned. In
1 53 J an even more flagrant
crime is registered against an
ecclesiastic. Louis de
Houdetot, a subdeacon, had
been so successful in his courtship of Madame Tilleren,
that the lady's husband sent her out of the town to her
father's house. But this did not stop the priest from
continuing to visit her, and while M. Tilleren was in
Rouen news was brought him that Houdetot had
actually beaten M. de Cathevilie's servants in trying to
a67

The Story of Rouen

get into the house. This was too much ; so 'miereo
^^took a corselet of beaten iron (hallecrest) and a
crossbow with a long bolt, and took a companion,
named Justin, armed with a helmet and a long-handled
axe, with five or six others." The gang, who
evidently meant to make sure of their man, met
Houdetot in a street in Rouen; Tilleren fired his
crossbow on sight and shot him through the body ; a
piece of summary justice which evidently appealed to
the Canons of the Cathedral, in spite of the fact that
the sufferer was an ecclesiastic.

But in 1 50 1 a gallant priest intervened in the most
creditable manner, and without any bloodshed, in a
love-affair that should set all our promising young
historical novelists by the ears to tell it afresh. There
was a certain Jean de Boissey who was much in love
with Marie de Martainville. Her mother was not
averse to a wedding, but the father refused entirely.
Luckily for Jean he was on excellent terms witli the
lady's cousins, Philippe and Thomas de Martainville ;
so the three friends with Pierre de Garsalle and other
youthful sympathisers betook them to the Abbey of
St. Pierre-sur-Dives to talk it over. Jean found an
ally he could have hardly expected within the Abbey
walls, for Nicolle de Garsalle, a relation of one of his
comrades and a brother of the House, asked them all
to stay to supper with him, and before the porter let
them out again he had arranged a plan for carrying off
the lady. The young men were delighted with this
jovial monk's suggestions, and the next morning the
whole company met again with seven or eight more
ardent blades, and entered straightway into the Manor
where the lovely Marie dwelt. Cousin Philippe
stayed outside and kept watch at the drawbridge. In
a short time — after adventures which are discreetly
concealed — ^Jean and his friends came out with the
lady, and the whole party made o£P to Caulde, where
268

Justice

the betrothal was solemnised. The next day they
rode to Cambremery and the happy pair were married,
<< le sieur de Boissey," says the manuscript, " espousa
sa fianc^ sans bans/ and no doubt Brother Nicolle de
Garsalle helped to tie the knot. No less than sixteen
persons being implicated in the capital charge of abduc-
tion which followed, you may imagine how lively the
Procession of the Fierte was that year, and the cheers
of the populace as Jean de Boissey (begarlanded with
roses, as all the prisoners were) moved along, no doubt
with Marie on his arm, and the sturdy monk walked
behind him from the Place de la Basse Vicille Tour to
the Cathedral. The de Martainvilles gave the Chapter
a large Turquoise set in gold, in token of their grati-
tude, and the gem was at once placed upon the shrine
to whose sanctity they owed deliverance.

Few stories have either so romantic a beginning or
so fortunate an end, in this record of the Fierte ; but
the large number of prisoners then released has its
parallel, is even surpassed indeed, on two occasions
soon afterwards; for in 1522 the whole parish of the
village of Etrepagny received the Fierte as accomplices
of a young ruffian called de Maistreville ; though con-
sidering that his victim was one of their own women,
their ardent support of the man against all the officers
of justice is somewhat inexplicable. In i j6o, when
another whole village was pardoned, their sympathy
with a fellow-labourer who killed a servant of the
Overlord is more easily intelligible. But nearly all of '
the most prominent cases have a woman at the bottom
of them. One that is especially instructive as to the
morals and the manners of the public occurred in 1524.

Antoine de la Morissi^re, Sieur de la Carbonnet,
had, it seems, insulted Mademoiselle d'Ailly, and
beaten her so badly that she died a short time after-
wards with five of her ribs broken. So Etienne le
Monnier, her relation, resolved to avenge her, and

269

The Story of Rouen

took oat a warrant against the ruffian who had killed
her. Desiring to make quite sure that justice should
not miscarry^ he took some fifty gentlemen, all armed,
and accompanied the police-sergeant to the man's
house. They found de la Morissi^re ^ in a somewhat
compromising position, and he did not reply to their
request for admittance. Le Monnier, determined to
get him out, set fire to the roof in four places. The
fellow then cried out that he would surrender, aad
trusting to the presence of an officer of the law he
came down. Le Monnier at once wounded him in
the chest with a long pike, and two other relations of
Mademoiselle d'Ailly hit him over the head with
clubs, '^so that he fell to the ground as one dead."
But le Monnier, seeing that he still showed signs of
life, drove his dagger into his throat and finished him
off. Two accomplices were actually hanged for this
crime, but de Monnier, after paying 1200 livres to
the dead man's family, and being unsuccessful in
securing the royal pardon, was given the Fierte with
the rest of his friends by the Chapterhouse of Rouen.
Of the morality of those days you must imagine
something from these instances. There are many
more with which I have neither space nor inclination
to shock susceptibilities more delicate than were those
of a Cathedral Chapterhouse in the fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries. The tale of Jehanne Dan tot, for
instance, in 1489, is one of the most astonishing stories
of the lengths to which desperation and wickedness can
drive a woman that I have ever read. A queer glimpse
of the economy of certain households is provided by
the record of 1534. Pierre Letellier married the
daughter of Maitre Hoiiel, and by a clause in the
marriage-settlement it was arranged that the father-in-
law should board and lodge the young couple for three

1 In the words of the manuscript the man << estoit couch^
avec una femme mari^, autre que la sienne."
270

Justice

years. They had not lived in the house long before
they were scandalised by the immoral behaviour of
the old man, and Pierre naturally quarrelled with him
about it. The ill-feeling between the two men came
to a climax one night when young Letellier had been
supping in the town, and coming back late found that
his father-in-law had bolted the door. At length his
wife heard his knocks, and as soon as she had let him
in he roundly abused the servants for keeping him so
long upon the doorstep. The old man at once ap-
peared on the scene, without much in the way of
clothing, it would appear, but waving a stout club
called a "marcus." With this he beat Pierre about
the head and shoulders until the young man lost
patience and killed his father-in-law with his dagger
or ** sang de dey."

The taverns were of course as firequent a source of
crime then as they are now. But the fashion of wear-
ing swords has made a drunken brawl less fatal. The
records of the Fierte might very well be used as a diction-
ary of offensive weapons from the number of swords,
daggers, maces, rapiers, clubs, and pikes their pages con-
tain from year to year. It was at the double game of
rapier and dagger that Marquet Dubosc wiped off old
scores after a quarrel at the Sign of the Cauldron, near
the Church of St. Michel, in 1502. He had been
playing dice with a man named Chouquet, and in the
quarrel that followed about payment, Chouquet had too
many friends to be attacked safely. So Dubosc waited
till the next day, gathered a few companions of his
own, and killed his man in the woods near Croisset.

In 1 5 1 1 the Chapterhouse records a tavern brawl
that was settled on the spot. There had been some
dispute about a woman between Le Monnier, a king's
officer, and Jehan Canu, a lacquey. This man de-
liberately chose out a few others to help him in the
business, and then went to drink at the •* Barge," in

271

The Story of Rot

the Rue Eau de Robec, od a Dight when he knew Lc
Monnler would come there to Mipper. The offica
actually took the next table, and in a few mooientt
swords were drawn, and Le Monoier was killed.
Why Cauu and hiB nine accomplice* were pardoDed
ig one of the mysteries oF the Fierte which I nppoK
DO one will ever be able to unravel.

If this somewhat dismal catalogue of crimea has not
yet fully acquainted you with the state of society with

It built t

which tlie " Palais de Justice " was firsi
the shortest glance at some of the sentences inflicted
upon criminals who were not fortunate enough to bear
the Fierte wil] be sufficient to show that the judges
were almost as far behind our modem notions of pro-
priety aa were their prisoners. And it must be
remembered that the criminals I have just mentioned
are far from being the worst of those brought up before
the Courts of Rouen ; they are indeed those persons
picked out by the assembled body of trained ecclesias-
tics in the Cathedral Chapterhouse as worthy to escape

Justice

from the horrors which a sentence in the fifteenth or
sixteenth century involved.

What these sentences were may be gathered from
such examples as the following. In 1506 a man
surprised picking pockets in the Court-room was taken
into the great open space before the entrance and
soundly flogged upon the spot. Few men escaped so
fortunately. Assassins nearly always suffered the loss
of a limb before the final mercy of hanging. In the
same year several women, convicted of false testimony
and spreading scandals, were stripped naked and beaten
with rods in all the squares of Rouen. A thief
suffered the same punishment; his ear was then cut
off, and he was banished from France with a rope
round his neck. On the 19th of March a miserable
prisoner was drowned in boiling water by a sentence of
the Bailly confirmed in the higher courts. In 1 507 a
murderer was hanged in front of his victim's house.
In 1 5 1 3 a highway robber had his right arm cut off
and placed on a column by the roadside near the scene
of his theft, his head was then placed opposite to it,
and the mutilated body hung upon a gibbet close by.
Forgers had a fleur de lys branded on their foreheads.
Sacrilege was punished by burning the criminal in
chains over a slow fire, oome burglars, in the same
year, had their hands cut off, their arms pulled out with
red-hot pincers, and were finally beheaded and cut in
pieces. The next year some wretched coiners were
boiled alive. Infanticides were burnt. Other crimes
were punished by searing the tongue with red-hot iron,
or by breaking the prisoner alive upon the wheel, and
leaving him to die without food or water. A parri-
cide was condemned to this, with still more hideous
tortures added, in 1557. In 1524 a criminal nearly
escaped his sentence altogether because his jailor s
daughter fell in love with him, and asked the Court
to be allowed to marry him. The question of sanc-

8 273

7be Story of Rouen

tuary came up very often, as may be imagined, and
only by very slow degrees were the privileges rf the
holy places taken from them.

Though many of these punishments hardly seem to
recognise the humanity of the victim, the privilege of
confession to a priest had been allowed to prisoocn
condemned to death ever since 1397, at the instance of
a famous preacher named Jean Houard, in years when
even more barbarous tortures were still practised, though
the strength of sanctuaries was, as some compensatioo,
at its height. Judicial ideas, however, took a long
time to become civilised; for in I408 a pig was
solemnly hanged for having killed a little child. The
invention of printing ^ no doubt did some good in thii
direction, and by 1490 the first printer in Rouen,
Martin Morin, was established in the Rue St. Lo,
close by the spot where the lawcourts soon appealed.
Lest you should think that the Palais de Justice of
sixteenth century Rouen was even worse than the
terrible chapters in Rabelais would lead his readers to
imagine, I must tell you here the story of an advocate
of Rouen that may in part make up for the gruesome
pages which precede it.

The Parliament of Normandy, as the Echiquier was
called in 1558, had assembled in the Palais de Justice
on the morning of the 26th of August, to discuss a
case which involved the interpretation, if not the
actual integrity, of the famous code known as the
" Grand Coutumier de Normandie " ; and representa-
tives of every court had been summoned to the hearing.
A certain burgess of Rouen, Guillaume L'aurent by
name, convicted of murder, had had his hand cut on
before the west fagade of the Cathedral, and was then
beheaded in the Vieux Marche. His goods and pro-

^ Mr Gosse records in his " Modern English Literature**
that it was a citizen of Rouen (Andrew Miller by name) who
introduced printing into Scotland in 1507.
274

Justice

perty had, as a matter of course, been confiscated by
the State. His destitute orphans went to live with
their grandfather, who soon died of grief. The
terrible spectacle then followed of this old man's
daughter trying to drive the children out of the
house, because they could inherit nothing from a
murderer. "Aulcun" ran the law, "qui soit en-
gendre de sang damne ne peut avoir, comme hoir,
aulcune succession d'heritage/' Against this clear
decree the magistrates were powerless to help the
orphans, indignant as they were at the inhumanity
of their aunt. But the children appealed to the
Higher Court. A brilliant advocate, Bretigni^res by
name, had decided to oppose the " Coutumier " on
their behalf, and the mass of people who had
thronged the Parvis to see the father punished now
crowded the Palais de Justice to see the children
saved.

The Court assembled more slowly to hear his
arguments, with the President St. Anthot at their
head, a strong, wise, and enlightened man, after
Bretigni^res' own heart. The advocate waited for
the supporter of the law to open his case. The pre-
cedents went back to Ogier the Dane, to Ragnar, to
Rollo the founder of the town itself, who strove to
put down the crime, of murder by extending the
punishment beyond the criminal himself to his de-
scendants, and thus appealing to the paternal instincts
of the rough warriors they had to rule.

Bretigni^res rose suddenly from his seat, crying that
in Normandy alone was this inhuman decree allowed,
that Rome herself had never dared to stain the statute
book with such a penalty. The extension of the
punishment to the children, far from proving a deter-
rent, actually encouraged these hopeless and destitute
orphans to exist by crime, since every avenue of honest
livelihood was barred to them. Deprived of all their

*75

The Story of Roum

father had possessed, they saw their relations in the
enjoyment of an increased inheritance. Ruined by
punishment for a crime in which they had had no
share, they saw the prosperity of others increased by the
operations of an unjust law, a law that might hafe
served the turn of a more barbarous people, but which
was now far more the relic of an ancient ignorance
than a symbol of modem enlightenment. In an ^
when the judicial combat of the old code had ben
abolished with the trial by fire, the changing costomi
and growing ideas of the people in the rest of Normandy
were not likely to preserve a custom so inhuman as that
which the Court of Rouen alone still exercised.

Amid a scene of intense excitement, as Br^gnikci
ceased, all the king's officers in every other court in
Normandy stood up, and in answer to the President,
asserted that the law had never been carried out under
their jurisdiction. It remained only for the Piesident
St. Anthot to withdraw with his judges, and, as the
Sovereign Senate of the Province, not merely to m-
terpret law, but to make it. There was a long pause
before they returned into the great hall, this time all
dressed in their red robes bound with ermine. Id the
solemn silence that ensued, St. Anthot declared the law
null and void from disusage, restored the children to
the inheritance of Guillaume Laurent, and reinstated
them in the house from which their aunt had driven
them.

The people rushed into the courtyard carrying the
orphans with them, and while the barristers were con-
gratulating Bretigni^res, his little clients were borne on
the shoulders of a cheering mob through the streets of
Rouen to their home ; and from that day ceased the
cruel law known as the " Arr^t du Sang Damn^.'*

It was in the hope, no doubt, that benefits of this
nature would be conferred upon the Province, that
the great Cardinal d'Amboise and Louis XII. made
276

Justice

the Echiquier de Normandle perpetual, and gave it the
great Palais de Justice in Rouen for its home. During
the English occupation the damage done to the Chateau
de Bouvreuil had necessitated moving the £aster sessions
of the Echiquier to the archbishop's lodgings in 1423,
and on five subsequent occasions the Court (composed
half of English and half of Frenchmen) had to hold
its sittings in that part of the halls (on the Place de la
Vieille Tour), where the weavers usually carried on
their commerce. By the time of Louis XII. the
Chateau de Bouvreuil was in better repair, but it
was evident that worthier quarters were needed the
moment Cardinal d'Amboise had obtained the
immense advantage of making the courts perpetual.
Its new home was soon decided upon. Already on
part of the Clos des Juifs a large common hall had
been erected, in which the merchants gathered to
discuss their business instead of using the nave of the
Cathedral ; and in 1 499 this hall was made into the
west wing of the new palace, and called first the
Salle des Procureurs, and now the Salle des Pas
Perdus ; it is the great building on the left of the court-
yard as you enter from the Rue aux Juifs. Its roof is
like the upturned hull of some great ocean-galley, and
all round the timbers, where the upper line of walls
meets the vault above, a company of queer grotesques
are carved which Rabelais himself might have sug-
gested. You will notice especially the twisted spire
upon the outward turret that overhangs the Rue aux
Juifs, the broad sweep of the entrance stairway, and
the admirable proportions of the arch above it. At the
south end used to be the beautiful little chapel in which
the Messe Rouge was sung for the ^^ Rentr6e de la St.
Martin," and in which St. Romain's chosen prisoner
knelt before he went out to the procession of the
Fierte. Beneath are the prisons and dungeons of the
High Court of Rouen. This is the building that

277

Tbe Story of Rouen

Lotus XII. ordered to be let up, and into which he
transferred the Echiquier from the Chateau de Roua
on tbe iitht^Marcb, 1511 i tbe first " Mease Rouge"
was Ming here to celebrate that opening, and the ciuloin
is preserved to this day.

In 1508 Louis XII. eBtabtished in his new palace
the jurisdiction known as that of the " Table de

Marbre," becaoK I
the Cathedral
Chapterhouse sold
for the use of tha
new Admirah;
Court an old
marble tomb,
round which tbe
members aat m
the great halL
Corneille and his
father were both
officers of thu
junsdiction later
on In the same
year was begun
the "Grand
Chambre" m
which the Presi-
dent held his High
■" " J!l jfT""* Court, called i»w

the Cour d'As-
>A^, DC pm^^«-^oer*QON .oo« ^^^ ^^ ^^^_

ated with a mag-
nificently carved eeihng in panels of polished wood
It IB just behind that octagonal turret which juta from
the centre of the main building exactly opposite
the entrance from the Rue aux Juifs Withm this
turret is the lovely little circular chamber which
was reserved for the King's own use Its beauti-

Justice

ful proportions break the symmetry of the long
front wall, yet are clasped to the building by the
cornice whence the line of gargoyles spring ; and in
the same way the long and steep rise of the roof is
broken up by the crests above each window that rise
into the air in a pinnacled tracery of fretwork filled
with carved arabesques and statues. Among them
are the arms of France, supported by two stags, a
memorial of the badge used by Charles VI. according
to the story told by de la Mer. It is this central
block of buildings that contains most of the original
work of Roger Ango and Rouland Leroux. The
wing on the right of the entrance from the Rue aux
Juifs is modern, and though that part of the left
wing which faces the courtyard is old, the fa<;ade
upon the Rue Jeanne d'Arc at the Place Verdrel
was rebuilt in 1842. The courtyard was originally
enclosed by a fine crenulated wall like that round
the Hotel de Cluny in Paris. This has been re-
placed by a badly designed iron railing. But as a
civic building, in spite of its railing and its new Cour
d' Appel, the Palais de Justice remains the finest of its
kind in Europe, and is superior to the Hotel de Ville
both of Brussels and of Louvain.

Of many famous ceremonies were these great Halls
the scene after Louis XII. had built them. In the
next reign Francis I. held a solemn ** Lit de Justice **
here, in order to do at Rouen as he had done at Paris,
and ask the Parliament of Normandy to register the
Concordat which Duprat, Boisy, and others in his
suite had helped to frame. His entry into the city
had been especially brilliant, not only because the
King himself desired to impress the occasion on his
faithful subjects, but because in the first prosperous
years of a reign that seemed so full of promise, the
citizens of Rouen were even readier than usual to give
the loyal reception to their sovereign for which the

279

The Story of Rouen

town was famous. The officers and councUlon of the
city were clad in velvet, and the burgeaaes in camlet
and satin, and all were very anxious indeed to see the
King, and get what was possible out of the vuit.
The Italian victories, brilliant as they .were, had not
been without their expense to Rouen aa to every other
town in France, not in money merely but in the
caring for hundreds of disbanded soldiers. Besides
thitf the especial privileges of the city had to be
upheld and confirmed, and particularly those appeals
from the maritime courts which were settled l^ the
jurisdiction of the " Table de Marbre."

Those who were inclined to pessimism were re-
minded that at Lyons, at Amboise, at Paris, and at
Compi^gne, Francis had already favourably received
the representations of the town, and had even told
them : ^< Si vous avez este bien traictez par mes pr6-
decesseurs, j'entens et veux vous traicter encore mieux."
So that when the King had reached the Priory of
Grandmont, the deputies sent out to meet hira were
in excellent spirits. They were de Breze, Captain
of the Town and Grand Seneschal ; the Bailli, Jean
de la Barre ; the President of the Financial Court,
Jean Auber ; and the President of Parliament, Jean
de Brinon. By three o'clock these gentlemen joined
the royal cortege and advanced towards Rouen itself,
being met at the bridge by the Town Councillors
bearing above the King's head a great and spacious
canopy of cloth of gold, the highest mark of honour
that the town could render.

Before His Majesty rode the " Grand Ecuyer,*'
Galeas de Severin, bearing the sword of state on
a great white horse. On his right was Cardinal de
Boisy, brother of Admiral Bonivet, and on his left
Cardinal Antoine Bohier, the nephew of Chancellor
Duprat. Next to the King was Monsieur d'Alen^on,
whose powers as Lieutenant-Governor of Normandy
280

Justice

were wielded by d'Amboise during his absence at the
Italian wars. Behind him came Charles de Bourbon
the Constable, who was to die as a rebel in Rome
two years later. With them were John Stuart, Duke
of Albany, nephew of James III. of Scotland; the
Comte de St. Pol ; Louis de la Treraouille, the
most brilliant knight of his time ; Maximilian Sforza,
the eldest son of that II Moro who had been im-
prisoned in the dungeons of Loches; Jacques de
Chabannes; Anne de Montmorency, who had been
one of the King's playfellows and grew up into the
sternest Constable France ever had ; Guillaume, Sieur
de St. Vallier, the father of Diane de Poitiers, who
also learnt the horrors of Loches for his share in
Bourbon's wild conspiracy ; the second Georges d'
Amboise, himself Archbishop of Rouen, with their
Lordships of Lisieux, Avranches, Evreux, and Paris ;
Antoine Duprat, the Chancellor; and Florimond
Robertct, the King's Treasurer, whose house is still
at Blois.

Men were thinking little of the future of this
brilliant company as they passed through Rouen in
the summer sunshine, and even on the south side of
the river the welcoming pageantry began. For at
the first " theatre " the King beheld a great Fleur de
Lys, which opened and slowly displayed three damsels
representing the virtues of His Majesty, of the Queen,
and of Madame la Regente. The stream itself, on
each side of the bridge, was gay with the flags and
sails of every craft along the quays. Beyond it was
a group of Titans, thunderstruck by Jupiter amid the
stupor of the other gods in a dismayed Olympus.
The next stage showed Theseus welcomed by Thalia,
Euphrosyne and Aglaia, who led the hero to Pallas
to receive from her the shield of Prudence, and take
his place among the starry divinities. Need it be
added that both Jupiter and Theseus were the King ?

281

The Story of Rtmen

Within the cemetery of St. Ouen three martial mcniks
were storming the semblance of a guarded tower. At
the Fonts de Robec appeared a wondrous similitude of
the sky upheld by Hercules and Atlas, in the midst
whereof disported a bellicose and most lively sala-
mander, slaying a bull and a bear, in gracefbl
reference to the victory of the Marignano, with thb
astonishing quatrain: —

" La Salamandre en vertu singuli^re
Lors estaignit Phorrible feu de Mars
Quant au grant ours emporta la bani^re
£t du thoreau rompit comes et dardz."

At the Parvis Notre Dame appeared the image of
a marvellous great horse, rearing up his forefeet into
the air, on which sat the effigy of the King, of so
natural a mould that breath alone was wanting to its
life, an ostentatious decoration which was done, say
the Town Accounts with some pride, "pour ancune-
ment ensuyvir et emuler le triumphe des Romains."
All the streets were hung with gaily-coloured cloths,
and tapestries fell gracefully in glowing folds from
every window. All the church-doors, opened to
the widest, displayed their ornaments and shrines in
bewildering profusion. All the church bells, which
had their signal from " Georges d'Amboise *' and
" Marie d'Estouteville " in the Cathedral, were ringing
lustily. And at last, his official reception over,
Frangois I. was able to go to the lodgings pre-
pared for him in the palace of the Archbishop.
Neither he nor any of his suite were allowed to
forget the welcome of the Town ; for, after the
Chapterhouse had presented their traditional and
proper loaves of bread and wine, His Majesty was
offered a great golden salamander ("assise sur une
terrasse," whatever that may mean) by the Town,
who must have wished that they had got off as
282

Justice

easily as the canons; for, in addition to this, the
councillors gave to the Queen a golden cup, to
Louise de Savoie a pair of silver-gilt goblets, to
Princess Marguerite a silver-gilt image of St. Francis,
to M. de Boisy two great ewers and basins, to
Chancellor Du Prat six silver "hanaps" and five
great dishes, all richly gilt. And no doubt both
gifts and recipients had been carefully chosen with
a view to securing an impartial consideration for the
claims made by the Town.

On the next afternoon, from the Priory of Bonne
Nouvelle, rode in Queen Claude, dressed in a white
robe of cloth of silver, on a white hackney, with
Louise de Savoie, her mother-in-law, on one side,
and Marguerite d'Alengon (afterwards Queen of
Navarre) upon the other. And for the Queen was
prepared at the Portail des Libraires a special
"theatre,** wherein was represented a garden, and
the Virgin Mary clad all in white damask, with a
lamb beside her, feeding upon grapes and rosebuds,
at which the clever Princess Marguerite must have
laughed almost as much as at the clumsy quatrains.
Every prisoner in the dungeon of the new "Palais
de Justice'' and in every prison of the town was
set free, except three especially **bad cases,** who
were hurried to Louviers before Francis reached
Rouen, and brought back to Rouen when he had
got to Louviers. As a contrast to this unfortunate
greediness of the law, it is recorded that many
persons hastened to confess their crimes, got im-
prisoned just before he arrived, and were joyfully
delivered at his entry, all of which satisfied justice
in 1 51 7 very thoroughly indeed.

Some substantial results soon began to reward the
Town and the Chapterhouse for all their loyalty, in
the subscription of 10,000 livres from His Majesty
(in yearly instalments) to the Cathedral Fund for re*

283

the Story of Rouen

itoriag the central ipire which had jutt been bamb
Moat of what the Town CouacilJors denied wai
a]io granted. So that everybody was choroc^hly
wejl eattsfied with the royal visit, and rame £ttk
choir-boys were so fascinated with the royal escort
that when the King went to Louvien and Gaillmi,
these litde runaways marched ofT with Lauticc's
' ' > relate that the priests caught

them at the next
halt, and Dot <mly
soundly flowed the
truants, but todi
away all their holi-
days as well.

But it mtist not
be thought that the
King had come to
Rouen merely to
delight his subjects
with the sun of his
presence and the
^Tours of his con-
sent. He had
I business of
transact,

hiao

fina

'_ .!_... nature; and for

aising the various
d patriotic reasons,
certain financial
I very fair quarters
t beautiful of the
sixteenth century buildings have to do with finance.
One of them is the "Bureau des Finances" (as its
latest title rant, oppowtc the Cathedral at die corner
of the Rue Amp&rej the other is the "Cour des
Comptes," whose Eastern fegade and courtyard has
.8,

sums he needed, both for personal ai
there was already in existence
machinery which was housed i
■ " "of the

Justice

just been opened to the Rue des CarmeSy north-west
oF the Tour St. Romain.

With the first of these the same King had to do who
built the '' Palais de Justice." It was during his visit
in 1 508 that Louis XI I., shocked with the narrow
crowded streets all round the Parvis, destroyed the
various money-changers' hovels, and ordered the build-
ing of a " Hotel des Genlraux de Finance " on the spot
where these had stood. The Church of St. Her-
bland was only just finished at the corner of the Rue
de la Grosse Horloge, and in 1510, Thomas Bohier
asked the canons to allow a hut to be built in the
Parvis for the convenience of his masons, just as the
Church had done. In 151 2 the neighbouring citizens
petitioned the Chapterhouse that this hut should be
removed. It was between these dates, therefore, that
Rouland le Roux, whose work on the Cathedral
fagade you will remember (p. 130), began the build-
ing of this exquisite house. It was certainly com-
pleted by 1 541, and was probably used some time
before that date.

Mutilated and degraded to base uses as this fine piece
of French Renaissance has now become, it is still possible
to realise what Le Roux first built ; and in his heavy
cornice I cannot help imagining a suggestion of Italian
feeling made by that same King whose wars in Italy
had given him a sense of proportion and of beauty
that may be seen again in his desire to clear the
surroundings of the Cathedral, an idea quite contrary
to French mediaeval notions, and in his spacious plans
for the great Palace of the Law. Be that as it may,
nothing could well be more appropriate than the whole
decoration of this corner house. Before shops had
invaded its ground-floor, and advertisements had de-
faced the exquisite line of carvings just above,
the Rez de chaussee had seven low arcades whose
pilasters and windows were carved with medallions,

285

••*.-'

The Story of Rouen

candelabra, and << grotesques'' in low relie£ 0?er
the vaulted entrance was the shield of France, borne
by the Porcupines of Louis XII. Above this is ao
<< entresol " of tiny circular windows alternating with
medallions of crowns held up by genii. The next
storey has seven windows with beautifully carved
pilasters. It is far better preserved than the rest, bat
the two niches have lost their statues, and a corbelled
tower was destroyed in 1827, when shops were first
put in.

The first General des Finances for Normandy was
Thomas Bohier, whose fortunes I have traced at his
Chateau of Chenonceaux in Touraine. He was as
unfortunate as every other great financier of these
centuries, and though his end was less ignominioiis
than the disgracefully unjust punishment which Louise
de Savoie inflicted on his relation, Jacques de Beaune
Semblangay, his life was scarcely less troubled; and
after leaving his bones in Italy with so many of the
best of Fran9ois' courtiers, he bequeathed little but
embarrassment to his son, and Diane de Poitiers
took his chateau. His ofHce in Rouen he held firom
1494, in the town where his brother Antoine had
done so much for St. Ouen. Indeed every one of
these ** Surintendants," even to Fouquet of more
modern memory, is associated either personally or
indirectly with so much of the beautifiil in archi-
tecture and art that posterity has almost forgiven
them mistakes which were due more to the regime
they lived under than to their own shortcomings.

After 1587 the prisons of the Hotel des Generaux
were changed from the ordinary criminal cells to
separate dungeons in the Rue du Petit Salut, where
I have fancied I could still trace them in the gloomy
cells at the back of No. 1 3 Rue Ampere, which tradi-
tion assigns to the " Filles Repenties " of the eighteenth
century. In 1554 the Hotel des Generaux was called
286

Justice

Cour des Aides, and by the changes of 1705 it was
joined to the Cour des Comptes in the Rue des Carmes,
and the new Bureau des Finances took the house in
the Parvis I have just described, which still preserves
its name. In the general destruction of 1796 the house
was sold to a private owner.

The second Financial building you must see is the
Cour des Comptes, whose courtyard opens on the Rue
des Carmes,^ with another entrance on the Rue des

Suatre Vents. This was originally the property of
7 Rome, Sieur de Fresquiennes and Baron du Bee
Crespin, who received there the Due de Joyeuse,
Governor of Normandy. The large square which
originally composed it was built about 1525, and its
beauty may be imagined from the eastern fagade and
the southern wing (containing the Chapel) which still
remain. On this eastern front, the two stages above
the ground-floor are of equal height, each with six
windows, separated by pilasters of several different
orders, decorated with capitals and candelabras and
groups of mythological subjects, such as Mars, Venus,
the Muses, and various instruments. The south wing
is built in four round-arched arcades with flat Corin-
thian pilasters, three of which are in the nave of the
Chapel, and two in its Sanctuary. The second floor has
square windows.

What Rouen had asked from Charles VII, a cen-
tury before she only obtained when Francis I. gave
her a Cour des Comptes separate from the Financial
Committee in Paris; but the boon was scarcely ap-
preciated when it was discovered that the King not only
levied taxes on local merchandise to pay his new judges,
but also made quite a good thing out of selling the

^ This clearance was effected in August 1S97, and Miss
James took advantage of it to make her drawing from a point
of view which has been invisible for centuries and may soon be
lost again.

287

Ibe Story of Rouen

olTicM to the highest bidder. In 1580 the need of
this Court began to be felt again, in a town which
poueesed its owd High Court of Juttice, tuitably
housed, and also its Financial Bureau in the Parrii,
But all receivers of taxes had to go to Paris to wttle
their accounts, so had all proprietors of liefs, all men
who wished to register their letters of natuialintioa,
nobility, exemption, or enfranchisement, and many otbcn.
So in December of that year the Sieur de Bourdemy,
then President of Parliament, established a separue
Cour des Comptes at Rouen, modelled upon the Cotut
in Paris, and held its first meetings in the Priory of Sl
L8. In 1589 the house just described in the Rne
des Cannes was bought
by Tanneguy le Veneur
for eight tliousand crowni,
and the arcaded wing was
consecrated as a chapel
in IS93- In 1790 «
w IS swept away like every
similar organisation in
, France, and to the fa«

J^^ that it was probably for-
*^ " gotten and built over, we
owe the preservation even
of what little still remains.
Before you leave the
atmosphere of Fiaaoce
and Justice, which in thia
chdpter 1 have striven to
reilise for you round those
monuments that alone
recall the spirit of the
age which built them, there is one more tale of
Justice in Rouen which may perhaps leave a more
charitable impression of the Palais de , Justice anil
its officials. It has been told before by Etienne Pas-

Justice

quier, but it will bear translation (and even shortening)
for an English audience. In the days when Laurent
Bigot de Thibermesnil was first King's Advocate in
the Parliament of Normandy, one of those brilliant
intellects of which the sixteenth century was so full, it
chanced that a merchant of Lucca, who had lived long
and prosperously in England, desired to come home
and die in Italy. So he wrote to his relations to pre-
pare a house for him in six months' time, and started
from England with his servant, carrying his money and
bonds with him. On his way to Paris he was known
to have stopped at Rouen, but he was never heard of
again.

His servant, however, appeared in Paris, cashed his
master's papers, and returned. Meanwhile the family
at Lucca waited for a whole year and heard nothing. At
last they sent a messenger for news to London, who was
told that the merchant was known to have started for
Rouen, and traces of the man were also found at the
hotel in Rouen, where he had lodged before setting out
for Paris. Then all searches and inquiries proved use-
less; the merchant seemed to have vanished into thin air;
and in despair the messenger applied for help to the
High Court in the Palais de Justice of Rouen. An
officer was at once appointed to conduct investigations
in the town, while Laurent Bigot searched for evi-
dence outside. The first thing the officer found out
was that a new shop had been started in Rouen soon
after Zambelli the Italian had disappeared. He at
once determined to examine its owner, who was a
stranger in the town, named Fran9ois ; and with this
object he had him arrested on a trumped-up charge
and put in custody. On his way to prison the man
denied the charge, but asked, << Is there anything else
you have against me ? " The officer at once went a
little further, and taking the prisoner apart he roundly
charged him with having robbed and murdered

T 289

The Story of Rouen

Zambelliy but intimated at the same time that ^tfae
matter might be arranged quietly."

Frangois evidently imagined this to be a hint that a
bribe might not be unsuccessful, and admitted that hn
crime must have been discovered, but by what miracle
he could not understand, for he had been alone at the
time. However, when he was asked to swear to this,
he withdrew hastily, recognising his mistake. The
officer then remanded him, and searched for further
evidence. Bigot meanwhile had been making inquiries
all along the road from Rouen to Paris, until at
Argenteuil he found a Bailly who had held an inquest
over a dead body found among the vineyards. While
Bigot was taking a copy of the minutes of this in-
quest, a blind man came up to the hotel where he was
lodged asking for alms, and, as he listened to their
conversation, asserted that he had heard a man crjring
out on the slopes above Argenteuil, and that when he
had tried to find out what was happening, a second
voice had told him it was a sick man in pain, and he
had therefore gone on his way thinking no more
about it.

Bigot took him back to Rouen forthwith, and made
him give the same story on oath before a justice, with
the addition that he would certainly be able to recognise
the second of the two voices he had heard. The new
shopkeeper, Frangois, was then brought into Court, and
after twenty other men had spoken, the blind man
picked out his voice among them all, as that which had
spoken to him on the slopes above Argenteuil. The
test was repeated again and again, and invariably the
blind man picked out the same voice. Francois, who
had weakened visibly as each test proved successful,
at last fell on his knees and confessed that he had
murdered his master and taken the papers to Paris ; and
the Court immediately condemned him to be broken on
the wheel.
290

Justice

I have been able to suggest but a very few of the
thoughts which the Palais de Justice of Rouen should
arouse in you ; and of many points in its history I have
no space to tell ; as of the " Clercs de T^chiquier "
called tlie ^' Basoche," a merry company established in
1 430, and enlivening the records of the law for many
centuries afterwards, as you will see at the visit of
Henri II. But after all, the main impression is a very
sombre one. The bitter sarcasms of Rabelais are but
too well founded. Mediaeval justice was almost as
terrible as mediseval crime, and both were followed
only too frequently by death. For these old judges
let no money go, however prodigal they were of life
and suffering ; they scarcely ever let a prisoner go who
had once got into the grim machinery of their courts ;
and any miserable victim who was once cast into one of
their many dungeons must have welcomed his release
from lingering agony in death.

«9«

x» „^ «.o. o. .. .aixi. ™- «. ™« J

IN ROUKN CATHEDRAL

CHAPTER XII

Death

Sedentes in tenebris et in umbra mortis, vinctos in mendicitate.

. . . Comme vsur un drap noir
Sur la tristesse immense et sombre

Le blanc squelette se fait voir . • « .
. . . Des cercueils l^ve le couverde

Avec ses bras aux os pointus,
Dessine ses c6tes en cercle

Et rit de son large rictus.

THE artist who first truly understood the rendering
of light is also the workman whose shadows are
the deepest in every scene he drew. If I were to
leave you with an impression of the sixteenth century
either in Rouen or elsewhere^ — that was composed
of gorgeous ceremonial, of exquisite architecture, of
superabundant energy and life, and of these only, you
would neither appreciate the many influences which
wrought upon the men and women of those days, nor
estimate at their true worth the changing events, on
which we now look back in the large perspective of
so many generations. And in that strange century the
sorrow and the pain of a world in travail are as evident
292

Death

as its joy. The feverish excitement with which it
grasped at life and pleasure is counterbalanced^ and
explained by the ever-present horror of death in its
most ghastly forms.

When a fact of this eternal and natural significance
is once frankly recognised and bravely faced, men do
not think much about it afterwards, and say less. In
the ages when the greatest of the cathedrals were
built the personification of death is practically unknown.
Archaeologists may imagine they discover it ; but I
shall never believe that a single carving of it existed
before the close of the fifteenth century. Life they
knew, not only in all its varied forms, but as the soul.
Sin they knew, and carved not merely in the full
shame of the act but in the person of the father of sin,
the devil, bat-winged and taloned, hovering over his
prey on earth, or driving his victims after death into
gaping Hellmouth where his torturers awaited them.
But it was only when printing excited men's imagina-
tions, when the first discovery of the ancient classics
roused their emulation and stimulated their unrest,
when the Renaissance in art increased their eagerness
to express their thoughts and multiplied their methods
of expression, when the Reformation turned their
conscience to the latter end and to the unseen world —
only at such a time of speculation and disquiet did
Death himself appear, personified and hideously ex-
ultant. The waters were troubled and the slime
beneath them came up to the surface. Instead of the
bold imaginations of God or man or beast which the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries knew, you find a
crowd of tiny imps and monkeys, like the verminous
throng upon the Portail des Marmousets at St. Ouen ;
the higher forms of creation disappeared before the
presence of the Arch- Enemy.

There arose not only a great contempt for the
value of human life, but a gross familiarity with death.

Hbe Story of^ Rouen

The poor maoy dying in his unregarded thouaandiy
clutched to his starved heart the one consolation that
the rich could not escape contagion. To the jodge
upon his benchy to the queen in her palace, to the
cardinal in his state, to the king at his high festiral,
to the yery Pope himself, death came as unerringly as
to the ploughman sweating in his furrow. And the
rich made haste to enjoy the little time they had.
The best of that old life which remains to us is iti
buildings. From them and from the carvings on them
we can imagine the fruitful, busy, breeding existence
of that hurrying sixteenth century. Painters and
sculptors worked as in a frenzy, covering canvas by the
acre and striking whole armies of statues into serried
ranks of stone. Men fought with swords that weaker
generations can with difHculty flourish in the air ; they
wore armour that would make a cart-horse stagger.
Quarrels, duels, riots, rapes, drinkiDg-bouts, gallantries,
and murders followed one another in a hot succession
that takes away the breath of modem strait-laced
commentators. Life that came easily into the work!
was spent as recklessly, and blood flowed as plentifully
as wine. Rough horse-play and rude practical joking
were of the essence of humorous courtliness. Immense
processions filled with life and colour, jesting at every-
thing sacred or profane, crowded with symbols decent
and indecent, made up the sum of public happiness.
Close at men's elbow lay the heavy hand of a merciless
and bloodstained law. Once beneath the power of
" Justice " the miserable prisoner had little hope of
escaping before the legal Juggernaut had crushed him,
and he was lucky who died quickest at the executioner's
hands. The very criminals themselves sinned in a
more stupendous fashion than they have had the
courage to do since.

If I have not wearied you with quotations from the
record of the Fierte St. Romain, I will pick out but
294

Death

two more instances in this century to show you that I
do not speak without book at Rouen. In 1 5 16, Nicolas
de la Rue, whose sister had been married in Guernsey,
discovered her in an intrigue with the commandant's
son, and slew them both with one stroke of his sword.
Thereon the commandant of the island called out 1 20
foot-soldiers, but De la Rue armed the crew of his
vessel, drove them off, killed two with his own hand
and sailed away to Normandy. There he fell desper-
ately in love with a lady near Surville-sur-Mer, and
taking his men with him carried her off from the
Chateau de Commare. After keeping her with him
for some time under promise of marriage, he captured
an English vessel on the high seas after peace had
been declared on both sides of the Channel, and was
condemned to two years' banishment. At the end of
this time he returned to Harfleur to recover some
twenty thousand livres (the produce of former piracies
in the English Channel) which he had left in the
keeping of Mademoiselle de Commare.

But the lady had returned to her own family and
carried off his money with her. When he followed to
her house, she offered him only ten crowns, so he
stayed in the village near by until he could devise a
plan to get back his treasure. The lady called her
friends and relations, and they tried to arrest De la Rue
one morning in the market, with the result that several
of them were badly wounded. At last a larger force
managed to secure him, and threw him into a prison at
Rouen on the capital charge of abduction. While
there it was proved that he had stabbed a man to death
in Harfleur in a quarrel about a woman ; that at Janval,
near Arques, he had punished a fellow called Bonnetot
for insulting a comrade, by running him through with a
rapier, from which Bonnetot died ; and that in a quarrel
about another woman he had dangerously wounded a
naval officer with his dagger; and in these little

395

TCbe Story of Rouen

escapades no mention is made of the countless acts of
piracy on the high seas, which can seldom have been
accomplished without considerable loss of life*

But this record is nothing to the second and lait
example which I shall take from the prisoners of the
" Fierte.'' In 1541 a young gentleman named Fran-
9oi8 de Fontenay, Sieur de Saint- Remy, aged twenty-
nine, was pardoned by the canons after a career which
I can only sketch in the roughest outlines. When be
was only fifteen, he got some friends to help him and
killed a sergeant who had displeased him by carrying
stories of his behaviour to his mother. When a Utde
older, in a village of the Cotentin, at the request of a
young lady he professed to love, he laid an ambush widi
some friends for a Monsieur des Mostiers, but only
succeeded in wounding him severely, and bardy
escaped the execution that punished one of his com-
rades in the same affair. Developing rapidly into a
bravo of the first water, he attacked a man << at the
request of le sieur de Danmesnil,'' and wounded him
mortally with his rapier in the thigh. Being at a
house in Montgardon with his mother and brother^ he
held it against forty armed men who had come in the
name of the law to arrest them both, shot an arquebusier
with his own hand, and beat the troop off before the
help for which he managed to send had had time to
arrive. Nor was he without friends who were quite
worthy of their company.

In the year before de Fontenay himself enjoyed the
Privilege de St. Romain, it had been extended, at the
express wish of several members of the royal family,
to four sons of the Baron d'Aunay, the Duke of
Orleans being especially urgent in pointing out that
these poor fellows had done nothing in his opinion that
should debar them from the privilege. They were, as
a matter of fact, merely charged with the following
peccadilloes, among others. In the course of rescuing
296

Death

a friend from the Communal authorities at Saint- Avon,
they used the town-foik so roughly that a man and a
woman fell into a well during the dispute^ and were
drowned. On their way to the wars they met a man
with his wife upon the bridge near their home, and
annoyed at not having enough room left for their horses,
they dismounted, tied up the man's hands and feet, and
beat the woman cruelly before her husband's eyes. On
the death of their grandmother, who had married twice,
they visited her second husband to get possession of
certain legal papers, and when he resisted they ran him
through the stomach with a rapier. Enlisted for once
upon the side of justice, they were clamouring at a
house for the surrender of a murderer who had taken
refuge there, and when the owner opened the door they
killed him with a slash across the body. Pursued
themselves by the officers, they waited till they were on
their own land, then turned and charged the men,
sword in hand, secured their horses, and thrashed one
of them with knotted thorns. Before they were finally
taken by the sergeants of Rouen they had thrown
themselves into the church of Aulnay and defended it
against forty armed men, wounding several of them
with crossbow-bolts before they surrendered.

Our friend Fran9ois de Fontenay was acquainted
with this gallant band of brothers through the house of
Creance, with which both were connected ; and their
sturdy resistance to the law of the land must have soon
created a strong feeling of sympathy and admiration ;
for the five men are found all joined together to
accomplish the murder of one Boullart near Caen.
Wherever de Fontenay went it soon became the fashion
among the villages to oppose his progress; but this
made little difference, for both at Neufbourg and at
Fert-Mace, either by his own hand or by his servants,
several " common people," who were so ill-advised as
to get in the way were killed, and at Dun-le-Roy he

397

T^he Story of Rouen

was compelled to fight his way out, using the edge of
his rapier right and left, << with considerable loss of
life among the peasants." They had been the centre
(and their swords were never idle) of similar rioti^
near Bourges, in the streets of Falaise, at Lisieuz, and
elsewhere. More high-born foes were treated in jvit
as summary a fashion. With his brother Jebui,
Francois attacked his enemy St. Germain (a Coteatb
magistrate) on the bridge at Lyons, wounded him fiDor
times, and left him dead. His shoemaker was late in
delivering some boots, so Fran9oi8 visited him, sword-
in-hand, carried off two other pairs, and ^< has not yet
been known to pay for them." Other necessities he
had not scrupled to provide himself with in a «iii?i1? r
way. Oxen and sheep from a farmer called Lemoyne,
chickens from a priory near Bayeux, more sheep nom
the Sieur de Grosparmy, horses from another fiumer,
flour from a third. A husband who objected to giving
up his wife at St. L6 was promptly wounded, so
severely that he could only watch her helplessly as she
was carried off.

Such are a few of the crimes, of which Monsieur
de Fontenay confessed the astonishing number of
forty-two. After his acquittal of them all, by virtue
of the Fierte, the canons were for some six months
kept hard at work dealing out similar deliverances to
the crowd of his accomplices who kept on appearing
from every side, and clamouring for the mercy of the
Chapterhouse. Though I can conceive no worse pre-
cedent for the future of the Fierte, I need make no
further comment upon the fact of de Fontenay's de-
liverance, except that he was so well aware of the
detestation he had inspired in many of his victims that
he was afraid to make any public appearance in the
streets of Rouen for fear of assassination.

Remembering this man's career, turn out of the
Place des Fonts de Robec, down the Rue Damiette,
398

Death

touchwarde, and I will ihuw ^oa the apot id Rouen
that hat made me tell you something of hia history
as a type of the young gallant of the sixteenth cen-
tury. A* you paw the « Rue du Roder " (on your
left at No. 54), the " Impasie des Hauta Manages "
appeara a little further on. Any budding romance the
name may suggest
will not survive a
walk of a few yards
up its narrow and

But at the end of
the Rue Dam ettc
behind the vista of
old houses, the arches
of St. Maclou will
Kmpt you irresistibly
towards the end of
the road that curves
out at the north
west comer of the
church, just opposite
the famous fountain
which has been so
mutilated by the
Huguenots. At this
point turn sharply
to the left, down the
Rue Martamnlle
eastward*. To the
Bouth the Rue Mohdre flings at quaint legendary
shadows towards the river. A little further on, a dark
square opening makes a patch of black beneath the
gabled windows of No. 190. That is the entrance to
the Aitre St. Maclou, the oldest cemetery in Rouen,
and one of the moat interesting in Europe. Pass
through the dark passage into the open space beyond
399

The Story of^ Rouen

that 18 surrounded by old timbered hmnew, and go
straight through to the little stairway that is opposke
the entrance. From that slight eminence yea may
look back upon the strangest scene you have yet
visited ; if it is an autumn afternoon the little charity
children will be running to and fro beneath the emUenu
of death carved on the timbers above their heads,
while the religious sisters, in their grey gowns aod
wide white head-dresses move slowly to and fro beside
them. It is the picture of another century, in its
appropriate setting.

As the sun sets slowly and the shadows gather^ this
aged sepulchre of the dead of Rouen gradually gives
up its secrets, and the ancient city of past centuries
reappears to the grating of the rebec of the ** Danse
Macabre." The broad boulevards of the morning sink
into the soil, and in their place there gapes a mighty
moat with massive buttresses above it. The Seine of
yesterday grows wider, pushing the Quais back to the
foot of the town walls, and above his youthful waters
slope the rounded arches built by the Empress Matilda,
wife of Geoffrey Plantagenet. The streets and houses
shrink into a narrower limit, bounded by a line of
bastions, with crenelated towers at intervals, and eight
gates each with its watch-tower and drawbridge and
portcullis.

Above the battlemented walls, the airy spires and
mighty pyramids of the City of Churches rise from
thirty-five parishes, and from four and thirty monasteries.
Three donjon keeps dominate the town. Upon the
St. Catherine's Mount a fortress holds the hill, and
above it rise the towers of the Abbey of St. Trinite
du Mont. Within every church the monuments and
carvings are still fresh and unmutilated. The royal
statues, long since lost, sleep peacefully in the Cathedral
choir, and the pomp of death spreads its sombre
magnificence in every sacred building. The old
300

Death

fountains are playing in the squares and streets. The
fountain of St. Maclou, which had two figures like the
Mannekin of Brussels ; the Croix de Pierre, with
statues in every niche ; the St. Vincent, with its great
dais overshadowing a group of the Nativity, and water
spouting from the mouths of oxen in the manger ; the
Lacrosse with the Virgin and her Child ; the Lisieux,
whereon was carved the Mount Parnassus with Apollo
and the Muses, Pegasus too, and a great triple-headed
matron for Philosophy, and two bronze salamanders
vomiting streams of water ; all the fountains that
Jacques Lelieur has traced for us are perfect and are
playing in the town whose streets he drew in 1525.

The sky grows darker, and the rain falls, as it fell
then, even more frequently than now; but we can pass
beneath the " avant-soliers," those covered galleries
that line the squares and market-places to give shade
or shelter to the merchant and his purchasers, and
behind their heavy timbers we shall be safe from the
great wains of country produce, or the lumbering
chariots of the town, with their leather hangings
stamped in gold, dragged by the heavy Norman horses.
The streets are as narrow as they were first built in
Pompeii ; sixteen feet is thought enough for the
principal arteries of traffic, others measure but ten feet,
or even six, across. They are so crooked and the
line of houses on each side is often so uneven that it
seems as if the windings of some country footpath
have been left in all their primitive irregularity, and
decorated here and there with casual dwellings, while
the gaps are filled in roughly as time goes on and space
grows more precious every year. This haphazard
arrangement has no doubt resulted in a certain pictur-
esqueness of disposition and perspective, and even in a
tortuous maze ot buildings very difficult for any foreign
enemy to assault ; but it is obvious that the city's
internal plan has owed nothing either to military or

301

T^be Story of Rouen

gesthetic considerations at the outset. For
that were not paved at all until the fifteenth century,
are only covered with rude stones, and look more fikie
the interior of a vast open drain than anything ; pip
and other animals stroll into them from the open
doorways of the commoner houses, and even the richer
families seem to consider that the highway is little
more than a commodious dust-bin.

Above the mire and stench of the street riae honsei
which seem to topple forward into the morass beneath ;
each storey overhangs the last, until the frowsy gaUci
almost rub against each other at the top, and nearly
shut out every breath of air or glimpse oi sky. Close
above the pavement, and swinging in the rain, a multitude
of signs and strange carvings blot out the little light
remaining ; Tritons, sirens and satyrs are cheek by
jowl with dragons, open-mouthed, their tails in monstrooi
curves. Vast gilded barrels, bunches of grapes as huge
as ever came out of the Promised Land, images of &
Three Kings of the East, six-pointed stars, enormous
fleurs de lys, great pillars painted blue or red, cocka-
trices and popinjays and bears and elephants ; a whole
menagerie of fabulous creatures hang over the lintels of
almost every house ; for in the days when nambers
are not, many habitations have to be distinguished by
a sign besides the taverns and the hostelries and shops.
Higher up still the long thin gargoyles peer into the
clouded air ; clutching at the outmost edge of wall,
they stretch as far forward as they may and are every
one in actual service, spouting showers of rain and
refuse from the roof into the crowded road. Upon
the walls themselves, in low relief, every panel has its
medallion, a classical head within a wreath of bay-
leaves, a more modern celebrity ringed by the mottoes
and emblems of his lineage. Above the doorway of
the merchant is carved his galleon in full sail ; the
armourer displays a brave scene, of a soldier hacking
302

Death

his way with an irresistible rapier through the mob of
caitiffs who had been so foolish as to buy their swords
at other shops ; over the next porch is carved a horse
without a rider, hastening across the bridge to bring
the tidings of the murder of his master in the suburbs ;
elsewhere is sculptured the Holy City with a humble
wayfarer approaching from one side, and a noble from
the other. Every building has a character of its own,
a personality apart from other houses in the street, and
nearly all are gay with paint and gilding, and instinct
with a natural feeling for artistic decoration that was
only appreciated at its true worth after the Huguenot
iconoclasts had wrecked it.

Amid all this life and colour death and the taint
of death are ever present, for every church is little
better than a charnel-house, and in the crowded city
nearly eighty cemeteries are packed with dead. Mag-
nificent processions of princes and of great prelates #
march through the town by day ; they are followed by
the riot of the Mascarade des Conards, a burlesque
throng of some two thousand fantastic dresses careering
madly up and down the streets, chased by the <^ Clercs
de la Basoche,'' or racing after every sober citizen in
sight. It is lucky if the Huguenots have not seized
the town and filled the churches with a mob of fanatics,
smashing everything with hammers, and making bonfires
of the sacred vestments in the streets, or if the Catholics
are not just taking their revenge by burning their enemies
alive or murdering Protestant children in their little
beds. Even on ordinary days there is horror enough
only too visible. You need not go so far as the gibbets
just above the town where corpses are clattering in
chains beneath the wind ; on the Place du Vieux
Marche a sacrilegious priest is being slowly strangled ;
in the Parvis Notre Dame a blasphemer's throat is cut;
close by the churchyard, a murderer's hand is chopped
off) and he is hurried away to execution on the scanold

303

Tbg Story of Rouen

by the Hatles. Prom a by-street the leper's bdl louDdt
fitfully, and out of the darkened house beyond, men in
St. Michael'i livery are bearing the laat victiinE of the
Plague to burial within the city walU. Id i 522 there
were jo,ooo of such burials b Roueo atone io st

montha. Every gallant who goes by with his feathered
cap and velvet cloak, his tightly-fiitiog hose and slashed
shoe«, every lady in her purple hat and stiff-starched
ruff, her gold-brocaded stomacher, and her sweeping
skirt, every soldier swaggering his rapier, every sailor
rolling home from sea, every monk mumbling his prayers
over a rosary — all alike are breathing an infected
304

Death

poisonous air. The young girls from the country feel
it most and fly from it the quickest, coming in to sell
their eggs and chickens, with their woollen petticoats
and gaily coloured head-dress, or meeting some lover of
the town at a dark corner in the narrow, damp, ill-
ventilated streets. Here and there a silent figure clad
in blue stalks from one house to another and leaves the
mark of a great white cross upon the fast-shut door or
shutters, for within there is the Plague.- And upon
every passer-by outside there blows continually the in-
visible blast of pestilence from the countless graveyards
pent up in the choking circuit of the walls. From the
thirteenth century onwards the city has been swept with
the desolating scourge of hideous disease. It was in
1348, when the ravages of the Black Death were at
their highest and 100,000 persons died of it in Rouen
that this cemetery of St. Maclou was founded.

Within the central space of the square court that you
can see to-day is the actual ground which formed this
ancient graveyard. Formerly there were two altars in
it, one to the Slayer of the infernal Dragon, the mighty
Saint of Sepulchres, the protector of the dead, St.
Michael ; the other to the souls of the dead themselves.
In many a country churchyard in France at the present
day you may see a tall lonely shaft that rises above the
tombs, generally with a tiny belfry at its summit, which
holds the bell that rings at midnight to call the wander-
ing ghosts to rest ; and at its base this '^ Lanteme des
Morts " carries a small slab of stone on which offerings
were placed at night. It was the Confr^rie de St.
Michel who had charge of this, and of the burying
arrangements of the city, and they bore upon their hats
the image of their patron-saint as a badge of their sad
calling. Twice before 1 505 this graveyard had to be
enlarged ; by 1 526 three of the galleries that now sur-
round it had been built, those to the west and south and
east. The northern side was finished only in 1640.

u 305

The Story of Roua

Of the older work there are atill thirty-one columO
standing, some eleven feet apart, carved with subjecl
from the famous " Dance of Death," the " DaM
Macabre " of Rouen.

But these curtains that circuraacribe the Bed (
Death have other emblems carved upon them too
there is a double frieze of oak above the pillars, ani'
it appears the skull and crossbones, the spade
mattock, the fragments of pitiful anatomy that ma
the ghastly trade of sexton in the stxteeoth ceal
In the covered galleries, as they were originally, I
richer burgesses were buried, though not one of thd
memorial stones remains ; into the open space \
flung the poor proletariat, who had gone through Ufi
marked with a yellow cross upon their arms, and fouD
in death an undistinguished and promiscuous I
Looking down upon them all in their last troubli!
sleep, were the figures carved in high relief upon e
pillar, groups that are eo mutilated now that only by tt
careful drawings and descriptions left by M. Langlo
long ago can we trace (aindy what was placed there b
Denys Leselin the carver and his brother Adam, ;
by Gaukier Leprevost, whose names are preserved i
the church registers of St. Maclou.

Each relief showed a group in which some liv:
figure is dragged to death by a triumphant skeleton,:
chief among them were our first parents Adam and E*
the origins of death for every generation after.

" Mors qui venii de mors de pome
Primea en feme et puis en home
Tu bats 1e tiide comine toiJe,"

On Other pillars were an emperor, a king, a high a,
(table, a duke, a courtier, a pope, a cardinal, a bishi
and an abbot. They seem to cr^, like Villon, W
a phrase that is especially appropriate to a Roi
cemetery ;

306

Death

<< Haro, haro, le grand et le mineur,
Et qu'est cecy — mourray, sans coup ferir ? "

Without the power to struggle, they are haled from
their high places to the levelling tomb.

Reproductions of the first Todtentanz of Hans
Holbein the younger are now within the reach of every-
one, and they have made these terrible imaginations of
the early sixteenth century the common property of
all who care to look at them. Designed just before
1 526, when the horrors of the Peasants' War and of
innumerable outbreaks of pestilence and famine had left
fresh traces in the minds of everyone, they were not
published until 1538 at Lyons by Melchoir and Caspar
Trechsel. After the sixth edition of 1 562 no further
addition to the plates is known. They were cut with
a knife upon wood, and not with the ordinary graver,
in 1527, or a little earlier, by Hans of Luxemburg,
sometimes called Franck, whose full signature is on
Holbein's Alphabet in the British Museum, which
contains several sets of the impressions, believed to be
engraver's proofs from the original blocks, such as exist
also in Berlin, at Basle, in Paris, and at Carlsruhe.
They have been frequently copied, but the best modem
imitations in wood engraving are those made in 1833
for Douce's " Holbein's Dance of Death," which
come nearest to the incomparable skill of Hans of
Luxemburg, and have been reproduced again, only
in this last year, by George Bell of London.

The oldest representation of this idea is probably to
be found at Minden in Westphalia, and bears the date
of 1383. But it was known also at Dresden, at
Lubeck, in Lucerne, in the chateau of Blois, in
Auvergne, and elsewhere in France. In all these
places Death is shown dancing with men of every
age and condition, and carrying them off with him to
the grave. There is no doubt that the scene had its
origin not merely in the imagination of the sixteenth

307

The Story of Rouen

century, but reached further back to the hideoai
'* Danse Macabre " of the fourteenth centaryy when
the Black Death was slaying high and low ao Gut that
men were seized with a panic of hysterical cooTulsioD
and leaped frenziedly about the streets and churches,
even in the cemeteries themselves. The numberieis
carvings on the cathedrals, representing the Devil and
his myrmidons struggling for mastery with a livmg
soul, provided an easy and instant suggestion* But by
degrees the religious quality of the mania lessened and
grew weaker. At last the purely material horror of
extinction overcame everything else. It was no longer
the Devil who seized a maddened ring of men smd
women and danced them screaming into hell. Now
it was Death himself who clutched every man by the
sleeve and hurried him into the over-crowded ever-
hungry sepulchre. If this was one thought of the rich
who thought at all, it was also the only consolation of
the poor, and therefore no more appropriate carvings
for the poor man's cemetery of St. Maclou could be
imagined by the workman of the sixteenth century.

But if the poor had their Danse Macabre, the great
ones of the city spared nothing to impress on their sur-
vivors that the magnificence of their lives should foUow
them even to the tomb. In the Chapelle de la Vierge
of Rouen Cathedral are two of the most famous fimer^
monuments of the sixteenth century, and in one of these
you will notice a very remarkable example of the way
in which the sculptors of the rich understood their task.
Their orders, no doubt, were to give of their best to
celebrate the dead man's greatness ; their designs were
evidently as unfettered by suggestion as by expense;
and they had their inevitable revenge. Beneath the
magnificent figure of the knight in armour lies the corpse,
naked in death and as poor as the beggar in the street.
In the Louvre you may see a monument by Germain
Pilon that is even more suggestive of this feeling on the
308

Death

part of the artist. It is the tomb of Madame de
Birague, Valentina BalbiaoL^ Under a sum]>ttiouf
dress, covered with sculpture 90 delicate that the
marble looks like lace, a thin and shrunken form
can be distinguished. The waited hand holds a
tiny book whose pages it has no strength to turn.
Her little dog tries vainlv to awake her from a
slumber that is eternal. A corpse that is almost a
skeleton lies beneath. This is not the sincere expres-
sion of the sorrow Villon knew; for we can easily
imagine the unhappy Valentina's fate from our know-
ledge of her husband, one of the hell-hounds of Cath-
erine de Medicisy who was foremost in the Massacre of
St. Bartholomew. This is not the old longing of the
lover for his mistress : —

Mort, j'appelle de ta riguear,
Qui m'as ma maistresse ravie,
£t n'est pas encore atfouvie
Si tu ne me tiens en langueur.
One puis n'euz force ne vigneur ;
Mais que te nuysoit-eile en vie
Mort?

Deux estions, et n'avions qu'ung cueur;
S'il est mort, force est que devie,
Voire, ou que je vive sans vie,
Comme les images, par cueur,
Mortl

It is the changed note of Ronsard's passionate regret

that every lovely feature must be marred by

Death : —

** Pour qui gardes-tu tes yeux
Et ton sein ddfcieux

Ta joue et ta bouche belle
En veux-tu baiser Platon
Li-bas apr^s que Charon
T'aura mise en sa nacelle ? **

1 This has been admirably described In Mrs Mark Pattlnon's
volumes on the " Renaissance of Art In France/' thouffb fhf
authoress refuses to admit that Michelet's view of Pilon's
motive is correct. But in Vol. I. compare pp. 156 and 11.

309

The Story of Rouen

The work of Germain Pilon at the Louvre, and of the
sculptor of the dead de Breze in Rouen Cathedral,
whether that were Pilon himself, or Jean Cousin, or
Goujon, has none of the gentle regret that reverences
what it has once loved in life. There is in it all
the fierce desire for personified destruction, all the
hideous mockery of the rich man levelled with the
poorest in a common corruption, which inspired the
" Danse Macabre " ; but the sculptor's thought is
expressed with the subtle handicraft of a supersensitive
age, with a fury of achievement and a triumph over
technical difficulties that is the very essence of the best
French Renaissance. In the same spirit Ronsard
continues his relentless comparison of the dead woman
with the living mistress : —

" Ton teste n'aura plus de peau
Ny ton visaige tant beau

N*aura veines ny arteres
Tu n'auras plus que des dents
Telles qu'on les voit dedans

Les testes des cimetdres.**

This complicated mental attitude had evidently not
been reached when Rouland Leroux carved the great
mausoleum for Cardinal d'Amboise, which is on the
south side of this chapel, or if it had been attained by
some men, neither Leroux himself nor Pierre Desau-
beaulx his fellow-workman had been touched by it.
The very inscription proclaims the exact reverse of that
grisly triumph which is celebrated so clearly on the oppo-
site tomb ; for the virtues of Georges d'Amboise are
said to be superior to death : —

" Pastor eram cleri populi pater aurea sese
Lilia subdebant quercus et ipsa mihi
Mortuus en jaceo morte extinguuntur honores
At virtus mortis nescia morte viret.

An optimism that may have been foreign to his age
is appropriate to this sturdy and ambitious ecclesiastic,
310

! C <

The Story of Rouen

who did not forget to do so much material good for
his town of Rouen, with waterworks, and even drain-
age, and fair new buildings spaciously designed; all
this in spite of wider interests which did not stop at
the tiara itself, of which all men said the great cardinal
was worthy. Of the two statues that are now within
the arched recess, the one on the right represents him,
and it must have been an excellent likeness. It has
been called a peasant face; and it is certainly no
courtier who kneels there before the carving of his
patron saint slaying the dragon. The square head,
the deep brows, the heavy jaw and firm mouth, are
not beautiful, but they are impressive, and they
show a character as far removed from the peasant as
it was from the voluptuary, as near akin to the ad-
ministrator of Normandy as to the Cardinal of the
Holy Church. I have little doubt that this was the
handiwork of the Rouland Leroux who must have
often seen him in the Cathedral, and who helped to
build the great Palais de Justice, which was given to
Rouen at his request.

In the statue on the left hand, it is more possible
that Jean Goujon (to whom so many things are
ascribed without foundation) may have had a hand.
For this was put up in 1 541, at least sixteen years
after the first one, in memory of the second Georges
d'Amboise, the nephew of the greater cardinal, and
the last archbishop freely elected by the Chapterhouse.
Of the multitude of carvings that are in the alabaster
and marble round these statues, it is scarcely possible
to give any description that will be intelligible, and if
their value in history does not tempt you to visit them
yourself, I can only point you to the drawing that
Miss James has done to make these pages more
intelligible. The niches on each side of the dragon
contain six statuettes ; a bishop, a Virgin and child, St.
John the Baptist, St. Romain, a saint, and an arch-
312

bishop blesNDg. Above them curvea a large arch,
with three pierced peodeDtiTca aod a frieze delicately

carved with birds

Above this met
division ctt the

the same j^e
a* the sarco-
phagus below i
■ even small
niches of the
prophets and
sibyls divide the
six larger panel*,
in which the
Apostles are
shown in pairs.
Beyond these
again is a crown
of pinnacle* in
open-work, al-
ternating with
statuettes in
smaller niche*.
The lowest por-
tion, the sarco-
phagus itself, is
divided by seven
pilaster*, each
adorned with
the figure of a
monk, with rix

holdii

the

statuettes of Faith, Charity, Prudence, Strength, Tem-
313

The Story of Rouen

perance, and Justice. All this amaziog compiicatioo
of delicate handiwork was done for the sum of 6953
livreSy 16 sols, 4denier8, which represents about 60,000
francsy or ;^2400 to-day.

On the opposite side of this chapel is the great tomb
of Louis de Breze, Grand Seneschal of Normandy, of
which I have already spoken. As an architectural
composition it is, to my mind, infinitely finer than the
other, though there is not only a lack of the obviooi
sincerity that inspired Leroux, but there b also the too
evident appearance of that triumph of Death which
has been described in this chapter. Nor can I help
fancying that it represents too the somewhat sinister
triumph of a widow's cunning. For as I have drawn
elsewhere the life and the ambitions of Greorges
d'Amboise as the owner of Chaumont on the Loire,
so I have become acquainted with that typical figure
of the sixteenth century, Diane de Poitiers, at the
home she took from Bohier at Chenonceaux ; and
therefore her kneeling figure in the widow's weeds of a
conventional sorrow suggests nothing better to me than
the fashionable grief of the mistress of Henn II., the
ostentation in mourning of the most rapacious and un-
feeling woman of her time.

Though the magnificent workmanship of the dead man
at whose head she kneels reminds me more of G-ermain
Pilon's methods, I can well believe that Jean Ooujon
may have been responsible for the general design of the
whole monument during the year we know he spent at
Rouen in 1540, when he was twenty years of age.
Men seem to have matured more quickly in those days
than is possible in the slower generations that we know.
But even if the graceful caryatides and every other
carving is his work, I must still ascribe the strong
treatment of the massive knight in armour on his war
horse to the same artist who conceived the dead figure
lying in its shroud beneath; and whether tliat artist
314

Death

were Pilon or Jeao Couuo, it is moat improbable that
it should have beeo Goujon, for whom the work
would have becD ju»t as much too early for tus owd
age, as that of Pilon would have been too late for the
suggested date of the enure monument. (That the con-
trast of the dead and I'viog Seneschal was more than a
mere court feah on of the t me I have of course
only advanced my own opn on but even if it
not so o thu case and o that
of the Balbiani roooument and
many others, the h.a that so
e a cus om should have
all e even more

a led i

significant than

result of the magination of some

few of the greatest sculpto «•

In sketching the more sombre
features of thu extraord naiy
century t s mposs ble to omit
any rrfe ence to those rehg oua
troubles wh ch may have been
already suggested to you by the
kneel ng monks upon the tomb
of Georges d Ambo se They
we e as te nble id Rouen as in
almost every other town in
France, the violent deaths and
tortures they made so common
in the city cannot be omitted in
any estimate of the horrors of the
time ; and if 1 do not dilate upon them as their im-
portance in history might seem to demand, it is because
they arc chiefly responsible for the destruction or de-
basement of most of those great architectural monu-
ments which it is my chief buwness to describe.
They were also responsible for the next two sieges
in the story of the town, and in the first of these
315

The Story of Rouen

there is a tale that I must tell you, if only to
show that if these men had the realisation of death
ever present before their eyes, they were also very
hard to kill, and did not yield to the Arch-Enemy
so easily as many of their descendants in an age which
tries its hardest to forget him.

Encouraged by the news of the horrible massacre of
Vassy, the Huguenots under the Prince of Conde seized
Rouen on the night of April 15, 1562, pillaged the
churches, and stopped the services of the Catholic
religion. A few months afterwards the royal army
marched to the rescue under the Constable Anne de
Montmorency, Frangois de Guise, and the father of
Henri Quatre, Antoine de Navarre, who was shot in
the shoulder when directing the attack from the trenches,
and died at Andelys a month afterwards. While the
Protestants were defending the walls, a certain Frangou
de Civille was ordered with his company to hold the
ramparts near the Porte St. Hilaire, not far firom the
Fourches de Bihorel. While at his post he was
wounded by a shot from an arquebus, which passed
through his cheek and shattered the right jaw-bone, at
eleven in the morning on the 15th October. The
bullet came out behind his collar-bone and tore his ruff
to pieces. He fell down the glacis, and a foraging
party stripped him and buried him hurriedly in a ditch
near by, and there he was left till six that evening. His
lacquey, Nicolas de la Barre, searching the ramparts for
his master after the assault had been repulsed, saw a
human hand sticking up out of the mud ; his companion,
Captain Jean de Clere, kicked the fingers as he walked,
and a peculiar ring de Civille was known to wear
flashed in the light. The body was at once dug up
and carried to the house of the Sieur de Coquerau-
mont, in the Rue des Capucins.

There for five days and five nights the servant
watched by his master, " who lay in a lethargy,'* and
316

Death

was just beginning to show feeble signs of life when the
enemy took the town by assault. On the twenty-eighth,
some Catholic soldiers broke into his place of refuge,
and finding a pestilent heretic lying ill, they threw
him out of a window. Being lucky enough to fall upon
one of the many dunghills which were beneath the
windows of Rouen at that time, de Civille lay there in
his shirt and nightcap for three days and nights without
food or drink, and no one discovered him. At last, when
the town was a little quieter, a cousin fetched him away
to the Chateau de Croisset, and by July in the next year
he had almost completely recovered his health. Though
all this happened when he was only twenty-six, he lived
to write an account of his adventures when he was
seventy-four for the pleasure and instruction of posterity ;
and he only expired for the last time at the ripe age
of eighty, from an inflammation of the lungs caught
by making love to a young woman underneath her
window during a hard frost.

The second siege in this century was occasioned by
the troubles of the League. In 1 589 public anxiety
had increased to such a pitch that the royalist
Court of Justice was removed to Caen, while the
" Ligueurs " held Rouen for the Due de Mayenne.
In July 1 590 bands of armed men a hundred strong
went shouting through the streets, and would have dis-
armed the town-guard on the Vieux Marche had they
not been stopped by Valdory, the district captain
of the Burgess militia, who has left a detailed
account of the disturbances of that unhappy time in
Rouen. From his book it may be learnt that the
" Vieux • Palais " of the English kings was still within
the city walls by the river to the south-west, that the
fort had not long been rebuilt near the Abbey of St.
Catherine, that the Faubourgs were again destroyed as
they were in 1 41 7 to leave no shelter for the enemy,
and that the investing troops tried to cut off the stream

3*7

The Story of Rouen

of RobeCy 80 as not merely to deprive that quarter of
its water supply, but to stop the public nulls. In
November 1 59 1 Henry of Navarre used some ships to
help him in his attack on Rouen, but the townsfolk,
who refused to acknowledge a Protestant as their
king, seem to have paid little attention to the naval
demonstration, and finally chased his vessels out of the
harbour and got possession of most of their cargoes of
sheep, oxen, wine and other booty. The defence was
brilliantly conducted throughout, and Valdory relates
that when three hundred musketeers were requested
for a forlorn hope, no less than two thousand men
thronged to the officers' houses demanding weapons to
join in the sally. " Rouvel " was very busy all the
time in the town belfry, and rang furiously by night
or day whenever the scouts gave notice that the enemy
were likely to attack. Directly his notes were heard,
every citizen rushed to his appointed place upon the
ramparts, and waited without confusion for the enemy.
They were good shots with an arquebus, too, for
a captain was reported to Valdory as having killed
one of the enemy's sentinels "at a distance of three
hundred paces at least ;" and an equally successful shot
is recorded at five hundred paces.

They were even vain-glorious ; for Monsieur de
Villars, says the same authority, desirous of a little
diversion outside the walls, rode out with several
gentlemen, and tilted at the ring beyond the ramparts
under a hot fire, until he had had his fill of amusement.
When the enemy could get to close quarters with the
common folk they found them no easier to handle ; for
as some of Henry of Navarre's soldiers were foraging in
a garden for herbs, the gardeners rushed out and ** killed
them with large stones." The town never opened its
gates until Henry of Navarre repudiated his religion
and became the King of France. Rouen, as well as
Paris, was evidently "well worth a mass."
3»8

Death

One of the mo« interesting things about this lighting

is the presence of a numerous body of Englishmen who
had joined Biron and Henry of Navarre, under the
Earl of Essex. Their Queen had offered a special
prize for the first man who should
make a successful shot at the de-
fenders of the town ; but they do not
seem to hare distinguished themselves
particularly, and at last a hundred of
them (chiefly squires) were killed.
A hardy specimen of the race, how-
ever, is mentioaed by Valdoty, who
evidently kept his eyes open for
good work, whether of friend or foe.
This Englishman, after receiving four
wouods from a cutlass on the head,
" pretended Co be dead, allowed
himstlf to be stripped by our soldiers,
and dragged naked to the ramparts."
While he lay there, desirous to make
quite sure of their man, the Rouen
sentinels (who must have been
mariners from Dieppe) dropped a
sm^ll cannon ball on his stomach, "but
he did not seem to feel it," and con-
tinued obstinately to remain alive.
However, when the Sieur de Canon- i
ville took him prisoner and bound '
up his wounds, with the object, '
apparently, of getting a ransom from ,
his friends, he seems to have de- i
term in ed that no foreigner should uannev chuum,
make money out of him, and died. ''-"'''■*°'> bekksiuii

In the Church of West Hanney, near Wantage,
in Berkshire, is the tomb of one of these English-
men who fought for Henry of Navarre before the
walls of Rouen, and it will be an appropriate
3 '9

The Story of Rouen

eoding to this chapter of the dead if I close it with
his epitaph ; —

"Beneath this itone lyeth enterred the corpi of Sir Chrii-
topher LTieot, Knight, twice high sheriiT of the coqdC)' et
Berk (Husband of two wives both in the sayd conntye the
former J»ne Ei.ei widdowe of Thoma. Emck of Beckett
HoUK Eq. the iater Catherine Young widdowe of Willm
YoDnge of Ba^tledoD Eq) Knighted in the cimpe bef«t
Roane the xt! of Novemb 1591 by the bands of the French
Kinge Henry the Fourth of yt name and King of Navarrt
Who after hii traiailes in Germany Italy and PruuDce and d»
evecDtion of justice unto the glory of God and the g;ood of his
coancry ended his pilgrimage at Baslledon ye zxT at Aprii
•S99-'

CHAPTER XIII
Life

*^ Les gens de Rouen sont honnltes,
Grans entrepreneurs d'edifices
De theatres et artifices
Es entrees des grans seigneurs,
Roy prelatz et aultres greigneurs.**

THOUGH Henri Quatre could not get through
the gates of Rouen while the town remained
faithful to the League, and considered him a heretic,
the sturdy citizens were ready enough to accept a king
of their own religion, and when the " Vert Galant "
made his first solemn entry into the place in 1596,
they welcomed him as heartily as any of his prede-
cessors. You will remember that there were English-
men with him when he was trying to get into Rouen a
few years before, and it was to Rouen again that the
Earl of Shrewsbury and a brilliant suite brought the
Queen of England's greeting to her cousin of France,
and sent him the famous Order of the Garter. The
Ambassador was most appropriately lodged in a very
famous house in Rouen, which itself formed a remark-
ably complete memorial of the friendship between the
same two thrones earlier in the century. The Maison
Bourgtheroulde, at the comer of the Place de la Pucelle
and the Rue du Panneret, contains indeed one of the
best pictorial records that exists in Europe, not only of
the meeting of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, but
also of the decorations that were displayed there.

The house is a good example of the transition
between " Gothic " domestic architecture and that of
the Renaissance. Built about the same time as the

J be Story of Rouen

Palais de Justice and the Bureau de Finances, it formed
a part of that brilliant series of beautiful dwellings in
which the early years of the sixteenth century at
Rouen were so fniitfuL Its exterior fagade upon the
Place de la Pucelle is so terribly changed and mutilated
now, that unless you will refer to Lelieur's drawing,
reproduced with Chapter IX., no view of its present
condition can suggest to you the original design. Of
that high roof with lofty crested windows, of the side-
turret at the angle of the street, of the beautifully
carved door, not a trace remains. The principal
entrance built on the old Marche aux Veaux was placed
between two heavy pillars, which had statues on them,
and even before the traveller had passed inside, these
suggested to him the motive which underlies the whole
decoration of the house ; for these are the two pillars
which were on each side of the English King's pavilion
at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Whereof the one,
in the words of the English chronicler, was ** intrayled
with anticke works, the old god of wine called Bacchus
birlyng the wine, which by the conduits in the erthe
ran to all people plenteously with red, white, and
claret wine, over whose head was written in letters of
Romayn in gold, * Faicte bonne chere qui vouldra.' "
The other pillar was " of ancient Romayne work,
borne with four lions of gold . . . and on the summit
of the said piller stood an image of the blynde God,
Cupid, with his bowe and arrowes of love, by hys
seeming, to stryke the yonge people to love." But
these have gone, and so little is left of the beauty of
the fa9ade that it really will require some courage to
believe what I have just said, and go through the
wooden door in search of better fortune.

It was the town house of the family of Le Roux,i

^Called Le Roux d'Esneval in a genealogy of 1689, and
perhaps relations of Louis de Br^zd's first wife, whom he
married before Diane de Poitiers. See the end of Chapter X.
322

7 be Story of Rouen

a name which already has artistic associations for any
lover of the architecture of Rouen, though I ha?e
found no trace of relationship between the architect of
the Cathedral fa9ade, the Bureau de Finances, and the
Palais de Justice, and the lawyers who built and
decorated this <^ hotel." Indeed I cannot imag^ it
would be likely that a man of so much originality and
power both in architecture and in sculpture would ha?e
lent himself to the methods of decoration employed
here, which, as you will see, are more appropriate to
the accurately historical than to the freely artistic
frame of mind. The man who made the fortune of
the family was the second Guillaume Le Roux,
husband of Jeanne Jubert de Vely, and one of the
fifteen lay councillors called to the Perpetual £chiquief
created by Louis XII. in 1499. He bought the
estates of Tilly, Lucy, Sainte Beuve, and Bourg-
theroulde, and built the " corps de logis *' in the
interior courtyard exactly opposite the entrance. He
also began the wings on the north and west, but left
the great southern gallery to be completed by his son
Guillaume, "Abbe d'Aumale et du Val Richer,"
who held several benefices under the great Cardinal
d'Amboise, and derived his chief claim to importance
from having been employed by Fran9oi8 I. in the
negotiation of the celebrated Concordat which that
king announced with so much solemnity on his entry
into Rouen in 15 17.

These two last facts may largely account for the
decoration of the new wing the Abbe built in Rouen,
and the carvings he added to the older walls ; for they
are mainly suggested by one of the most magnificent
occurrences in the ostentatious reign of a king whose
visit to the town had no doubt enhanced the impor-
tance of the Abbe in the eyes of his fellow-citizens.
At any rate he was not likely to let them forget that the
Francois whom he had helped in the matter of the

Life

Concordat was also the hero of the ** Champ du Drap
d'Or." Though the house may have been begun as
early as 1 486, when the second Guillaume Le Roux
was married, it was not finished for some time after-
wards, and we may put 1531 as the latest date, because
the Phoenix of Eleanor of Austria shows beside the
Salamander of her husband. Abbe Guillaume died in
1532, before which year the carvings must have been
completed, and they evidently cannot have been begun
before 1520, the date of the Field of the Cloth of
Gold, which was their chief inspiration, so that the
carvings certainly have the value of almost contem-
poraneous workmanship, and most probably the author-
ity, either directly or indirectly, of an eye-witness.
It may be as well to remember that to that gorgeous
ceremony there was no possibility of any mere loafer,
or any wandering unauthorised artist being admitted,
because it is on record that everyone without a special
permit was cleared out of the country in a circle of
some four leagues ; and it is not too much to imagine
that even if one who had had a hand in the important
negotiations of the Concordat four years before were
not in the King's suite, he was at least in a position to
see and profit by the work of the artists who accom-
panied Fran9oi8,^ to record his splendours and to make
the best use of all their opportunities.

Since 1820 the Maison Bourgtheroulde has practi-
cally been a unique example of the style of decoration
for which it is famous. Before that year "La Grande
Maison " existed at Grand-Andely, not far off, with
much the same kind of ornament upon its Renaissance
walls ; but that has now vanished utterly, with the
exception of some of the large statues which were
bought at three francs the square foot by an

' There were, of course, men to do the same kind office for
Henry VIII. In the Hampton Court Gallery, see No. 342,
and the notes in Mr Ernest Law's catalogue.

3^5

The Story of Rouen

Englishnuuiyi and taken acroM the ChaniMl to
decorate a couotry-hoiue. It will therelbie be
well worth while to consider in tome detail whstt
the Bourgtheroulde carvings are, and how they
originated ; for even if they do not appeal to as lo
much as the original and thoroughly local work of
other Rouen sculptors, they have a Yaloe of tbor
own that may be considered entirely apart from anj
aesthetic criticism of the sources of the carrer'a work-
manship.

To begin, then, at the beginning, the eotrance-door
on the inside of the court is decorated with medalHoo
portraits, surrounded by garlands, of Francois I. (whose
Jong nose betrays him) and the stout, square nee of
Henry VII I. Both are bearded. The note of his-
torical suggestion is struck at once. It continues still
more unmistakably on the series of panek immediately
beneath the window-sills of the wing on the left hand
as you enter. On these is represented that useless
pageant of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, by
which Frangois (who posed as the protector of
art and the Renaissance in France, though he did
singularly little for either) tried to obscure the defeat

1 It would be interesting to know whether anything cui be
traced of them now. It is rather extraordinary to consider the
numl>er of artistic objects which were carried off from Rooen
in exactly this way. Apart from the windows of St. Her-
bland, which I mentioned at the beginning of Chapter VII., a
window from Saint Nicolas le Paincteur called the '* Visita-
tion ** has been recognised by a canon of Rouen in Yorli
Minster ; windows from Saint Jean sur Renelle were
brought to I^)ndon, and exhibited, with others, about
1810, by Mr Stevenson of Norwich; and other paintings
on glass from the monastery of the Chartreux du Petit
Qu^'villy also reached our shores. All of which \irould
seem to indicate that we saw the value of good virorlc
earlier in this century than the French did. But they have
had their revenge since then ; and in the carving of the Maison
Bourgtheroulde we have neglected to preserve one of the
I>e8t memorials of England that exists in Prance.
326

The Story of Rouen

he had just sustained by the election of his solemn
rival Charles V. as Emperor. The interview lasted
from the yth to the 24th of. June i$20, and there
the chronicler describes how the two Kings ^se
virent et parlementerent ensemble apr^s midi enviroa
les vespres, en la terre dudit Roy d'Angleterre, en
une petite vallee nommee le valdore entre ladite ville
d'Ardres et le chateau de Guynes."

The third or central panel (which is the best carved
and almost the best preserved) contains the actual meet-
ing of the Kings. At the first (beginning from the left)
is shown the Chateau of Guynes ; from the windows
and galleries men and women are looking out, and on
the ground before the gate are the small saluting-cannon
of the period, almost invisible from the decay of the
stone. A few of the last of the English suite ai« just
issuing from the gates, some a-foot and some on
horseback ; both men and horses wesy: great feathered
plumes, and the men on foot have a circular head-
dress of feathers like an aureole. In the second
panel, two horsemen bearing maces ride in front of
an ecclesiastic who carries a processional cross.
Behind it is the great Cardinal Wolsey, in violet-
coloured velvet, riding on a mule, with pages.
Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, was with him; and
the Order of the Garter, whose motto could be
read upon a horseman's knee some sixty years ago,
was worn by Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.
It has disappeared now, and so much has gone
with it, owing to the atmosphere of Rouen, which
has more in common with Oxford than its archi-
tectural surroundings, that the careful plaster-casts
preserved in Paris (and photographed by the late
M. Paul Robert in his "Trocadero" Series, iv. 29)
will soon be the best memorial of sculptures, as valu-
able to England as they are to France, and equally
neglected by both. In 1821 M. Delaqueri^re
328

Life

issued a careful description of them (published by
Firmin Didot, Paris), and to a second edition
(published in 1841) he added a detailed drawing
of the whole gallery by Polycl^s Langlois, and ^1^
larger drawings of each of the panels originally
done, in 1823, for Nodier's well-known "Voyages
Pittoresques/' It is the central panel from these
that I reproduce here, and Miss Jameses draw-
ing will show you the relative position of the
procession and of the frieze of the Triumph
above it on the left wing of the house. In 184T,
plaster-casts could be bought from M. Rossi in
Rouen. But these exist no longer, and, by com-
paring the drawing made in 1823 with the carvings
themselves, you will be able to appreciate how
Rapidly the stone decays. It will stiU be possible,
however (in 1899 at least), to discover on the
mouldering surf|ce of the wall at least a trace of
nearly everything that was originally there ; and your
appreciation of the faithfulness of the sculptor to
recorded fact will be still further increased if you
can compare his work with the picture in Hampton
Court, with the English contemporary versions from
which I have occasionaUy quoted, and with such
French accounts as that of du Bellay or Fleurange.
The third and central panel is the culmination of
the splendours of the whole. Each monarch, with
his hat in his right hand, bows low in salutation.
You will notice that Frangois wears his beard, but
Henry is clean shaved like the majority of those
present. This is another detail that is corroborated
elsewhere, for the story is well known how Frangois
swore he would not shave till he had seen the
English King ; how Henry made a similar oath
out of politeness, and broke it in impatience ; how
the French ambassadors eagerly enquired whether
this clean chin was to be construed at <*an un-

329

l^he Story of Rouen

friendly act," and were told that Henry's afiectioa
resided not in his beard, but in his heart. The
English King, says the chronicler, on that great occa-
sion '' showed himself some deal forward in beauty
and personage, the most goodliest Prince that ever
reigned over the realm of England: his Grace was
apparelled in a garment of cloth of silver of
damask, ribbed with cloth of gold, so thick as
might be ; the garment was large, and pleated very
thick. The horse which his Grace rode on was
trapped in a marvellous vesture of a new-devised
fashion ; the trapper was of fine bullion, curiously
wrought, pounced and set with antique work of
Romayne figures." This carving shows that his
harness was embroidered in alternate squares of
leopards and roses. Close to him is the Marquis
of Dorset, who bore the sword of State, with the
Earls of Essex and Northumberland and others,
besides the pikemen and guards, and the 400
mounted archers, who were peculiar to the English
retinue,

Fran9ois wears embroidered cloth of gold, and bears
a cape of heavier gold thread, sewn with gems. His
chest and sleeves are covered with diamonds, rubies,
emeralds, and pearls. His horse has the fleurs de lys
embroidered on saddle and harness. Before him march
the Swiss guard under Fleurange, who has left an
account of the whole matter ; close by are Mountjoy
and the other heralds, with the High Admiral and the
great nobles. On the back of the last rider is carved
the royal badge, that salamander which was seen
miraculously to appear in effigy among the clouds while
the CardinsJ was celebrating High Mass. The English
chronicler describes the scene carved upon this panel
as follows : — " Then blew the trumpets, sackbutts,
clarions, and all other minstrelsy on both sides, and the
King descended down towards the bottom of the valley

330

Life

of Ardres in sight of the nations, and on horseback
met and embraced the two Kings each other ; then the
two Kings alighted, and after embraced with benign and
courteous manner each other, with sweet and goodly
words of greeting ; and after few words these two noble
Kings went together into the tent of cloth of gold that
was there set on the ground for such purpose, thus arm-
in-arm went the French King Francis the First of
France, and Henry the Eighth King of England and
France, together passing with communication."

On the fourth panel, behind four mace-bearers, rides
an ecclesiastic bearing what was once a double cross :
the dove that flew above his head has entirely dis-
appeared. Then comes Cardinal de Boissey, the Papal
Legate, and among the other Cardinals (who may be
recognised by their hatstrings falling on their chests) are
those of Bourbon, Albret, and Lorraine. Much of
this has been destroyed, but there is enough left to
realise what Du Bellay says about the ruinous extrava-
gance of the dresses : — ** Many of the Frenchmen,**
he writes, <' carried the price of woodland, watermill,
and pasture on their backs." Yet the taste of the
Englishmen, who had not spent so much, was acknow-
ledged to have produced as splendid an effect as the
gorgeous outlay of the French; as Fleurange par-
ticularly records of the English pavilion made of wood,
and drapery and glass, '^ elle etait trop plus belle que
celle des Frangais, et de peu de coCitance." In one point,
however, the ladies of Paris asserted a superiority they
have retained almost ever since; the Englishwomen
confessed themselves beaten ; but when they followed
the fashion of their &ir rivals, it was not much better ;
for, says the truthful historian, <<what they lost in
modesty they did not make up in grace.'*

Most unfortunately, on the fifth and last panel, though
the stair-rail has preserved some of its details better than
any of the rest^ the superiority of these French ladies

331

J be Story of Rouen

cannot be sufficiently studied, though several of their
heads may be seen watching the procession from the
windows and balconies of Ardres. The plumed hats
and horses of the escort are particularly clear here, and
they are more numerous than in the famous ^< Triumph
of Maximilian " or in the ** Entry of Charles V. into
Bologna." The figure of the courtier just mountiDg
his horse is the one I like best of all except the digni-
fied personage who bears the cross before the French
ecclesiastics.

If the English ambassador in 1 596 was easily able
to recognise the subject of these carvings, no less quickly
would the Cardinal de Florence, the Papal Legate who
came to Rouen in the same year, and was also lodged
in this house, remember the originals from which were
taken the carvings on the frieze above the windows on
this wall. For though later generations have misund^-
stood them, just as they imagined the lower carvings to
be the Council of Trent, it is quite clear from some
words first discovered on the stone in 1875, ^^^^ ^
frieze was inspired by the " Triumphs ''of Petrarch.
These words are as follows ; and I have added thdr
proper continuation and beginning in italics : —

*' Amor vincit mundum
PudicHia vincit amorem
Mors vincit pudicitiam
Fama vincit mortem
Tempus vmcit fcunam
Divinitas sen Eternitas omnia vindt.^*

M. Palustre has pointed out that an edition of these
"Triumphs" was published in Venice in 1545 by
Giolito, with woodcuts ; and though this is rather too
late for the carvings Sunless, as was the case with Hol-
bein's " Todtentanz, ' we may imagine the cuts were
known long before the book) it is a matter of common
knowledge that the subject was a favourite one not only
for such illustrations but especially for tapestry; as

Life

Agrippa d'Aubignl records of contemporary tapestries
at Lyons: '^Elles representent quatre triomphes,
chacun de trois partis. • . •" And it was also by just
such chariots, cars, and elephants, or other animals, that
virtues and vices were represented in the great proces-
sions of the kings and queens at Rouen and elsewhere,
processions which of course were often taken as the
subject for tapestries commemorating their magnificence.
In Petrarch's verses you may read : —

<* Quattro destrier via piii che neve bianchi
Sopr' un carro di foco un garzon cnido
Con arco in mano, e con saette a' fianchi . . •
. . . Vidi un vittorioso e sommo duce
Pur com' un di color, che 'n Campidoglio
Trionphal carro a gran gloria conduce. . . ."

On the third of these upper panels (just above the
meeting of the two kings), is a great car drawn by
oxen, whose wheels are crushing prostrate bodies in
the road beneath them. The fourth carving shows a
stage drawn by two elephants. The fleshless head of
Death is in the front, with a serpent coiling round his
leg, and on the car is the figure of a woman blowing
a trumpet, with a banaer. This is evidently the fourth
line of the verse just quoted, ** Fama vlncit mortem***
On the fifth car, drawn by four beasts, is a great dais,
and personages beneath it. Before it walks a figure
with a turban, beside it another figure crowned with
branches and carrying a tree. Emblems of the growth
of nature dispersed in the design may perhaps suggest
the passage of the seasons and the lapse of time, for
** Tempuj vinclt famam.** The last line, " D'tvin'ttas
omnia vincit^*' is very well illustrated, over the door.
Drawn by a lion, an eagle, an ox and an angel, to
symbolise the four evangelists, a great car supports the
three Persons of the Trinity beneath a dais ; and
under the wheels are crushed various uncouth figures

333

The Story of Rouen

representing heresies. Cardinals, popes, and bishopi
accompany the procession.

Though I have only mentioned, so far, two of those
great royal entries into Rouen, for which the citizeas
were especially famous, the details given in Chapter XL
will alone suggest that the scenes taken from Petraich'i
verses would be very appropriate to a house in this
particular town. The still more gorgeous festivities
arranged for Henri II. and Catherine de Medicis,
which I shall mention later on in this chapter, are even
more Uke the triumphal cars and set pageants here
represented, which have lasted on in England in the
somewhat debased form of our own Lord Mayor's
show, and were perhaps themselves the symbolical
descendants of the Triumphs of the ancient Romans.

This gallery of the Cloth of Gold and the Triumphs,
is decorated in every other part with beautifully de-
signed arabesques, and is joined to the main fa9ade by
an exquisite turret, which rises at the comer near the
short flight of steps, and breaks up the straight line of
the walls in a way that the early Renaissance builders
were extremely fond of doing, before the transition
period had advanced so far as to make them forget the
principles of the rising line of " Gothic " and adhere
solely to the horizontal line of the Italian. But this
turret is even more remarkable for the carvings it bears
than for the delicate taste which dictated its position
in the whole design. Upon the two sides visible to
the spectator from the courtyard it is covered with
representations of the pastoral scenes that might be
seen any summer in the sixteenth century on the hills
near Rouen. To see them all upon these walls you
will need a good field-glass, but they deserve the
closest inspection that is possible.

Standing by the door of the gallery, the first relief
above the window in the turret shows a scene by the
banks of Seine, in which men are swimming about and
334

The Story of Rouen

playing various tricks on each other in the water. Ob
shore some labourers are cutting grast with long aeytha
which have only one handle rather low down in thdr
long straight stem^ and women are piling up what hai
been cut for hay. In the distance the same scene ii
continued, a man stops to drink out of his flask, a hawk
is swooping down upon a heron, and trees and towered
houses fill up the further space. Above it, and beneadi
the next window higher up the tower, the coontry
grows more mountainous, and sheep are pastaring
among the fields. In front a gallant shepherd det hii
mistress's garter, while she reproves his rustic forward-
ness. Behind them a somewhat similar declaratioD of
affection is going on. A third shepherd quenches his
thirst from a round flask. A traveller on horseback,
with a bundle tied behind him, rides up the winding
road, near which stands a rude shepherd's hut on
wheels, which is still used in many an upland pasture
to this day. On the other side of the road is a wind-
mill. Scattered houses rise above the hills, and amon^
the clouds is seen a flight of birds. Beneath is written
the appropriate legend, " Berger a Bergere proptemet se
ingere." Beneath the small window at the top of the
tower on the same side, the game called ** Main-
chaude ** is in full progress. A shepherdess blindfolds
with her hand the shepherd whose head is resting in
her la]), and his comrades stand ready to take advantage
of his helpless position. Various modest sheep pretend
they arc not looking, another man calls to his friend
in the distance, and a fifth is pensively playing a
hautbois in the usual miraculous countryside with
artistically disposed tufts of clouds above it. The
motto reads : —

*« Passe temps legers nous valent argent
Silz ne sont dargent ils sont de bergers.'*

Turning to the other side of the tower, the carving

Life

beneath the highest window represents a jovial picnic
under the same idyllic conditions. Out of a big bowl
placed on a tree-stump, a shepherdess helps her lover with
a spoon, another man makes his dog beg for a morsel of
the food ; music is provided behind by a self-sacrificing
person with the bagpipes, and a fourth shepherd stands
in the distance with some sheep, like a martyr to his
duty. The window beneath this is decorated with a
sheep-shearing scene, which I have reproduced from the
outline drawing by E. H. Langlois, published by
Delaqueri^re in his *^ Description Historique des
Maisons de Rouen" (Paris: Firmin Didot. 182 1).
The presiding shepherdess carries on her work with
the usual embarrassing distractions. By her side a
musician plays his hautbois to a dancing dog. Just
behind them a spirited chase after a marauding wolf
is in full cry ; more houses, clouds, and birds complete
the picture. The motto is "Nous somes des fins:
aspirans a fins.** The last scene represents men fishing,
some with nets out of a boat, others on land with
various uncouth patterns of fishing-rod; everyone
appears to be making a fine catch, but the extraordinary
occurrence on the bank will entirely divert your atten-
tion from the fish ; for a knight, who had evidently
ridden down to see the sport, has been snatched out of
his saddle by a burly flying grifHn, and his servant
looks frantically after his disappearing body in the
clouds. Untroubled by these strange events, a young
woman walks calmly towards the castle, a little further
on, carrying a basket of eggs and butter on her head,
and above her some new kind of osprey flies away with
a protesting pike. [See page 361.]

As carvings, these charmingly naive representations of
country life break absolutely every rule that is supposed
to govern the art of sculpture. Their relief is very slight
indeed, they have no definite limits, for they wander
vaguely round the windows, with trees and running

Y 337

7 be Story of Rouen

water and clouds and birds and houses all on the same
plane^ and all with equal ^^ values." I have not the
slightest doubt that just as the Field of the Cloth of
Gold was copied from a historical tapestry of the event,
just as the Triumphs of Petrarch were copied from
tapestries that might well ' have decorated the town of
Ax6xes on the occasion of the royal meeting, so these
window decorations, which betray their origin even more
than the carvings on the other wing, were taken direct
from tapestries which may have been at Ardres in June
1520, and certainly might have been seen in any great
chateau of the period. Their very position on these
walls is very like what tapestries were so frequently
used for in the lavish mural decoration of the time.
Every house hung out its best embroideries and
tapestries and gaily coloured cloths; and the way in
which these windows break into the background of each
design represents the very probable result of draping a
long piece of tapestry round the window of a house.
The Chateau of Blois is known to have contained just
such " bergeries *' in the rooms of Anne of Brittany ;
at another chateau in Touraine, the Chaumont of Greorges
d'Amboise (the friend of the builder of this house in
Rouen), may be still seen needlework, in pink and old
rose, of country scenes, in the rooms used by Catherine
de Medicis. Finally, in the inventory of the tapestries
of Philip the Bold of Burgundy, drawn up soon after
his death, you may read such entries as the following: —

" Ung autre petiz tapiz de bergerie, sur champ vert, sem^ de
bergiers et de bergieres . . . un^ autre vielz tapiz de haulte
lice ouvr6 de jeunes hommes et temmes jouans de plusieurs
jeux . . , arbres, herbaiges, ciel fait a faucons."

This might really represent the original needlework
from which Abbe Leroux chose the subjects for his
carving, and that the origin was some tapestry of this
fashionable kind I see no reason to doubt, especially
in the town which preserves in the Church of St. Vin-

338

a. likgADI HI Tun lUUOH

The Story of Routn

cent some of the finest sixteenth-centory tapestries in
France.

The flat textile kind of carving all over the house,
which rises to excellence of workmanship in relief only
in the meeting of the two kings, lends itself irresistibly
to the same conclusion. And for this reason I ha?e
not that extravagant admiration of it, viewed purely as
work of art, which may be better reserved for concep-
tions that are more original in the mind of the sculptor,
and of more local interest in the town for which the
work was done. As an example of the passion for
processions and decoration, however, few better could
have been chosen in Rouen than this Maison Bourg-
theroulde, and I have therefore dilated on it at some
length, to emphasise the spirit of life and colour that is
the main subject of this chapter. But a far more im-
portant reason for these details is the ^ct that the Field
of the Cloth of Gold carved on this gallery, is of the
greatest value and interest to all Englishmen as one of
the few representations of that famous pageant which
exist either in England or out of it.

The only place near London where it can be con-
veniently studied is in the gallery of Hampton Coun
Palace. In that collection you may see, in No. 337,
Henry's embarkation from Dover on the 3i8t of
May in the Great Harry or Henri Grace de Dieti^ as
she had been " hallowed" in 1514. And in No. 342
is a large painting 5 J feet high by 13 feet, 3 inches
long, of this meeting of the kings between Guinea and
Ardres, which confirms in a very remarkable way
many of the details in the Maison Bourgtheroulde.
It is not by Holbein, though he is known to have
done similar work that has not survived, but may have
been painted either by John Browne or Vincent Volpe
or John Cruste, all of whose names are mentioned in
connection with court pageants of the reign. A small
outline of this picture is very possibly connected with
340

Life

our earliest notions of English history, for it is pre-*
fixed to Mr Murray's edition of Mrs Markham's
" England." Mr Ernest Law's catalogue of the
Hampton Court pictures gives further details in con-
nection with it, and for a longer description refers his
readers to the third volume of the State papers of
Henry VIII., and to " Archaeologia," iii. 185-230.^
I cannot leave this subject without expressing the
earnest hope not only that our own National Portrait
Gallery may soon be able to let the public see some
good reproduction of a scene that is of the greatest
historical interest, but that efforts may be made to
secure the better preservation of the original carvings
in Rouen. The connection between that city and
England is of long standing. It was the capital
of those Norman dukes who conquered us at
Hastings and flooded us with their art, their learning,
and their civilisation. It was the most cherished
foreign possession of our King Henry the Fifth,
who died too soon to wear the crown in Paris.
It has been the especial pilgrimage of our best his-
torians and archaeologists and artists almost from
that time until the present day. The " Monuments
Historiques " in which it is so rich are being worthily
cared for by an enlightened government, and I must
believe that the sympathy and kindness extended by
every authority in Rouen towards a visitor who
honestly confessed his interest and carefully explored

^ In November 1774 the Society of Antiquaries published
a large engraving of this picture (which is still procurable)
by James Basine, after a drawing by £. Edwards from the
original then in the Royal Apartments of Windsor Castle.
In this you may see the Fountains of Bacchus and Cupid
running wine, in front of the English Pavilion, which is full of
windows. The Salamander of Francis floats in the air above.
In 1 78 1 the same engraver copied the companion picture of
the embarkation of Henry VIII. from Dover in the *< Great
Harry," after a drawing by S. H. Grimm.

34»

The Story of Rouen

many of its inexhaustible treasures, would be more
than doubled if that interest were expressed by some
representative body like our Society of Antiquaries.
That society would once more deserve well of its
country, in the interests of both history and art, if it
would come forward with some suggestion either to
the Ministre des Beaux Arts, or to the local authori-
ties. The Maison Bourgtheroulde is now in the safe
hands of the Comptoir d'Escompte de Rouen. Every
English traveller goes there to change his notes ; and
every Englishman must see with regret that the
English portion of these valuable carvings is the one
that is most damaged. This was inevitable from their
position ; but further injury can at once be prevented
by shielding them with glass. If these modest pages
which bring the subject before the notice of a some-
what wider, and perhaps a more influential public,
succeed in suggesting some movement that will, I am
confident, be welcomed in the best spirit by French-
men on the spot, I shall feel that the *< Story of
Rouen " has not been told in vain.

There is another house belonging to a famous
citizen in Rouen, which is very different, but perhaps
even more characteristic of the place; and with our
walk towards it we may resume that discovery of the
life of the town which I am just now concerned that
you should realise. To reach the Maison Caradas
you have a pleasant choice of paths. As you stand
outside the Maison Bourgtheroulde and look east
towards the Cathedral towers, the first street that
goes south towards the river is the Rue Herbi^re,
on your right out of the Place de la Pucelle, and
that will bring you out by the Douane on the Quais.
An even better way is to take the Rue de la Vicomte
quite parallel to this, but further east, which passes the
western gate of St. Vincent, and is full of interesting
old houses from the Rue de la Grosse Horloge to the
342

Life

river. As you pass down it now there are some
wonderful old houses on your right, and a fine court-
yard at No. 25. Still a third choice is the Rue
Harenguerie, which takes the same direction from
the south door of St. Vincent, and by this I usually
passed myself, for the sake of weaving stories in my
mind about No. 21, a house that Balzac would have
delighted to describe, with an open staircase in the
comer of its old courtyard.

The names of streets have often a fascination in
themselves, and this one has probably been called
the same ever since the herring market was set
upon the quays in 1408. I wish I had had space
to tell you more of these old names, which nearly
all preserve a little local history, when they have not
been stupidly and unnecessarily changed. But you
may take this as a type of what many another will
suggest, and in the laborious pages of the excellent
M. P^riaux you may discover much more for your-
self. The sale of herrings, which was always a large
and an increasing business on the northern coasts,
was organised in 1348, and by 1399 a barrel of
"harengs caques" was sold for no sols. "Brusler
tout vifz comme harans soretz," says Rabelais, of
the poor regents of Toulouse University; and your
salt herring from Guernsey, Scotland, and Biscay
was in much request at the old market on the
quay between the Porte St. Vincent and the Porte
du Crucifix, where on large tables and slabs of stone
the fishwives hired places from the Sergents de la
Vicomte d'Eau to sell their eels from the Marne,
congers from La Rochelle, trout from Andelys, fresh
herrings from Le Havre. You may see the scene still
in a stained-glass window of the Cathedral, and you
may well imagine the state of mind of the old poet : —

" Nul n'orra toute la dyablerie
Ny le caquet de la Pessonnerie."

343

The Story of Rouen

Like everything else, it was under holy patronage,
and fishwives prayed at the shrine of St. Julxn
I'Hospitalier, the saint whose story Flaubert, another
child of Rouen, has so wonderfully told. The wag^
of the seventeenth century called these ladies ^^noo
angeliques mais harangeriques " ; but on fast-days
every burgess and innkeeper and monk was glad
enough to go to them; for was there not even ao
"Abbaye aux Harengs** no further off than Mantes,
and what better present could the Archbishop think of
sending to his friend the Archdeacon than 2000 salted
herrings in a specially holy barrel ?

All the sound of the chaffering and howling of
prices has gone into silence long ago in the old
Rue Harenguerie of to-day, and you will be glad
to turn into more lively quarters by taking the
corner to your left, eastwards, down the Rue des
Charettes. It is lighted up every now and then by
a break in the houses and a glimpse of the river to
your right, though it is more of masts and sails than
water you will see. As you walk along, the name of
a street that turns northwards on your left hand should
be familiar if you have followed me thus far ; for it is
called Jacques Lelieur, as is only right and proper, to
commemorate the name and fame of one who did a
great deal of good in the Rouen of his own day, and
has made it much more interesting to ours. iHis house
is No. 18 in the Rue Savonnerie, which continues
the Rue des Charettes in the same direction, and
you will know it by the tablet on the wall. It
has two fine gables with excellent woodwork upon
the street-facade ; though showing slight traces here
and there of restoration, it was well worth keeping
in good order as the house of an artistic burgess of
the sixteenth century who lived up to his position in
the town.

To Jacques Lelieur we owe it that I am able to
344

Life

show you part of the most complete representation of a
town in 152 c which is known to exist. For he drew
the course of the various fountains and water-conduits
in Rouen, not only in plan, but adding the elevation
of the various houses, as may be seen on map F in
Chapter IX., so that you may actually walk down
every street and see what he saw three hundred and
seventy years ago. All that part which was lucky
enough to be comprised in his plan of the waterworks
is accurately preserved in his naif and faithful drawings,
in which the scaffoldings are put in as carefully as the
finished buildings. The rows of gables that occur so
often are not quite planed away into rectilinear dulness
yet, as you may see along the Rue des Faux, or even
Eau de Rebec here and Uiere. But the greater part of
what he drew is only a melancholy memory, and the
background of the old life of Rouen can only be re-
called fi'om his drawing now to frame some such sketch
as the present one of the inhabitants who have vanished
with it. The view of the town at the end of this
chapter contains a little microscopic vignette in the
centre showing the artist presenting his famous Livre
des Fontaines to the civic dignitaries. It is on foiu*
long bands of parchment, of which the Hotel
de Ville carefully preserves one, and the fourth
is in the City Library. The drawings are done in
black ink, with the houses coloured a pale yellow, the
roofs shown with red tiles or bluish slates, the grass
touched with yellowish-green. Besides being a secre-
tary and notary of the Royal Courts, Lelieur held
office in the town as councillor, sheriff, and finally
President of the General Assembly in the absence of
the bailli and lieutenant in 1542. He was crowned
for his poem in the famous poetic tourney of the Puy
des Palinods de Rouen, and he owned two or three
fine estates outside the town.

The object of our little pilgrimage is nearly reached

345

The Story of Rouem

DOW, aod afler you have admired the carviDga
front of No. 4I, atop at the qtiaiot dweliiDg markc
29. This is the Maiaon Caradaa, and its position at
corner with the open apace of the river beyond it
enables you to see it well all round. The slope of 1'
ground upwards, which I noUced in earlier chaptei
especially pronounced here, ^nd shows how much
bankment had to be done before the town was real])>^
rescued from the swamps and mud-flats of the Setae.
The fashion of building each upper storey to DTerlap
the one beneaili is very evident here, and the effecu 1
suggested in the last chapter may be vividly realised |
as Regnier^ putt; it with his usual frankness: —

n td dugout

This ia

e of the houses drawn in Lclieur's book al
of the Rue Tuile, with the Fontaine Liaieux
near it, that is now merely a grotesque ruin of its
former splendours. So much uncertainty is exhibited
by the beat local authorities aa to the real owner of the
MaiaoD Caradas that I shall not pretend to solve the
problem here. It is clear, however, that the word n
a surname, or one of the by-namea so common in the
first years of the sixteenth century when this was built ;
and it is possible that it preserves one more auggestioo
of the connection between Rouen and Spain, and
means " amiable," as in the phrase, " Bien o nuJ ,
carado." For the root of the word is evidently !o the
Greek X'^F'^' ^nd is found in the Gaelic " cara" ftta
friend or ally), and the Breton "Caradoc," who was
the CaractacuB of Roman days.

If yovi will follow me a little fiirther in the same

' Regnier bad come to Rouen to be treated by Lesonneur,
a famous local specialist ; but he unfortunately eelebiatej his
recovery with a little loo much Vln d'Espagne, and died in
the Rue de la Prison in 1613.

Ufl

direction, as the Rue de la SaTonoerie becomes the
Rue des Tapiaaiers, you will find the corner of the
aged Rue du Hallage on your left marked by an ancient
parrot in a decrepit cage. He has been living there for
BO long that he is certain to be there to blink at any new
arrival in the next half century, and as you pa»s him
you will remember the pairot who was discovered in
Central America, fiill of years and knowledge, in a

village where not a single inhabitant understood what
the bird said. He had been Tound among the ruined
houses of a people who had vanished utterly, and be
had become the sole repository of syllables that have
been never heard elsewhere. If anyone could really
understand him, I have often fancied that this ^ed
547

The Story of Routu

bag of feathers at the coraer of the Rue da Hallage
could use the most astonishing language about the
things that he has seen, for he could hardly be in a
better place in Rouen than this strange street that
crawls beneath shadowed archways to the Marcli6 aox
Balais and the Rue de I'Epicerie. It takes its name
from the Maison du Haulage, where the merchaott
paid town dues upon their goods, and a few steps
further in the Rue des Tapissiers will bring yoa to the
Halles themselves, to which you enter through a huge
black archway that gapes upon the Place de la Bane
Vieille Tour. Upon the left are some of those old
^'avant soliers" which you have seen in Jacques
Lclieur's drawing of the Place du Vieux I^arche, the
covered causeways formed by projecting walls propped
up by heavy timbers. There is much hideously vulgar
modern decoration to spoil the full e£Fect» but tJie main
outlines of the old building are all there, and you may
imagine what it looked like for yourself.

On each side, as you enter the dark tunnel, great
warehouses stretch out to right and left, still on the
same spot where Charles V. gave Rouen the Halle aox
Drapiers in 1367. Since then they have been con-
stantly filled and constantly rebuilt. Beneath your feet
are immense vaults that have been used since 1857
for storing oil and goods under warrant, and in the
South Hall are piled the famous " Rouenneries "
and coloured cottons, and those "draperies'* which
have been famous almost since Edward the Confessor
allowed the Rouen merchants to use his Port of
Dungeness, and the town was granted the monopoly
of the Irish trade, with the exception of one ship a
year from Cherbourg.

When Warwick the Kingmaker made a memorable

visit to Rouen in I467 as an ambassador. King Louis

XI. ordered the town to furnish the English with all

they wanted at his expense, with the result that ^* tons

348

Life

les gens de I'ambassade s'en retouradrent chez eux,
y^tus de damas et de velours^ et de ces draps fins et
precieux qui asseurent au commerce de Rouen la supe-
riorite sur toutes les villes du royaume." That "supe-
riority " lasted well through the sixteenth century, and
when Huguenots fled from Rouen to Westminster
and Rye and Winchester, they were nearly all cloth-
makers and silk- weavers. Such names as the Rue aux
Anglais, the Rue aux Espagnols and others preserve
the memory of commercial ventures that are even more
picturesquely suggested by the ships carved here and
there upon old house-fronts in the town. Nor did
Rouen conmierce stop at England, Spain, Portugal,
Ireland, Flanders, or other countries of the old world.
Her citizens, as we have seen, had known long ago a
" King of the Canaries,** and it was no doubt at the
suggestion of either Spanish or Portuguese companions
that Rouen ships saileid on towards the Guinea Coast,
to the Cape Verde Islands, and "the Indies,** even
across the Atlantic to Brazil, whence they brought
back the rare wood called by Jean de Lery "ara-
boutan."^

^ The native name for this staple of trade was ^ ibirapitanga,''
and with it they shipped across monkeys and parroquets for
the ladies of the French Court. That there was a considerable
rivalry with Portugal in these matters may be gathered from
the remark in Marino Cavalli (Venetian Ambassador to the
Court of France^ that a Portuguese vessel was burnt off Brazil
in 1546. But tne first document on Brazil ever published in
France was the account of the savages exhibited before Henri
IL in 1550. It is probably written by Maurice S^ve and
Claude de Tillemont and was published in 1551. Before that
year it will be remembered that the only works about America
known were the book of Fernandez in Spanish, Ramusio's
account in Italian, and the letters of Cortes in German. After
it, Thevet's <♦ France Antarticque ** appeared in 1558, and
Nicolas Barrd's letters in 1557. So that the book of the
entry of Henri II. has the importance of filling a gap in
*' American Literature.''

349

The Story of Rouen

Though various *< savages " were seen there
the most famous occasion of the appearance of real
Brazilians in the streets of Rouen was the particulaily
magnificent reception given by the citizens to Henii
II. and Catherine de Medicis in October 1550. They
were accompanied by Marie de Lorraine, daughter ik
the Due de Guise and Queen-Dowager of Scotland,
who met at Rouen her little daughter Marie Stoait
then eight years old and receiving a perilous education
at the French Court which she was soon to rule during
the short reign of Frangois II. Marguerite de France^
daughter of Francois I. was there too, and Diane de
Poitiers, just over fifty years of age, who maintained
over the King the same influence she had exercised
over the Dauphin when she first came to Court from
Normandy. It is interesting to note that her nephew
Louis d'Auzebosc was pardoned by the Fierte St
Romain seven years afterwards.

Besides the « theatres" and "Myst^res," which
you will remember were presented to Fran9oi8 I., the
citizens determined that in case mythology and sym-
bolism had lost their pristine charms, an absolutely
novel entertainment should be given to the King on
this occasion. So on the fields between the Convent
des Emmurees and the left bank of the Seine a great
sham fight was arranged between a number of Norman
sailors and fifty " Brazilian savages ** of the newly dis-
covered tribe of Tupinambas, " naivement depinct au
naturel," which may be understood as "clad only in
their own skins and a few stripes of paint." They
must have felt the climate of Rouen in October
slightly raw, but no doubt the sham fight kept them
warm, and everything seems to have gone off very
pleasantly. The ladies were especially interested in
these unknown creatures, and the King devotedly
displayed the triple crescent of his lady Diana through-
out the entire performance. There was much singing of

350

Life

anthems and decoration of the streets, but the Indians
were evidently the " pi^ce de resistance." ^

Besides the music in the town, of which I repro-
duce an example at the end of this chapter, an enter-
tainment was provided for the King and Queen and all
the ladies in the great Palais de Justice, with which
those rogues, the gay members of the " Basoche,"
must have been heartily in sympathy. For Brusquet,
the Court jester, went into the Advocate's Box, and
before the Queen upon the seat of justice, with all her
ladies round her, he pleaded several important causes
both for the prosecution and for the defence, " et
faisait rage d'alleguer loix, chapitres, et decisions, et
luy croissoit le latin en la bouche comme le cresson a
la guelle d'un four," the whole being a satire on the
well-known Norman passion for a law-suit, which was

1 In that year was carved for No. 17 Rue Malpalu the
« enseigne " of the Brazilian savages, which has only disap-
peared in the last few years. It is difficult to say that any
ecclesiastical carvings are meant for Indians, for I have seen
figures with plumes and tattooing and tomahawks in a French
church of the thirteenth century which were merely meant
for peculiarly gruesome devils ; but the feathered dresses and
bow and arrows of the figures in the Church of St. Jacques at
Dieppe are of an age that may very well agree with this ap-
pearance of Brazilians as public characters in France.

In 1565 Godefroy*8 <<C^r^monial de France " records that
they were again shown to Charles IX. at Troyes, and Mon-
taigne's questions to them in 1563 will be remembered. They
replied that what astonished them most was (Essais I. xxx.)
to see so many strong men armed and bearded (meaning the
Swiss guard probably) obeying a puny litde person like the
King. They were also fairly puzzled at seeing men gorged
with plenty and living in ostentation on one side of the road,
and starveling ruffians begging their bread in the gutter on the
other without attempting to take the rich men by the throat,
or even bum their houses. On which the essayist's comment
is << Tout cela ne va pas trop mal ; mais quoy! Us ne portent
[)oint de hault de chausses," a truly Rabelaisian reason for their
want of intellect I

3S«

The Story of* Rouen

appreciated as much by the good people of Rouen ai

by their royal visitors.

But to finish this chapter with a glimpee of the
people themselves, I must take you back to that old
Rue du Hallage, in which our memories of Rooen'i
trading voyages suggested the festivities of this royal
entry. And I can imagine few greater contrasts than
that from the spacious courtyard of the Palais de Justice
to the view of the queer twisting streets and commoD
habitations that you will get by standing in the Place
de la Calende and looking down the Rue de I'Epicerie
towards the river. As you wander down it you must
look at No. 14, an excellent type of early sixteenth-
century building, with its old figured tiles and high
gable, and the division between the ground floor and the
next storey strongly marked by carvings and brackets.
You are now not only in a typical part of the old city, but
on ground that has borne the name since the fourteenth
century, and earned it (as did the Rue Harenguerie)
from the kind of commerce carried on there. You
have already passed the Rue des Fourchettes on your
right, and a little further on is a still more fascinating
name, the Marche aux Balais, where brooms were sold
in 1644, after their modest commerce had been for-
bidden near St. Martin sur Renelle. On one of the
small houses round it is the date 1602, and near it the
carving of a salamander, which evidently gave its name
to the Rue de la Salamandre, which had originally been
known as "Mauconseil" ever since 1280, a name that
is almost as appropriate to its darkness now as *< Sala*
mandre " must have been suggestive of its condition in
the sixteenth century. It needs very little imagination
to conceive amid these surroundings just such a ** Cour
de Miracle " in Rouen as Victor Hugo described in
Paris. And, indeed, it js but quite lately that a con-
glomeration of tottering and leprous houses, with-
out owners, and never entered by the police, was

Ufe

torn down. The Rue CoDpe-Gor|e, the Rue de
rAumone, especially the horrible Clog Sc Marc,
have not long been swept away. Every cellar and
every attic aeemed to communicate by tortuous and
filthy paBsages with the next. No visitor was ad-
mitted who had not the hall-mark of crime visibly
upon him, or was not a member of that loatfasome
confraternity of j^,

thieves and beggars
who lived by their
raids upon society
at large.

Straight out of
the March6 aux
Balais the Rue du
Hallage burrows
under the ancient '
houses towards the
river, hemmed in by
walls on all aides,
that catch up every
breath of air that
moves, and shut out
nearly all the light.
The backs of its
crowded dwellings
you can see from
the great square
into which the Rue de I'Epicerie directly leads, the
Place de la Haute Vleille Tour, where yon must go
forthwith and see the beautiful little building that was
set up for the great ceremony of the Fierte St.
Romain.

This was the ceremony that gave their one great day

in all the year to the drowsy archways of the Rue du

Hallage ; for the Marche aux Balais and the Rue

Salamaodre and the Rue de I'Epicerie itself, were

* 353

The Story of Rouen

all crowded to sufiPocation. Every AscensioD-tide,
from the reign of the Norman dukes until the ReTola-
tion, not these streets only, but every window in the
houses, and the very roofs above, were crammed with
people waiting for the great annual procession in which
the prisoner was set free. I have quoted many extracts
from the records kept by the Chapterhouse of theie
occasions, because the list has provided typical ifi«»tfl»w^
of men and manners in Rouen from the thirteenth
century onwards. And I can close my tale of the
most brilliant portion of Rouen's history in no better
way than by suggesting to you something of the interest
and the excitement created by a processional cere-
mony, which may itself be taken as typical of the
people's life.

From the earliest hour at the breaking of the dawn
of Ascension Day, the whole of Rouen was thinking
and talking of nothing else except the prisoner, and in
every quarter of the city the interest in him took a
different form. All the countryside of Vexin and of
Caux had trooped into the town with women and
children in their Sunday best. From the attic
windows of the Rue de I'Epicerie girls in flapping
white head-dresses leant across the road and screamed
their good fortune to the neighbours opposite ; for
these were some of the best places to see the cere-
mony, and in 1504 the crowd who scrambled for
them was so great that the roofs fell in. The open
square itself was gradually filling up ; the gay Cau-
choises who were chambermaids at the Auberge de la
Herche were doing a roaring trade; soldiers of the
Cinquantaine in green velvet doublets were taking
their morning draught at the Trois Coulombs, before
each man shouldered his arquebus and went off to
keep his guard; even the Crieurs des Trepasses had
come out into the light, their strange black cloaks all
sewn with silver skulls. At last eight o'clock struck,
354

Life

and there was a general movement towards the Parvis,
for the luckiest in the front rows of the crowd could
look through the Chapterhouse door and actually see
the preliminary meeting of the canons about the
choice of their prisoner. But the door was soon shut,
and at last the crowd could only hear the solemn
notes of the ** Veni Creator '* sounding from within,
as the good ecclesiastics prayed for divine direction in
their solemn office. At last a name was written
down, sealed up and given to the Chaplain de la
Confr^rie de St. Romain, who passed solemnly out
with the fatal missive in his hand, and the canons at
once proceeded to fill up the interval of waiting with a
huge dinner.

Followed by a number of the citizens the chaplain
took his way towards the Palais de Justice. There,
too, ever since eight o'clock everyone had been ex-
tremely busy. Two by two the members of the
High Court of Parliament in their scarlet robes had
marched out of the Council Chamber, with their four
state officials in violet preceding them, and a guard of
the Cinquantaine before. In this chapel they all
heard the " Messe du Prisonnier," and then sat down
to the enormous repast called the " Festin du cochon,"
with which (on a smaller scale), every public body
and every household in Rouen fortified themselves
for the doings of that splendid day. By the end of
dinner the chaplain and his cartel had arrived, and the
whole courtyard of the Palais was ringed with crowds
of people. Accompanied by his Prevot and four
other members of the Confr^rie St. Romain, the
chaplain was escorted into the great hall, the name
was solemly read out, and the officials of the Parlia-
ment went to the particular gaol in which the prisoner
happened to be kept. Bareheaded, with his irons still
upon one leg, the man was brought quickly to the Con-
ciergerie, that his name might be enregistered as a

355

The Story of Rouen

formal prisoner of the Palais ; for all the legal bodki
were particularly touchy about their own prerogatiYes.
When a man could not walk he was carried, as was
Antoine de Lespine in 1602, who had been wounded
in a duel two days before, and could only be got to
the Conciergerie in a clothes-basket.

After certain solemn preliminaries the prisoner was
brought into the great hall, and while all the conn-
cillors stood up he knelt before the president to receiTc
admonition for his past sins and pardon for the future.
Still bareheaded, he was then led out by the ** huissien"
of the court through the great open space in ^nt, and
as his foot touched the pavement of the street beyond,
a signal set the great bell Georges d'Amboise ringing
from the Cathedral tower. At the sound, every
steeple in Rouen rocked with answering salutations
^^Rurajam late venerantur omen.** From every parish
church for miles round the ringers, waiting for the
^* bourdon's '' note, sent out a joyful peal in chorus,
and every villager drank bumpers to the prisoner's
health. Himself, a little dazed we may imagine with
this sudden tumult in the streets and in his heart too
at deliverance from death, he marched along with the
arquebusiers beside him, through a cheering crowd
towards the old Halles. There the authority of the
law let go its grip, and he was handed over to the
chaplain and the deputies of the Confr^rie St. Romain,
who took him to an inner room. There he was given
refreshment, his chains were struck off and wound
round one arm, and he was dressed in fresh clothes.

Meanwhile, after the Cathedral choir had sung a
solemn Te Deum, the great procession of the church
had moved out of the Portail des Libraires, chanting in
mighty unison **Chri8te quern sedes revocant patemae,"
down the Rue St. Romain to the western gate of St
Maclou, where choir-boys met them bearing lighted
candles and swinging incense. And the chaplain

356

Life

brought the prisoner out into the Place de la Haute
Vieille Tour, and leading him up the right-hand steps
of the Chapelle de la Fierte, presented him to the mass
of people in front just before the procession arrived
from the Cathedral. So he knelt bareheaded and
kissed the holy shrine which two priests had borne up
to its place; the Archbishop addressed him in the
hearing of his fellow citizens, and before them all he
made confession, receiving his absolution as he raised
the shrine of St. Romain thrice by its bars upon his
shoulders, while all the people cried " Noel ! Noel ! "
Then a confrere de St. Romain put a garland of white
flowers upon the prisoner's head, and holding one end
of the shrine himself he gave the prisoner the other,
and all men put themselves in order for the march back
up the Rue de I'Epicerie to the Place de la Calende
and so to the Parvis and the western gate of the
Cathedral.

As the first notes of the " Felix Dies Mortalibus "
were chanted by the priests, a hundred and twenty poor
orphans moved forward, each carrying in one hand a
wooden cross all wreathed with flowers and in the
other a great loaf of bread. Behind them came the
shrines of all the saints whose churches guarded Rouen,
each with the Confr^rie over whose interests they
watched ; St. Blaise with his wool-merchants, St. Jean
with the orange-sellers, St. Sebastien with the hatters,
and many more ; each marching confrere wreathed in
flowers, and every shrine attended with its special
banner and its priests and candles. These were followed
by the archers of the Cinquantaine, and the banner of
their great Dragon, who appeared again upon a lofty
pole, swallowing a fish ; by a band of sweet music and
of singers chanting melodiously their "cantiques and
motets " ; by all the burgesses of Rouen walking
decorously two by two; by the choir-boys of the
Cathedral and two hundred of the clergy, the canons

357

The Story of* Rouen

in violety and the greater dignitaries in soutanes of red
silk ; by the ofHciating canon, and lastly by the Arch-
bishop himself, blessing the people as he went along.

As the chanting died away, after a short intoral
came the beadle all in violet livery bearing the great
" Gargouille " of the town, and followed by a rabble
of laughing, screaming lads in modey, swinging bladders,
and throwing flowers and cakes about the street — that
note of ribaldry without which no such procession was
complete — ^and then came suddenly a silence, for the
most holy shrine of St. Romain passed by, borne by
the prisoner and a priest. The last seven prisoners
followed him, bareheaded and with torches. And then
the laughter and the cheering broke out again as more
burgesses tramped along with bouquets in their hands,
and young girls all in white with garlands of flowers
about their bosoms scattered blossoms on the bystanders,
and more guards and soldiers closed up the procession
and kept the crowd from breaking through its ranks.

By this time the first line had reached the Parvis,
and as the voices of two priests singing on the sunmiit
of the Tour St. Romain floated down upon the people,
all men passed in through the Portail de St. Romain (A
the Western Front, under the great shrine held cross-
wise, so that all who went beneath received the blessed
influence. When everyone had entered, and the shrine
was once more on the High Altar, the Grand Mass
was sung, and the prisoner was once more publicly
exhorted by the Archbishop, before he was taken away
again by the Confr^rie St. Romain to a great feast in
the Master's House which was the real celebration of
his return to freedom.

The life of a sixteenth -century French town has
often been described before, but I am particularly
fortunate in being able to sketch you something of
what went on in Rouen, not merely with the back-
ground of Lelieur's drawing, but even with the sound

3S8

Life

of the music which was heard in her streets ; and, if I
mistake not, the one is as unknown to English readers
as the other. It has been said that Guillaume le Franc,
a musician of Rouen, actually composed the tune known
as the "Old Hundredth," originally set to the 134th
Psalm in the Geneva Psalter, and used by English
Protestants for the looth about 1 562. It was Handel's
opinion that Luther composed it, and to Claude
Goudimel, who was assassinated in the St. Bartholomew
of Lyons, the honour has also been attributed; but
local patriotism insists upon le Franc, and after reading
the specimen of local musical talent I shall give you,
I believe you will be readier to allow that Guillaume
le Franc may have done what his fellow-citizens
believe.

The madrigal I have printed here was written in a
rare old book I found in the Library of Rouen.^ It
was most kindly copied out for me on the spot by
M. Baurain, and Mr J. A. Fuller- Maitland was so
good as to decipher the ancient notation and provide
me with a score that anyone can play and sing to-day.
He has also written the last paragraph of this chapter,
and with his learned explanation I may leave you to

1 Its title-page is too good to be lost, and runs as follows,
without the charming spacing and lettering of the original : —

" Cest La Deduction du sumptueux ordre plaisantz spectacles
et magnificques theatres dresses et exhibes par les citoiens de
Rouen ville Metropolitaine du pays de Normandie, A la sacree
Maiest^ du Treschristian Roy de France Henry secod leur
souverain seigneur, Et a Tresillustre dame, maDame Katharine
de Medicis, La Royne son espouse, lors de leur triumphant
joyeux et nouvel advenement en icelle ville, Qui fut es fours
d'Octobre, Mil cinq cens cinquante, £t pour plus expresse
intelligence de ce tant excellent triumphe, Les figures et
pourtraictz des principaulx aornements d'iceluy y sont apposez
chascun en son lieu comme Ton pourra veoir par le discours de
I'histoire. . . . Avec priuilege du Roy. On les vend a rouen
chez Robert le Hoy Robert et Jehan dictz du Gord tenantz
leur Boutique Au portail des Libraires. iSSi'"

359

The Story of Rotten

the enjoyment of a song that has neyer been pubfiibed
since 155 if and t|iat will reproduce for joa^ for the
first time since then, the sound of the welcome giten
to Henri II. and Catherine de Med^ds as they entered
their good town of Rouen in 1 5 50.

In the history of music this four-part song is
interesting as giving evidence of the general cultiva-
tion in music that must have prevailed among the
French people at the time. In the present day we
are apt to think of the madrigal or motet writers as
a class of specialists working at elaborate harmonic
and contrapuntal problems for their own delight, but
as having little influence on the national acceptance
of music. Nothing could be further from the truth,
as far as England, the Netherlands and Italy were
concerned; and in France, where the art of the
simple tunes of the troubadours represents for lu the
typical national* music of medixval times, it is im-
portant to have a document which shows as clearly
as this does the kind of music which was recognized
as suitable for a great pageant. In style, the French
school of the sixteenth century differs not at all from
that of the Netherlands, of which it is generally re-
garded as an ofF-shoot (see Grove, "Diet, of Music
and Musicians," vol. iii., p. 267). In the works
of Pierre Certon, Claude Goudimel, and others,
would be found many compositions constructed on
similar lines to the example here given ; that is to
say, that the rules of madrigal writing are strictly
observed, although the preference for massive treat-
ment of the opening of each line seems to point to
the use for which it was intended, viz., to be sung
in the open air. There are not many instances of
works of this class apparently meant for female voices
only, and there may have been some reason for this
connected with the general plan of the ceremony.
The little piece is in the Dorian mode, and in the
360

Ufi

original

clearly and correctly
Tour separate giana on
double page. In GCor-
the accidentals, which do
the original, have
added in brackets. It is, of
impoasible to sucmiBe who
may have been the author, but it is
that, wlioever he Was, he
leniarkable skill in
■writing effei
aider '

which he worked, with nothing
lower than the second alto part
for hi a baas, it is aurprlaing to
notice the sonority of austained
tone that is got by skilful dis-
position of the harmonies, while
the beautiful antiphonal effect at
the point "Vive !e Roi " is of
a kind that must appeal to hearers
of .ill classes and periods alike.

A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY MADRIGAL

Soprano i.

Soprano 2.

Alto i.

g , ^ -

^ * la

Lou • ange et gloi - re

en ac

f-^^^z^:'^^^

zi.

rzz:

Alto 2.

Lou - ange et gloi

re en

'37=1*

Lou - ange et gloi - re en ac -ti - on . . dc

'3.^:

Lou - ange et gloi - re en

ac-ti • on

Pianoforte
Accompani-
ment (for
^sractice only).

paix vray

(b)

32:

is:

-G G-

jsz::

teur :

Par qui la Fran -

t> o G r J

JZ.

~ja'.

-G G —

-G & >3

H 1 Q

la paix vray .

**5

(*)r

teur : Par qui la Fran -

if^

-G G-

-d— J

la paix .... vray

au-teur: Par qui la Fran -

(?)

:f*^:

paix vray

"^SL

fsr -7jr ~d- ~^- -&-
au - teur: Par qui la Fran -

■X

-G-

9^E:

■G G-

?2=

!*=W

■G G-

H ^

r— t

■2±

*it

<3I (S(-

I I (

i I I

z=— _CL- _q— 4— ^-
-J5- -^- -^- -^ -«-

j2-

— ^H

-G-

en seur re - pos em - bras

se,

Ses

=^=P=^P=

£e:

seur

re - pos em -bras

se,

Ses

ce en seur re ' pos

:2^z:

bras

se, Ses

%■-

~0'
ce

"s^-s^-:^

seur re » pos

9 ^-

-(S-

tG—.-

iq:

^2-

«?-

Q-

ri-

^^^

bras

i: ~cr

«>-

se, Ses

i=^

G—G-

T P^ gg

3=^==^^!^

-& — (©-

'is:

22:

Tza:

ve son Roy de

:22:

son Roy, vi - ve, V^ - ve son Roy de

-Q — Q-

32:

-&-

:zc

Vi - ve son Roy, Vi • ve son

Roy de

son Roy, vi

ve,

-& r—G

Vi - ve son Roy

Or-

-O-

;g^E£

:er

fe:

-G — &

H H-

22ZZZ2:

22:

ce bien pro - tec - teur

Soubz qui de paix

:6=P

iq:

:2Z

ja P"

ce bien pro - tec - teur

Soubz qui de paix • .

-G G-

2ZZt

l_X_^ ^_

-JO.

■■■-4

ce bien pro - tec - teur Soubz qui de

tor

paix

ce bien

pro - tec - teur Soubz qui de

-G-

J — <«3 («= a J

paix

di-

* This note is G in the originaL

%6<i

^^^^m

■& — ©-

pies jou - 3rss

22ZS

di - vers^. , peu

1 — ' — I \

. . . di - vers . . peu

pies . . jou

-&-

22:

yss

.p—

±:i.-=diz=z2-

:±z^-zi

Tjstr,

• ^ Q -

di - vers . . . peuples jou - yss

::r-rp2:

-<©-T-

ent

Dont luy est

deu .

qr-

-« — &-

-G-

22:

■S>-

eht

Dont luy est

deu .

cy - bas -

ent

22Zr22

Dont luy est

deu cy - bas . . joye

• * •

..ry

Ei3

■G-

<L..r)_

Dont luy est deu . . . .

—o--e>- _

4-4.

©-^-F-H-F-l—

cy - bas

-I-.

joye

-E?-T-

t-h-+-

- g> O

P-

j^fzs.

-o- -jP.-f-pr

J~^|-

-G—Gh

-#■

The previous croichel suggests xYx^x. \\xv& uox* ickoxi^^ \ifc "^ ^a^x,

i66

:5~p~ pit.g

■l O ■ Q l O ^

z:r:;xr±=z=

bas joye et hon-neur, Puis que les

-&-

cielz

nC?-

:p:

-lO .©-r

• ©h

©-

■iS—^—G-

joye et hon-neur, ....

Puis que les

SEES

id:

€>--

:22zi:dii32

"ZT"

?:^-d"

hon-neur, Puis que les cielz . . de la paix

et . . hon - neur,

Si^

-t© — o-

1.^-^ I

Puis que les cielz

■&—& — &-

n©— C-

-4-.

izt

^ f=^

"?^ <^

in:

d-zif

i=t

" G l O i-g> B a^

"©

la paix s'^

siou-yss - ent,

Puis que

^^^^^^^^^^

±t

cielz de la paix s'6 - siou - yss

i^^^

3ti

^—■—J—■2—■i-r;^

-r~i —

ent,

s'6

siou

-p---

©"

yss

ent, Puis que les

q=3E;;

^S^— !S^.--<=-*-d— ^^

i--=f

de la . .

-lO-rS'-©

paix s'6-siou - yss

I I. !

~0~

ent,

EEnEae

^§p

+-©-
122:

-do

Puis

Q" -I

--■c>

tt^

if^^^b^i^:

"O"

^^1

■^.

1©- is-

les cielz . . de la paix s'^

siou-yss - ent

«— ©-

Puis que les cielz de la paixs'^-siou- yss • ent

-(b) r- 1 I ■ I , (p-r

cielz de la paixs'6

::fe-

'm=f^^^'^^

siou • yss • ent

— (t) —

isr

. que les . . cielz

de la

paix 8*^sioa-yss • ent

j4g-jiJijgJ

^^^

Note. — /or /i&^ benefit of those not learned in Six^
teenth^ Century Musky it may be interesting to hint that
the melody is written here for the Second Soprano, and to
addyfor their encouragement^ that the experiment of per~
forming this Madrigal^ unaccompanied^ with tivo laSes^
and two male voices in the Alto parts y proved perfectly
successful^ thanks to the science oj Mr Fuller-Maitland
and the goodwill of the singers.

CHAPTER XIV
Literature and Commerce

Tille blen marchande
le de la mer grande

D'alier chercher bien loin Tambra, la poreelaine,
Le Sucre, la mmcade, et rant d'excellents vim . . .
. . Soye, oQate, tabac, dtapa de laine, polsson,
Bois, bledi, sel, bescars, lout lu^ Tieiit \ foison.

SUCH popular feativala as that 1 have just described
upOD Ascension Day are of very ancient origin,
even if they do not date back to that earliest" FSte aux
Normands," whose institution you will remember in
1070. Two years afterwards began the Confr^rie de
la Vierge to which Pierre Dare, Lieutenant- Genera I
for the King, gave fresh lustre when he was elected its
Master in i486. Though older poems ('ike that of
Robert Wace) are connected with the ConfrSrie, to
2 A 369

The Story of Rouen

him 18 due the beginning of those <^ Palinods ** sung b
honour of the Virgin in the Church of St. Jean des
Pres, which were called the " Puy de Conception,'* like
the Puy d' Amour of the Provencal troubadours. The
name probably originated in the refrain which ran
through all the various metres allowed in the poems
which were sent in for competition, as Pierre Grognet
describes in 1533 —

<< On y presente les rondeaulx
Beaulx pallinotz et chans royauix
£t sappelle celle journee
La feste du Puy honor^."

In these rhymes are preserved just those details of the
people's life for which we have been looking. Great
events and mighty personages in the world outside are
passed unnoticed. The important trivialities of the
householder's existence are the main theme of every
verse. The Muse Normande of David Ferrand is a
collection of such fragments of many ^^ Concours des
Palinods" from its beginning till his death in 1660.
They are chiefly written in that ** langue purinique ou
gros normand " which was the distinctive patois of the
working classes, and especially of those ^* purins " or
** ouvriers de la draperie " who dwelt in the parishes of
Martainville, of St. Vivien, and St. Nicaise in the city.
You may hear it to this day in the villages of Caux.
Here the gossip of the populace is reproduced, and
you read of the burdens laid upon the people, of the
abundance of wine (which did away with any need
for beer), of the rivalries of corporations, of the
amusements of the town, the mysteries and Miracle
Plays, the Basoche, and the rough practical joking of
the populace.

One of the most important subjects, for our purpose,
in all David Ferrand's verse is that famous ** Boise de
Saint Nicaise," round which a seventeenth-century war
370

Literature and Commerce

waged, more bitterly and fiercely disputed than half the
contests which take up the pages of your sober royal
histories. You must know that this ^< Boise de Saint
Nicaise " was an enormous beam of wood, chained by
iron bars and links to the church walls, where every
evening the gossips used to gather in the cemetery and
talk over the scandal of the parish, or regulate the pro-
ceedings of the town. Thrice in 220 years had Rouen
been besieged, once by the English and twice by its
own countrymen, and each time the virtues of the
famous ^' boise " had saved it from pillage and desecra-
tion. Upon its black and shining length the disputes
of every century had been heard and settled : masters
had brought up their quarrels with the workmen, mer-
chants had wrangled over sharp practice in their busi-
ness, girls had been summoned to receive a lecture from
the elders of the parish on the flightiness and immodesty
of their behaviour. No parish had ever such a pal-
ladium of its dignity. And you can easily conceive
the derision and contempt with which the mighty
** boise" was treated by the boys of the rival and
neighbouring parish of St. Godard, who used to sing —

<* Les habitants de Saint Nicaise
Ont le coeur haut et fortune basse."

This was a bad pun on the choeur^ or choir, of the
church that was too good for its worshippers. For
there was a great contrast between the populations on
each side of the dividing line. St. Godard was filled
with magistrates and mighty men of law, who lived in
sumptuous houses and carved their coats of arms upon
their massive sideboards, who quoted Malherbe, and
approved the early efforts of a young man called
Corneille, and prided themselves upon the delicacy and
scholarship of their speech. In St. Nicaise, on the
contrary, you heard little save the "purinique," or
patois of the workmen ; in narrow, dark, and twisting

37 »

7be Story of Rouen

streets the drapers and weavers and dyers carried on
their trades and earned their bread by the sweat of
their brow. Their children had to work early for
their living, and helped the business of their parents
when still in the first years of their youth. No wonder
these who ** scorned delights and lived laborious days "
laughed at the effeminacy of their neighbours, saying
that

<* Aux enfants de Saint Godard
L'esprit ne venait qu* a trente ans.**

By 1632 this feeling of rivalry and mutual distrust had
been sharpened into positive hatred ; for, of course,
when the troubles of the Ligue had come, and St.
Godard had declared for its old kings and saints,
St. Nicaise had openly professed belief in Villars and
Mayenne, and almost raised a chapel to the memory of
Jacques Clement the assassin ; and you may imagine
the gibes of Royalist St. Godard when the tide of fortune
turned against the rebel parish. Athens and Sparta
were not more different, or more hostile. One day
the smouldering fires broke into flame. It was the day
of a procession when, at the very meeting line of the
two parishes, the clergy of St. Godard, splendid in
gold and embroidery, with a cross of gold before them,
and behind them a line of ladies richly dressed and
escorted by red-robed magistrates, were moving in
procession, with the banner at their head presented by
the Lady President of Gremonville, whereon the
figure of the patron saint was embroidered upon crimson
velvet hung round with cloth of gold. Consider the
disdain of these fine ladies for the modest little gather-
ing that walked, across the way, beneath a little banner
of ordinary taffetas bearing a tiny effigy of St. Nicaise,
worked in worn colours of old faded pink, and followed
by a crowd of workmen clad in blouse and sabot and
rough woollen caps. At a certain point the contrast
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became unbearable. The workmen, with a shout of
fury, made a sudden rush upon that hateful new banner
of St. Godard, tore it from the standard-bearer's hands,
and threw it in the muddy waters of the boundary-
stream. How the two processions got home after that
you may imagine for yourself. It says much for the
control of the respective clergy that there were no open
blows at once. But that night St. Nicaise was vulgarly
merry, and St. Godard wrapped its wrongs in ominous
and aristocratic silence. What the songs were that
those workmen sang in the cemetery of St. Nicaise you
can read in a queer little book written by one ^^ Abbe
Raillard" in 1557, an "Abbe des Conards," who
imitates Rabelais when he tries to be original, but is of
far more value when he merely reproduces what he
heard, to wit, " la fleur des plus ingenieux jeux chan-
sons et menus flaiollements d'icelle jeunesse puerille,
receuilly de plusieurs rues lieux et passages oil il estoit
r^pandu depuis la primitive recreation, aaze, jeunesse et
adolescence Normande rouennoise."

Here is a chorus which no doubt resounded on that
night of victory over St. Godard —

" Jay menge un oeuf
La lange dun bceuf
Quatre vingt moutons
Autant de chapons
Vingt cougnons de pain
Ancore ayge faim,"

or this, again —

" Gloria patri ma mere a petri
Elle a faict une gaiiette
Houppegay, Houppegay j'ay bu du cidre Alotel (^w)."

Unfortunately, after having gone shouting to bed,
the men of St. Nicaise slept sound without a thought
of possible reprisals. But the young bloods " across
the way " were all alert. Waiting till the change of

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The Story of Rouen

guard at St. Hilaire should make that customary noise
of clinkiDg arms and tramping feet which every citizen
would recognise and forget, sixty of the bravest cham-
pions crossed the Rubicon and advanced in the depth
of the darkness to the cemetery of St. Nicaise. With
heavy labour they broke up the sacred chains, de-
tached the time-worn rivets, and dragged off the
famous timber, the " Boise " of St. Nicaise, the pal-
ladium of the obnoxious parish. The next morning
the gossips discovered to their stupefaction that there
was no log to sit upon ! Following a few traces that
were left here and there, the horrified drapers and
tanners found the smoking remnants of their cherished
wood scattered in the square of St. Hilaire, surrounded
by a laughing crowd of the children and young men of
St. Godard. Vengeance was plotted on that very
evenings and a smart skirmish took place up and down
the streets of the aristocratic quarter, in which the
victory of the velvet doublets only roused redoubled
ardour in the men of smocks and leather aprons. The
Palais de Justice and the majesty of the Law was
obliged to intervene. The Due de Longueville, Gov-
ernor of the Province, tried to smooth over the crisis
with the gift of a new and most enormous log ; but
nothing could replace the relic that was gone. At last
the good priests of each parish set to work to heal the
breach, and soundly damned each hardened sinner who
attempted to break the good peace of the town with
further quarrels. Messire Francois de Harlai, Arch-
bishop of Rouen, aided their efforts, and at last the
feud died down ; but the event was never forgotten :

" Done qu*o mette o calendrier
Qu'o dix huitiesme de Janvier
Fut pris et ravy notte Boise
Boise dont j'etions pu jaloux
Et pu glorieux entre nous
Que Rouen n'est de Georg d'Amboise."

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David Ferraod's ** patois " has preserved a good deal
of the life and humour — racy of the soil — that gave
Rouen her character, even after the sixteenth century
was over. Something of the old life and its bravery
lingered a little longer, and in the more pretentious
Latin poems of Hercule Grisel you see how all these
fStes and jollities lasted on till well into the seventeenth
century. The F^te St. Anne, when boys dressed as
angels and girls as virgins ran about the streets ; the St.
Vivien, which was a great popular fair in Bois Guillaume
and in the city ; the Festin du Cochon, when Parliament
was dined ; the Pentecost, when birds and leaves and
flowers were rained upon the congregation from the roof
of the Cathedral ; the Feast of the Farmers, in Nov-
ember, when the principal dish of roast goose was pro-
vided by a crowd of boys who had to kill the wretched
bird by throwing sticks at it, as it fluttered helplessly
at the end of a high pole ; the Papegault, when the
Cinquantaine, or Company of Arquebusiers, went a-
shooting to settle who should be the Roi d'Oiseau,
very much as it is described in Germany in the pages
of Jean Paul Richter ; the Jeu d' Anguille in May,
when there was a jousting match upon the river like
the water tournaments of Provence; the jollities of
Easter Eve, when bands of children went about
the streets shouting derision at the now dishonoured
herring, and pitching barrels and fish-barrows into
the river; the greatest and most impressive ceremony
of all, the Levee de la Fierte, upon Ascension Day
— all these festivities made up a large part of
the life of the real Rouennais of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, which was so narrowed and
restricted in itself that it took every opportunity of
expanding into a common gaiety shared by all the
neighbours and the countryside.

The river was a scene of far greater bustle and
activity and picturesqueness than it is now. Like

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The Story of Rouen

the Thames, the Seine lost half its beauty when
the old watermen disappeared. The harbour of the
sixteenth century was always full of movement:
sailors were always spreading over the riverside
streets into the coundess inns and drinking-places ;
the river was full of boats going to and fro ; the
bank upon the farther side was the fashionable
promenade of all the ladies of the town ; the
bridges were filled with idlers who had no better
business than to look on. At the f^te called the
Gateau des Rois all the ships were lit up in the
port, and every tradesman in the town sent presents
to his customers : the druggists gave gifts of liqueurs
and condiments; the bakers brought cakes to every
door ; the chandlers brought the <^ chandeUes des
Rois " to every household. At the favourite meet-
ing-places of Fonts de Robec, or the Par vis Notre
Dame, or the Eglise St. Vivien, the housewives
gathered to watch their husbands drink and gamble,
or bought flowers from the open stalls, or chaffered
with the apprentices who stood ready for the bargain.
Meanwhile, from all the forests near, the children of
the poor were coming in with bundles of the faggots
they were allowed to gather free ; at every large
house parties were gathering, each guest with her
special contribution to the common fund of sweet-
meats and of fruit, some even had brought bottles
of the famous mineral water sold at the Church of
St. Paul, and the Confr^rie de St. Cecile was
hard-worked distributing its musicians broadcast to
the many private gatherings that called for pipe and
tabour. Then as the evening lowered, men told stories
over the hearth of the girl who had seen three suns at
once upon the morn of Holy Trinity from a neigh-
bouring hill-top, or of the luck of their compare
Jehan, whose boy, born on the day of the conver-
sion of St. Paul, was safe for all his life from

Literature and Commerce

danger of poison or of snake-bite. All these
customs and superstitions are reflected in Hercule
Grisel's Latin verses, which he begins with a need-
less apology —

<' Rotomagi patriae ▼erra volo pandere mores,
Quia captuxn patriae damnet amore suae ? **

No one will blame his patriotic love of every detail
of the life around him; and though the Latin that
he uses might well have been exchanged for his own
language, it must be remembered that even when Mal-
herbe and Comeille, Racine and Boileau, were writing
French, the older language kept a firm hold on such
men as de Thou, Descartes, Bossuet, Arnauld, and
Nicole, who desired to appeal to European audiences.
**Victnnis Latium debet habere liber" was their
motto; and by Jesuits and Oratorians, University
dignitaries and ecclesiastics, lawyers and doctors, the
same language was used as that in which Hercule
Grisel has preserved the life of the town from 1615
to 1657.

The greatest name of seventeenth-century Rouen is
Pierre Comeille,i " ce vieux Romain parmi les fran-
9ais " as Voltaire called him ; and we may be grateful
that after getting the second prize for Latin verses in
the third class of the Jesuit College,^ he gave up stilted
aflPectations for the vigorous phrases of his mother-
tongue. Though his brother Thomas passes over the
little episode in silence, his nephew Fontenelle lets us
into a literary secret which reveals Corneille's first love
af&ir in Rouen. In the comedy of "Melite," the
heroine is Catherine the daughter of the Receveur des
Aides, Eraste is the poet himself. In real life, Thomas
du Pont, the Tircis of the play, supplanted his friend

1 The portrait of him reproduced in this chapter was etched
on steel in 1644, from a drawing by Michel Lasne of Caen.

' The fine chapel of the Lyc& Corneille, with its facade
upon the Rue Bourg I'Abb^, is well worth visiting.

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The Story of Rouen

and married the lady. It was to another Rouen ac-
quaintance that Corneille owed the advice to study
Spanish plays, which resulted in his imitations of de
Castro, and no doubt the many Spanish families then
settled, for commercial reasons, in the Rue des
Espagnols and elsewhere, helped to turn the young
poet's thoughts in the same direction. His evident
knowledge of the details of legal procedure, when it
cannot be ascribed to the natural Norman turn for
lawsuits, is accounted for by his position as Avocat du
Roi and one of the Admiralty Court (called the
« Marble Table") of Rouen. Though in the « Cid"
his law is Spanish, and in *< Horace" it is a para-
phrase of Livy, yet Corneille was the first to realise
that the speeches of lawyers, which were then litde
known to the general public, would form a very inter-
esting scene upon the stage. His inmiediate success
proved the worth of the idea. But that such success
was possible at all is even more extraordinary than any
particular form it may have taken. He created types
for well-nigh every kind of dramatic literature in
France, in the midst of his work as an advocate, among
serious family troubles, through years of plague, of
popular riots, of military occupations.

His house in the Rue Corneille, formerly the Rue de
la Pie, is still preserved, though the front has been
damaged by the widening of the street, and it is marked
by a bust of the poet over the entrance. In the last
few months it has been put up for auction, and it may
be hoped that the town authorities have taken advan-
tage of the opportunity to secure it from further mutila-
tion. For it has been not merely the home of Pierre
Corneille and his brother Thomas, but the meeting-
place of several other men distinguished in French
literature. In the summer of 1658, for instance,
Moli^re brought his travelling troupe to Rouen, and
set up his theatre at the bottom of the Rue du Vieux

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Palais. There he played in "L'Etourdi" and "Le
D6pit Amoureux," which Corneille went to see, and
tradition says that the most distinguished of her audi-
ence fell in love with du Pare, the pretty actress,
from the spectators' seats, not improbably on the occa-
sion when his own play of "Nicom^de" was being
performed. It is certain at any rate that Moli^re, who
was then some thirty-six years old, visited Corneille,
who was sixteen years his senior, and already famous
in the wider world of literature. And it is at least
curious that only after the six months during which his
visits to the elder poet must have been both frequent
and fruitful, did Jean Baptiste Poquelin become recog-
nised as the Moli^re of << Le Malade Imaginaire," a
play, which I confess I would rather hear to-day
than anything Corneille ever wrote, even though
Parisian audiences can still patriotically endure almost
the whole series of his heroic dramas. This was not
Moli^re's first visit to Rouen, where a peculiarly
dark and dirty street preserves the memory of his
light-hearted appearances. For there is his signature in
the town registers of 1643, when he was only twenty-
one, and as the date is November 3, the coincidence of
time has tempted patriotic antiquarians to suggest that
his first delut in public was at the famous Foire du
Pardon. What Rouen looked like at this time you
may see in the view, reproduced from Merian's engrav-
ing of 1620, printed with this chapter.

Even if the language and ideas of Corneille's plays
do not touch a sympathetic chord in these days when
the musketeers of Dumas and the bravery of Cyrano
de Bergerac hold the stage on both sides of the
Channel, it is impossible to refuse to Corneille a
very high position in any estimate of French dramatic
literature. With that estimate I am not here con-
cerned, but in sketching the history of his birthplace, I
may be permitted to suggest some of the influences

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Ttbe Story of Rouen

which may be traced from it upon his work. And in
addition to those already mentioned, I would especially
refer to an occurrence some time previously, which left
its undoubted marks upon the writing of Corneille, and
may also serve to introduce you to yet another interest-
ing figure in the tale of Rouen. For when he was
only thirty-three, when he had won fame with the
** Cid," and had followed up his success by ** Horace "
and by *' Cinna," Corneille had the advantage of meet-
ing a family of particular distinction.

In 1639 the father of Blaise Pascal was sent down
to Rouen as an ^'Intendant du Roi." Though but
sixteen, the youth had already attracted the notice
of the mathematical world by his treatise on conic
sections. Even when only twelve the precocious boy
had worked out the solutions of the first thirty-two
propositions of Euclid unaided. While at Rouen he
invented a calculating machine, and got a workman in
the town to set it up. In 1646 he made his famous
experiments on the vacuum before more than five
hundred people, including half a dozen sceptical Jesuit
fathers. Though his famous letters on the burning
question of Jansenism were not written until 1656,
after he had returned to Paris, yet the religious influ-
ence of the family must have been a strong one upon
all their intimate friends, and it is hardly too much
to suggest that under this influence Corneille wrote
"Polyeucte** and "Theodore," even if it be too
great an extension of the idea to suggest that Racine's
" Esther " and " Athalie," even Voltaire's " Zaire,"
were also due to the same impressions.

It is pleasant to imagine that cultured circle, con-
versing over the troubles of the time or arguing on
literary and scientific subjects. There were two girls
in the Pascal family, the pretty Gilberte, who very soon
married a young councillor of Rouen at twenty-one,
and Jacqueline, five years her junior, who won the
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The Story of Rouen

prize at the Puy des Palinodsy and had the honour of
an ode from Corneille on her literary success. There
was Berthe Corneille too, the mother of Fontenelle,
and though Thomas was but young, he may well have
had his share in a friendship which must have been very
attractive to his older brother. This house of thdrs
in the Rue Corneille was not the only one in which
Pierre wrote his tragedies. Indeed, I imagine it was
more the town-lodgings of his legal father, and only
used by the sons when business kept them near the
Law-courts. In the country outside, at Petit-Couronne
south of the Seine, Corneille did nearly all his best
work ; and in estimating that work it is well to re-
member that he was not merely bom at Rpuen, but
that he lived and wrote there till he was fifty-six.

The Pascals left Rouen in 1648 during the dis-
turbances of the Fronde. They had come there in
even more troublous times, for the riots called the
"Revolte des Va-nu-Pieds" had only just been quelled
before their arrival. The salt-tax had already created
strong discontent in Southern Normandy, and in August
1639 a tax on the dyers roused the men of the Rue
Eau de Robec into such hot rebellion, that they killed
the King's officer and burnt the tax-gatherer's house.
In the same street to-day, which must be but litde
changed, you may still imagine the furious assemblages
by those black dye-stained waters that flow muddily
beneath their multitude of bridges from the Place des
Fonts de Robec to the eastern confines of the town.
Chancellor Seguier was sent down with several thousand
infantry and 1200 horse, called the " Fleaux de Dieu,"
and kept the gallows as busy as at any Black Assizes
for some three months.

One sad result of all this was that many of the

festivities described in the earlier pages of this chapter

never came off at all in 1640. " En ceste annee," says

the local chronicler sadly, " il n'y a point eu d'estrennes,

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Tij chante ' Le Roy Boit.' En la maison de Ville n'y
eust point de gasteau party, ni le lendemain a disner."
And the Joss of the famous " F^te des Rois " at the
Hotel de Ville was something more than ordinarily
unfortunate. For it was celebrated each year with
much pomposity, to the sound of all the carillons of
the town ringing lustily while every member of the
Council " tirait le roi de la f^ve," and the lucky winner
of the Bean, after being presented with a wax basket of
artificial fruit (for the sixteenth century is over now),
at once gave his comrades an enormous feast, at which
the toast of the evening was received with loud cries of
"Le Roy Boit." Nor was this the only festivity
indulged in by the City Fathers. The "Feu St.
Jean " was solemnly lit by the senior sheriff, to the
sound of pipe and tabour. The ** BCiche de Noel,"
or Yule log, was burnt in the Grande Salle. Here
the different members of the Estates of Normandy
were feasted, here the civic ceremonials were con-
ducted with many presents, speeches, and "toasts."
And the industries of the town seemed to flourish, in
spite of the miseries suffered under Richelieu. Trade
spread to England, Spain, Africa, Florida, Brazil ;
even with Canada a brisk bartering of furs went on,
and in 1627 the baptism is registered in the Cathe-
dral, early in December, of Amantacha, a native of
Canada, who was "held at the font" by Madame
de Villars, and the Due de Longueville, to be blessed
by Monseigneur Francois de Harlay. Half a century
later, it was from Rouen that Rene Cavalier de la
Salle set out to explore the Mississippi and the Gulf
of Mexico ; and by a Rouen diplomat, Menager, was
drawn up in 17 13 the Treaty of Utrecht, against
which modern British inhabitants of Newfoundland
are complaining so bitterly in 1 898.

But for Englishmen a far more interesting fact in
seventeenth-century Rouen is that Lord Clarendon

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The Story of Rouen

died at No. 30 Rue Damiette on December 7, 1674.
The house is standing still, behind a garden that is
shut oflP from the street by high gates, and is not open
to the pubHc, though by a fortunate accident I was
enabled to see it in the August of 1 897. It is known
as the Hotel d'Aligre, and as the property of Made-
moiselle Le Verdier is almost unchanged since the
great exile lived in it two centuries ago. There are
three windows on the ground floor and a basement
Between the two windows of the first floor is a
medallion held by two figures. On each side of the
circular pediment is a little *< Mansard" window in
the roof, and on the pediment itself are two statues.
The windows are all decorated with carved flowers
and wreaths, and the cornice beneath the eaves is
prettily ornamented. This is the main facade looking
out on the interior court. The garden front has less
decoration, but is an extremely elegant example of the
simple town house of the period. Among the shrubs
the fountain for which Lord Clarendon especially
asked still plays in its old stone basin, and beyond the
trees is the Cemetery of St. Maclou.

He had lived, during his exile, in Montpelier,
Moulins, and Evreux, and at last he moved nearer to
England and wrote pathetically asking to be recalled.
Seven years, his letter says, was the term of God's
displeasure, yet for more than seven had he borne the
displeasure of the King. A longer life no man could
grant him, he asked only that death might not come
to him in a foreign land, but in England near his
children. His prayer was not granted, and in 1674
the archives of the Hotel de Ville in Rouen record
that the King of France had allowed " Monsieur le
Comte de Clarendon, Chancelier de PAngleterre " to
live where he pleased within the kingdom by consent
of His Majesty of Great Britain. The house now
leased by Monsieur le Comte (goes on this sad little

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record) used to have a small lake in the garden, and
Monsieur desired that water might again be directed
into it. The request was granted that same month
at a meeting held in the Town Hall.

The first mention of a building on this spot is in
the Town Records of October 1448, when it is called
** Hostel des Presses de la Rue de la Miette," a
name for the street which seems to show that this
**Damiette *' is at any rate not of eastern origin. The
word ** Presses " is connected with the story of Rouen
trade by the fact that it commemorates the presses set
up for pressing and finishing cloth by one of that family
of Dufour who did so much towards the decoration of
their parish church of St. Maclou. The house that is
standing now was built (though without its later seven-
teenth-century ornaments) by Guillaume le Fieu, who
had been treasurer of the Stables of Catherine de
M^^cisy or "Receveur de I'Ecurie de la Reine" in
1558, and the Archives of the Department now pos-
sess, by the gift of later occupants of the house, a very
interesting manuscript of his accounts for a year in
this capacity. By the untiring diligence of M. Ch.
de Beaurepaire these have been analysed, and his paper
describing them, though too detailed to be reproduced
here, is of the highest importance for any writer attempt-
ing to describe the habits of a queen whose abilities as
a horsewoman were so highly praised by Brantome.
Guillaume le Fieu had evidently considerable financial
abilities, for we find him promoted, later on, to be
** Receveur General de la Generalite de Rouen," and
finally " Maitre Ordinaire de la Chambre des Comptes
de Normandie," so that he is also connected with the
two beautiful buildings, so difiPerent in style and date,
which were described in Chapter XI.

In No. 30 Rue Damiette he died in 1 584, having
scarcely completed the house before his daughter
married one of the King's secretanes. In January

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The Story of Rouen

1 646, an old lease shows that the house was owned by
Henry Dambray, ** Conseilier au Parlement," and it
was by him let for a year to Lord Clarendon. . It was
called the Hotel de Senneville until the Revolution,
when it became the property of the families of Pom-
mereux and d'AlIigre. Though Lord Clarendon
was first buried in Rouen, when his grand-daughters
(through the marriage of the Duke of York, brother of
Charles IT., with his elder daughter) became Queens
of England, his remains were transported from Rouen
to Westminster Abbey, where they now are.

The last scene by which this tale of Rouen was
connected with the history of France was when Cap-
tain Valdory held the town against Henri IV. And
in leaving for a moment more domestic details of the
city's story, I can suggest the transition no better than
by telling you of another literary claim which Rouen
archssologists will not permit a visitor to forget, the
authorship of the famous " Satyre Menippee," which
did as much as any political pamphlet could ever do to
reveal to the people the true character of the Ligue,
and to restore their affection to that King Henri whom
for so long they had refused within their gates. This
immortal piece of sarcasm and good sense was written
after the Etats de la Ligue of January 1 593. De
Thou said, *' le premier auteur de I'ecrit est, croit-on,
un pr^tre du pays de Normandie, homme de bien. . • ."
And the edition of 1677 gives his name as ** Monsieur
LeRoy, chanoine de Rouen, qui avoit este aumosnier
du Cardinal de Bourbon." In the portions before
each harangue, he mentions the tapestry in Rouen
Cathedral, the Revoke de la Harelle, the Foire St.
Romain, and other details, with an accuracy and aflPec-
tion which betray the citizen. He went blind in 1620,
and died in penury in 1627.

The troubles of the League had barely died away
before the agitation of the Fronde began, and after the

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Froode princes had been arrested in January 165O9 the
Duchesse de LfOngueville tried to continue the r61e of
her husband, though his party had ^rly been laughed
out of Rouen. Her own attempts were thwarted by
Mazarin, who brought the little Louis XIV., then
only twelve years old, to Rouen for fifteen days in
February 1650. The Revocation of the Edict of
Nantes repaid this hospitality in somewhat untoward
^hion, for it reduced the population of the town by
20y000 souls (of whom many carried their trade to
England or the Low Countries), and commerce
almost disappeared. **Men live/' cried St. Simon,
<< on the grass of the field in Normandy."

Yet the exhaustless vitality of the town was not
easily tapped. In 1723 Voltaire found nothing to
complain of, and in the Rue aux Juifs the first edition
of his ** Henriade " was printed by Robert Viret. In
1 73 1 he came back, and in the Rue du Bee, or the
Rue Ganterie, had many pleasant conversations with
M. de Bourgtheroulde, M. de Fresquienne, and others,
but he left his little sting behind him as usual, and it
remains so true that I must reproduce it here, on the
theme — ** Vous n'avez point de mai en Normandie."

" Vos dimats ont produit d'assez rares menreiiles
C'est le pays des grands talents
Des Pontenelle des Comeilles
Mais ce ne fat jamais I'asile du printemps."

As the eighteenth century progressed, commercial
prosperity returned with extraordinary rapidity, and the
town shows every sign of making an intelligent use of
its opportunities. A mission is sent to Smyrna and
Adrianople to learn the textile methods of the East;
dyers in the Rue Eau de Robec are busier than ever ;
the Ouartier Cauchoise is set apart for industrial work,
for silE and wools and linens; there is a great store-
house for grain, a huge <* Halle des Toiles ; a Bourse

387

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for business men. In 1723 a new '* Romaine,''
or Custom- House, was built, which involyed the de-
struction of the Porte Haranguerie and the Porte de
la Vicont^ and upon its triangular pediment was placed
Coustou's beautiful carving of ** G)mmerce/' of which
I reproduce a drawing in these pages. After the
Revolution the << Tribunal des Douanes" was held in
the Maison Bourgtheroulcfe, until in 1838 the present
*^ Douane " was built by Isabelle, and Coustou's relief
was set beneath its rotunda inside. The various for-
tunes of the Custom- House of Rouen have been de-
scribed by M. Greorges Dubosc, another of those
patriotic antiquarian writers, in whom Rouen is richer
than any provincial town I know. His large volume
on the architecture of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries gives so complete and accurate a list that I
am fortunately relieved from any discussion of a period
with which I must confess an uninstructed want of
sympathy. But I owe it to his insight that the beauti-
ful courtyard (illustrated in this chapter) in the Rue
Petit Salut (now No. 1 3 Rue Ampere) was not put
down as sixteenth century in my notes, a date to which
I was inclined by the fine open staircase and doorway
on the right of the courtyard. On its left is an un-
doubted Renaissance pillar, probably taken from its
original position in another place, and high above you
rises a gabled window with carved sides.

The only historical event I have been tempted to
connect with this spot is the entry of Louis d' Orleans
in 1452, who is said to have lodged in the ** Hotel
d'Estellan, Rue Petit Salut." But the house is worth
visiting if only to speculate on the dungeon windows in
the comer of the little street outside, and to look up
the Impasse Petit Salut a little further on, where the
Tour de Beurre rises with an extraordinary effect of
solitary beauty above the twisted roof trees into the
sky.

389

The Story of Rouen

By the time of Louis XV. it becomes somewhat
difficult to find the interesting men of this or any other
French city ; you must look for them in the anti«
chambers of the Due de Choiseul, in the robing-rooms
of the Pompadour or the Du Barry. In 1774 Rouen
saw the typical sight of the Duchesse de Vauguyon
reviewing her husband's troops. When Louis XV.
passed through the town, and the Pompadour was seen
smiling by his side, the citizens' reception of the doubt-
fill honour was a very cold one. And when Louis
XV L paid his call of ceremony upon the Mayor, a
still more melancholy presage broke the harmony of
the peal that welcomed him from the Cathedral belfry,
for the great bell Georges d'Amboise — which weighed
36,000 pounds, and had rung in every century since
the great minister of Louis XIL gave him to the town
— cracked suddenly, and was never heard again. He
has a successor now, but his own metal was used for
quite another purpose. When the Revolution broke
out, the bronze that had served to call the faithful from
all the countryside to prayer was melted into cannon
and roundshot that were to send the Royalists to
heaven by much quicker methods.

Rouen passed comparatively lightly through the
Reign of Terror. Only 322 persons were guillotined
in the whole of Normandy, and the local justices be-
headed nearly as many in suppressing the disorders that
followed the general disorganisation of society. Even
on the 1st of November 1793 we ^^^^ ^^ *^® ^^^ night
of Boieldieu's " La Belle Coupable " performed at the
Theatre de la Montagne. And though Thouret is
sent up as Deputy to Paris (and afterwards to draw
up the Constitution), though the irascible Marquis
d'Herbouville is always making a disturbance, though
the " Carabots " revolt and break out into pillage, it is
only when "Anarchists" from Paris come down to
trouble them that the good folk of Rouen ** draw

390

Literature and Commerce

the line/' Id fact, they hanged the over-zealous
Bourdier and Jourdain upon the quay just by the
bridge.

It is interesting that no less a personage than Marat,
then plain Dr Marat, had several Memoires crowned
by the Academy of Rouen, one of them on Mesmerism.
Voltaire thought little of his capabilities then, but the
<< ami du peuple " left a gentle reputation in the town,
and is even credited with having preserved an old
illuminated manuscript under his mattress during some
riots that threatened its safety. A more authenticated
fact is that Charlotte Corday came from Caen, and
popular tradition insists still that it was from the carving
of Herodias on the facade of Rouen Cathedral (which
the townsfolk call <' La Marianne dansant," for some
unknown reason) that the suggestion came to her of
saving the People from their Friend.

The great Napoleon first saw Rouen in its capacity
as a trading centre. Its industry very soon recovered
after the Revolution, and an actual *< Exposition " was
organised in the Tribunal de Commerce, which was
inspected by Josephine and the First Consul Bonaparte.
He returned as Emperor, and in 1840 the city solemnly
received him for the last time, when his body was
brought back from St. Helena and passed beneath the
first bridge across the Seine at Rouen.

The kings who had been deposed with so much
bloodshed and fanfaronade, reappeared as if nothing had
happened when Louis Philippe laid the first stone for
the pedestal of Comeille's statue carved by David
d' Angers. In 187 1 that statue was all draped in
black. The streets of Rouen, hung with funereal
emblems, were all in the deepest mourning, every shop
was closed and every window shuttered. Upon the
plain of Sotteville a great army was manceuvring to
and fro to the sound of words of command in a strange
tongue. General ManteufFel, the Duke of Mecklen-

39'

The Story of Rouen

burghy and *^ Prince Fritz " had led the German army
of invasion into Rouen, and from December till July
they occupied the town and its surrounding villages* For
the last time Rouen was in the hands of foreigners. But
the traces of this catastrophe have absolutely disappeared.
The ruin of the Revolution and the iconoclasm of the
religious struggles have left far deeper marks; and
Rouen, sacked by the English, and occupied by the
Germans, suffered more injury at the hands of her own
citizens, than either from Time or from any foreign foe.

In the last half of the eighteenth century it was that
Rouen lost most of her mediaeval characteristics, under
the levelling regime of Intendant de Crosne, whose one
good work was the building of the boulevards. Hardly
as much change was wrought when the great new streets
of 1859 were cut that swept away the old infected
quarters of the fifteenth century. The Revolution, that
is responsible for the debasement of St. Lai^rent and
St. Ouen, among many other atrocities, did most injury
in abolishing those picturesque local bodies, like the
" Cinquantaine " and the ** Arquebusiers," and substi-
tuting for them a meaningless ** Garde Nationale.*' Its
efforts at " national " nomenclature were fortunately in
most cases abortive.

The Rouen of to-day, though so much taken up
with commerce, is not unworthy of her great tradi-
tions. A town that in art can show the names of
Poussin, Jouvenet, and G6ricault ; and in letters,
Gustave Flaubert, Maupassant, and Hector Malot,
has not been left too far behind by older memories.
But it is in the number of its citizens who have devoted
themselves to the history and the archaeology of their
own town, their "Ville Musee," that Rouen has been
especially blest. In Farin the historian, in M. de
Caumont the archaeologist, in Langlois, de la Queri^re,
Deville, Pettier, Bouquet, Periaux ; above all, in
Floquet, the town can point to a band of chroniclers
392

Literature and Commerce

of which any city might be proud. To all of them
I have been indebted. And no less does this sketch
of their city's story owe to those who are still living
within its streets, and still ready to point the visitor to
their greatest beauties: M. Charles de Beaurepaire,
whose work in the Archives is of the highest value,
and to whom I am indebted for nearly every refer-
ence to the records of the town ; MM. Noel and
Beaurain, who preside over the Library ; M. Greorges
Dubosc, M. Jules Adeline, and many more.

Scarcely a year before these lines were written one
more link between Rouen and the literature of the
world was lost. In August 1 896 died a '* Professor
of German " in the Lycee de Rouen, who had held
her post since 1882. There had lived Camille Selden,
in a quiet seclusion, from which she published the
** Memoires de la Mouche." Universally beloved for
her sweetness, her simplicity, her gentle nobility of
soul, she was the unobtrusive friend of all the best
spirits of the day. Upon her there seemed to have
fallen some few mild rays from the genius of Heine,
whom she loved so well. Her last days were spent in
studying the correspondence of two great citizens of
the town which sheltered her, Bouilhet and Flaubert.

My task is over ; and I can but leave you now to
discover for yourself the many details, which, for lack
of space and leisure, 1 have perforce omitted. Yet in
this " Story of Rouen " you will find, if you read it
where it should be read, all the typical occurrences
which have made the city what she is, strong in
commerce, strong in traditions, strong above all in
the memories of her sons.

« Streneth is not won by miracle or rape.
It is the ofTHpring of the modest years,
The gift of sire to son, thro* these firm laws
Which we name Gods ; which are the righteous cause,
The cause of man, and manhood's ministers."

393

APPENDIX

A fevj more interesting walks in Rouen

IT was in my mind at first to place here an itinerary I haa
planned by which it would be possible to visit ererythin?
of interest in Rouen in six days, starting from the Hotd
du Nord near the Grosse Horloge, and returning to the same
spot. But it is perhaps better after all that you should visit
the places mentioned in my chapters as the spirit moves you,
and that I should merely set down in these last pages a few
old streets or houses which you must not miss, merely because
I have had no space to speak of them before.

Returning from the Chartreuse de la Rose, it will be good to
take the Route de Lyons la Foret past the ch&teau called
Nid de chieru (a name which preserves the memory of the old
Dukes' Kennels) where Henri IV. was entertained. Yon
will see the seventeenth-century house on your left, between two
railway bridges which cross the road, just before the Caserne
Trupel. Continue by the same road, keeping the Aubette on
your right, and turn round the wall of the great Hospital
enclosure till you reach the Rue Edouard Adam^ and pass the
Rue Eau de Robec which is beautiful on each side of you.
Pass the new Fontaine Croix de Pierre^ and as you turn down
the Rue Orhe look quickly at the backs of the houses on the
Robec, and then swing to the right up the Rue da Champs,
At the Rue Matelas you must stop. St, Fivien^s Church closes
the quaint vista of the street, and at No. ip is an aged doorway
to a dark courtyard, and beyond that, a charming turret stair-
case on the roadway with a gallery outside ail wreathed in
roses. The gables and the woodwork and the shadowed
windows make up an exquisite little picture of mediaeval
domesticity. When you return again to the Rue Orbe, look
down the Rue Pomme <tOr to your left, and then turn up the
Rue Poisson and admire the beautiful choir of 5/. Nicaise^
remembering the story of the famous " boise '* I told you in the
last chapter. Up the Rue St. Nicaise, past the Rue Ploquet,

394

Appendix

the hideous slit of the Rue ^Enfer opens on the left, so you
tnm away to the Rue Roche opposite, and keep swinging to
the left up the Bmt de la Cage and so on to tlie Bftulroard
Bumvoitime, The Place du BouUni^riH, where I liave no doubt
the English garrison of 1420 played at l>owls, is still green
and inTiting a little to your right. But pushing on still
westwards to the left you come to the Boulevard Jeamme d^Arc^
and pass the road that leads northwards to a fascinating Cider-
tavem in the Champi des Oueaux. A little further on is the Rue
Verte Reading northwards to the Railway Station and south-
wards to the Rue Jeanne d*Arc and the river) and at last you
reach the Place Cauchoise and the Rue St, Gervaii which mounts
to the north-west. Look at No. 31 (the Menuiserie Bri^re)
as yon pass, for the sake of the charming old wooden gallery
in Its courtyard, and then at No. 71 with its pretty eighteenth-
cen tnr y panels like plaques of Wedgewood, an ornament which
it closely imitated in the medallions on the wall at the corner
of the Rue Chastelievre, After visiting St. Genrais come back
to the Place Cauchoise and take the Rue Cauchoise until
yon reach the Rue des Bom Enfants^ where at No. 134 died
Pontenelle. As you pass the Rue Etoupie stop to look at the
•ign of the house at No. 4, built in 1580. If you are wise
yon will lunch at the old inn at No. 41 Rue des Bons Enfants,
admire the stables, and inspect Room No. 10. Refreshed and
fortified, go straight on, across the Rue Jeanne d'Arc into the
Rue Ganterie and so by way of the Rue de I'Hdpital to the
crossing of the Rue de la R^publique. Almost in front of
yon on the other side is the queer little alley called the Rue
Pait Moutmt and as you pass down it you will see how much
bigger the streets look on my Maps (for the sake of being
clear) than they are in reality. This leads you across the
Place des Ponts de Robec to the beginning of the Rue Euu de
Rebec where you will notice at once, on the left, the house at
No. 186, with the sign which shows the faithful horse returning
from the scene of his master's murder to bring the news into
the town. No. 223 on the other side at the comer of the Rue
de la Grande Mesme is fine, and so is No. 187 at the angle of
the Rue du Ruitsel, All the while the inky water is trickling
under countless bridges on your left hand (<< Ignoble little
Venice" Flaubert calls it ail in <* Madame Bovary," which
gives you, otherwise, the worst impression of Rouen in any
book I know), and swarms of little children chatter and play
about the cobblestones, while women throng the countless
dens and cubbyholes, until you fly for shelter into one of the
numerous curiosity shops and buy a fifteenth-century door-
knocker manufactured expressly for your visit. Past the

395

Appendix

Place St. ViTien and the Chnrch, the Eau de Robec still
continiies ; and, as the Rue du Pont \ Dame Renaude opens
on your left, there is a good house at the comer of the opposite
street. Further on to the left a great building with over-
hanging eaves stretches from 34 to 50. Then, over a broader
bridge, the Rue des Ceiestins goes northwards, and this street
of bridges ends in the g^reen trees of the Boulevard, with a
lovely Wew of that Maison des Ceiestins which the Duke of
Bedford endowed, far to your right in the distant comer of
the old wall of the Hospital

Comine^ back by the Robec (for it well deserves looking at
from each end), when you reach the Rue de la R^ublique
turn northwards for a sight of the south front of St. Ouen, and
then leave the Place de I'Hdtel de Ville by way of the Rue de
VHopital due west. No. i is an exquisite Renaissance house
with its colonnade and arches and carved capitals. In the
courtyard within is a beautiful doorway of the same period set
at right angles to the street fa^de. Upon its entrance
columns (which are double, one set above another) two deli-
cately moulded statuettes of women are placed on each side of
the slender upper shaft. Over the door is the motto —
"DomiNuS MICHI ADIUTOR," the same which occurs
above the arms of Cardinal Wolsey on the terra-cotta plaque
at Hampton Court This fine house extends some way down
the street, and leads you pleasantly onwards till the Rue
Socrate opens to your left. Go down it and glance on each
side as the Rue dee Fossee Louis Fill, crosses your path. At
the end is the great Palais de Justice. Beyond that (you may
go through Louis XII. 's archway or keep the Palace wall upon
your right) is the Rue aux Juift^ in which No. 35 is an exact
model of its ancient predecessor In the Rue du Bee there are
remains of fine houses and spacious courtyards, and through it
you arrive at the Rue de la Grosse Horloge and the great arch-
way that holds the famous clock of Rouen.

The only other houses I can remember as worthy of a
special visit are Nos. 5, 7, and 18 in the Rue St, Etienne des
Tonneliers^ which opens out of the Rue du Grand Pont just
before the quays. Where the Rue Jacques Lelieur enters it are
the mins of a lovely church fallen upon very evil days. All
over Rouen you may find walks equally interesting, but I have
done enough in suggesting a few of the most typical.

39^

Appendix

Momuments clmses pctrmi Us Monuments Htstoriques

de France

Hots Classe. Cath&lrale (fitat).

Maison Corneille, Petit Couronne (Depart.).
L Classb. Chapelle de St. Julien des Chartreuz a Petit

Qu^viliy.
St. Godard (yerri^res).
St. Maclou.
St. Ouen.

St. Ouen (Chambre on Tour aux Clerct).
St. Patrice.
St. Vincent.
n. Clabse. Tour St. Andr^.

Cath61rale, Salle Capitulaire et Cloltre.
Fontaine Croix de Pierre (Mus^ des An-

tiquit^V
St. GtTYzU (Crypte et Abside).
Aitre St. Maclou.
Choeur de St. Nicaise.
Chapelle de la Fierte St. Romain, a la Vieille

Tour
nL CLA88E. Eglise Mont aux Malades.
Eglise St" Paul (abside).
St. Vivien (clocher).

Ill

Museums and Libraries

The Musee des Antiquitu at the northern end of the Rue de
la R^publique contains some very interesting prehistoric re-
mains ; a quantity of Merovingian relics, such as axe-heads,
finger-rings, lance-points, necklaces, buttons, buckles, needles,
combs, and pottery ; the standard measures of Rouen from
the sixteenth to the eighteenth century ; lead crosses with
formulas of absolution stamped upon them from the eleventh
to the thirteenth century ; medals and tokens of many local
abbeys and confr^ries ; coins of the Dukes of Normandy from
91X to 1216; an deventh-century Oliphant; some glass

397

Appendix

mosaics ; and the statue of Henri Court Mantel from his
tomb in the Cathedral. All these are in the first room. In
the next are Roman vases and glassware ; some fine bronze
weapons; and a large Gallo-Roman mosaic; also «lra
Capucine/' as the first municipal fire-engine was called,
which was only instituted in 17 19. It was only in 1686 that
any organisation at all was made to prevent fires, and the
first << Pompiers de Rouen'* were created in 1800. These
facts, in connection with the general use of wood for common
houses even till late in the sixteenth century, explain a great
deal of the terrible destruction by fire in every quarter of the
town. In a third room are gathered together some pood
examples of tapestry and furniture, and in a room by itsdf is
a magnificent mosaic from Lillebonne. Of the inner quad-
rangle and the front courtyard I have spoken already in earlier
oages.

The Mtuet de Raten in the Rue Thiers has four separate
divisions each worthy of your attention. The Jirst is the
beautiful garden which stretches westward to the Rue Jeanne
d'Arc. The second U the Town Libraryy which is entered by
its own door opposite the Eglise St. Laurent. In my list of
authorities I have mentioned books which can all be obtained
in the Library, where there are excellent arrangements for the
student to work and take notes from as many books as he
likes, and keep them together from day to day. Amone its
more remarkable manuscripts are Anglo-Saxon writings of the
tenth century, illuminated " Heures '' of the fifteenth century,
the " Missel " of Georges d'Amboise ; there are also several
" incunables d'imprimerie de Rouen," and other rare works ;
by the help of M. Noel, M. Beaurain, and their capable
assistants, no student of civic or departmental history can fail
to find all he desires. For more careful researches into
original authorities he will do well to consult M. Charles de
Beaurepaire, who presides of the Archives^ near the Prefecture
in the Rue Fontenelle ; and he will find further documents of
interest in the Hotel de Ville and the Library of the Chapterhouse^
which is reached by way of the staircase out of the north
transept in the Cathedral. The Mfr</ division of the Mus£e de
Rouen is the Gallery of Faience and Ceramics, The enamelled
tiles for Constable Montmorency, called the '^carrelages
d'Ecouen," which bear the mark, "Rouen, iS4*»*' "were not
made by Bernard Palissy, but by the man of whom a record
exists in May 24, x <45) '* Masseot Abaquesne, esmailleur en
terre demeurant en ia paroisse St. Vincent de Rouen." After

398

Appendix

1565 this « terre ^mailUe " is not made here any more, but in
1645 Esm^ Poterat is the best malier of porcelain in France, and
was the founder of the &mous Rouen school of the '<fond jaune
ocr^** in which Guilleband and Levavasseurwere conspicuous for
their " style rayonnant " in the seventeenth century. On the
right of this gallery is a very fine example of this style, with
blue arabesques, and in the same room a queer mixture of
localities is observable in the Chinese figures dancing the
dances of Normandy, to the tune of Norman bagpipes, in a
queeriy Celestial atmosphere. There is also the femous
<< violon de faience " to be seen. The fourth and most im-
portant division is, of course, that which contains the pictures,
and by a very sensible arrangement those which have especi-
ally to do with the ancient or modern history of the town are
usually gathered into one gallery, which is of the highest
interest to any student of the history of Rouen. Some two
hundred and fifty prints, drawings, and paintings of local
interest may often here be studied In the g^eries them-
selves. No. 4x5 is a view of Rouen taken from St. Sever by Jean ,
Baptiste Martin who died in 1735. It shows the gates of the
town, even the Vieux Palais on the left, the wooden bridge,
the He St. Croix full of trees, the old piers still standing of the
Empress Matilda's Bridge, and a fashionable assemblage on
the Cours la Reine, by the St. Sever bank. After reading
this book, you will find few pictures more interesting as a re-
production of the various pieces of architecture now vanished.
Out of a list of pictures most kindly made for me by M.
Edmond Lebel, the keeper of the Museum, I will select a few
which must on no account be missed.

Earlt W0RK.M-

No. 411. EU:ce homo Mignard.

„ 54. Concert sur une place publique . . Berghem.

Paysage Ruydael.

„ 570. Portrait Velasquez.

„ 494. Le Bon Samaritain . . . Ribera.

» 53^- Chasse au Sanglier . , , Sneyders.
„ 285. Portrait de Tauteur .... Jouvenet.
„ 481. V^nus et £n^ ..... Poussin.

„ 54. Vierge et Enfant . Sandro Botticelli.
„ »io. Vierge et Enfant (avec portraits) Gerard (David).
„ 573. Vision .... . Veronese.
„ 316. Baigneuses Lrancret.

399

Appendix

After 1800. —

No. 265. La belle Z^ie .
115. Paysages . •
j^tudes Diverses
152. La Justice de Trajan
544. Un metier de chien
259. £tude8 Diverses .
97. Portrait
„ Tete
489. Le Pilote .

j»

»>
»»

»»

• Ingres.

• Corot.
G^ricault.

Delacroix.

Stevens (Joseph).

Meissonier.

Francois Millet.

. * Bonington.

• Renoiif.

Drawings. —

No. 811. £tude ....
833. Figures ....

795. Visite de Bonaparte a Rouen
737. Vue de Rouen in 1777

796. £tude ....
856. Diverses Etudes .

j^tudes ....

»>

Lebrun.

Rembrandt.

Isabey.

Cochin.

Jouvenet

G^ricault.

Delacrdix.

SCOLPTURE.

No. 937. Napoleon (marbre)

959. Gdricault (tombeau, marbre)

946. Armand Carrel (bronze)

934, Pierre Corneille (terre cuite)

941. Boieldieu (marbre)

985. Fonteneile (marbre) . •

Canova.

Etex.

David d'Angers.

Caffieri.

Dantan Jeune.

. RomagnesL

Authorities

Though I desire to express my indebtedness to all the works
mentioned in these pages, the books given in the list that fol-
lows are those which should be first consulted by anyone who
wishes to follow on completer lines the story of the town
which I have been obliged to shorten. The commonplace of
artistic, or historical, or architectural literature I have omitted.
Those who know it will easily recognise the passages in which
I have made use of Freeman, of Ruskin, of Viollet le Diic, of
Michelet, of many other standard works. Those who yet
have it to discover can find it for themselves in any library.

400

Appendix

But the undermentioned works, some of them only to be found
in Rouen itself, are worthy of the attention of any student
who wishes to carry his researches further into one of the
most interesting of French mediaeval cities. All the publica-
tions of the << Soci^t^ Rouennaise des Bibliophiles -' and of the
« Soci^t^ des Bibliophiles des Normandes *' may be consulted
with advantage, and every volume of *' Normannia *' issued by
the << Photo Club Rouennais/'

Histoire du Parlement de Normandie — A, Floquety 1 840, 7 vols.
Histoire du Privilege de St Romain — A. Floauet, 1833, 2 vols.
Anecdotes Normandes — A, Floquetf second edition, 1 883.
Rouen Monumental au XVII«>e et XVIlI«no gi^cle — Georges

DuhoJCf 1897.
Dictionnaire des Rues de Rouen — Nicetas PeriauXf 1871.
Histoire Chronologique de Rouen — Nicetas Periauxy 1874.
Sculptures Grotesques de Rouen — Jutes Adeline^ 1878 (illus.).
Description Historique des Maisons de Rouen — E, Delaquerieref

X821 (illus.).
Description, etc., vol. ii., 1841 (illus.).
Si^ge de Rouen (141 8- 19) — M, L, Puheuxi 1867.
La Danse des Morts du cimeti^re St. Maclou — E» H. Langlois,

1832 (illus.).
Stalles de la Cath^drale de Rouen — E. H, Langloh^ 1838

(illus.).
Rouen, Rouennais, Rouenneries — Eugene Noel^ 1894.
Rouen, Promenades et Causeries — Eugene Noel^ 1872.
L'Ancien Bureau des Finances — Georges et Andre Duboscy 1895.
Peintures Murales du yill^^ si^de — G. A. Le Roy^ 1 895.
Tapisseries de Saint- Vincent — Paul Lafond^ 1894 (illus.).
Le Donjon du Chateau (Tour Jeanne d'Arc) — F, Bouquet^ i^77*
La Muse Normande {David Ferrand^ 1625-1653), 5 vols., Rouen,

1891.
Myst^re de I'lncarnation, etc., avec introduction, etc. — P. le

Verdier, 1886.
Description des Antiquit^s de Rouen — Jacques Gomboutt^ 1655.
Roman de Rou (by Robert Wace), edited by F, Pluquet, 2 vols.,

1827.
Le Livre des Fontaines (J Lelieur), edited by T. de Jolimont^

1845 (illus.).
Les Quais de Rouen — Jules Adeline, 1879 (illus.).
Les Pastes de Rouen (H. Grisel), edited by F, Bouquet^ 1870.
filoges de Rouen (P. Grognet, etc.), edited by Ed, Frere, 1872.
La Friquass^ Crotestyllonn^e — *< A66e Eaillard" 1604.
Rouen Pittoresque, drawings by Lalanne, text by various hands,

1886 (iUus.).

2 C 401

Appendix

Rouen qui s'en va — JuUt Adeline^ 1876 (illus.).

Rouen Disparu — JuUs Adelinr^ 1876 (illus.).

Rouen lUustr^, drawings by Allard, text by various hands,

% vols., x88o (illus.).
La Tapisserie de Bayeux — H, F, Delaunay^ 1824.
Una Pete Br^silienne \ Rouen en 15C0 — F. Denis, 1851.
Rouen au XVIe si^de (d'apr^s J LeDeur, i$z^y— Jules Add'me,

1892 (illus.).
Tom beaux de la Cath^raie de Rouen — A. Devilie, 1 881.

The works published by M. Charles Robillard de Beaure-
paire deserve special mention by themselves. The student
should consult every one he can discover. They are chiefly
in the shape of paper pamphlets, containing invaluable re-
prints from the manuscripts of the town, with notes and
introductions. Published, as they ought to be, in several
collected volumes, they would make an extraordinary con-
tribution to the history of Northern France from Norman
times to the present day. I have consulted and quoted so
many, that I have no space to give all their titles, but the
few which follow are merely those which were of the
* greatest importance to me in the pages which have gone
before : —

Memoire sur le lieu du supplice de Jeanne d'Arc, 1867.

Don Pedro Nino en Normandie, 1872.

Due de Bedford a Rouen.

Accord conclu par Robert de Braquemont, etc.

La S^n^chauss^e de Normandie, 1883.

Les £tats de Normandie sous Charles VII., 1875.

L'Ecurie de Catherine de M^icis.

Notes sur les L^preux.

Notice sur une Maison (}e la rue de la Grosse Horloge.

Les Architectes de Saint Maclou.

Logis de Lord Clarendon en 1 674, Rue Damiette.

L'Ancien Clos des Gaines, 1869.

Charles VIII. a Rouen, 1853.

Les Tavernes de Rouen au XVI siecle, 1867.

402

INDEX

Abbayb de St. Amand, 15 ; 71 ;

85.
Abingdon, 76.
"Abjuration" of Jeanne d'Arc,

923.
AlTRE St. Maclou, 399 etc
Alain Blanchart, 194.
Aligrb (Hotel d*), 384 etc.
Ampbrb (No. 13 Rue), 389.
AndrA (ot.), 347.
Anglo-Saxon Architecture, 100.
Ansblm, 40 ; 63 ; 77.
Antiquaries (Society oO, 341 ; 343-
Antiquit^s (Muste des), 7; 12

etc. ; 33 ; 397.
Architects (of Cathedral), 136 etc.;

X39 etc.
Argbnteuil (Tale of the murder

at), 388 etc.
Aristote (lai d'), 360.

ARMAGNACS, X74-

Arpbnts (Rue des), 4.
ArrAt du Sang Damn6, 375.
Athanagild, 36.
AUBBTTB, 3 ; 70.

AuDowERB, 35 ; 39.
Authorities, 400.

Bag (Rue du), 15.
Bala IS (March6 aux), 353.
Bapaume, 3.
Basoche, 391.
Basse Vieille Tour. 5.
Bataillb (Pr6 de la), 53.
Baybux Tapestry, 66 ; 78.
Bbaurbpairb (Charles Robillard
de), 403.

rtSAURAIN, 2^9.

Bbauvais (Bishop oO, 3o6 etc.

Bbauvoisinb (Porte), 54.

Bbc fHotel du), 172.

Bedford (Duke oO» 197; 198.
Belfry of the town, 139.
Bbllbngues (The Story of Jeanne

de), X73.
Bergbribs carved on Maison

Bourgtheroulde, 334.
Bernard the Dane, ^3.
Bertrand du Guesclin, 149.
Bestiaries, 135.
Bigot (Laurent), 389 etc.
Blind man of Argenteuil, 288 etc.
Blois (Theobald of), 46.
BoHiER (Thomas), 286.
Boise de St. Nicaise, 370 etc.
Bois Guillaume, 2.
Bonne Ame (Bishop Guillaume), 69.
Nouvelle (Church), 68.

Bonsbcours, 3.
BoNS Enfants (Hotel des), 161.
BouLiNGRiN (Place du), 6.
Bourgtheroulde (Maison), 9; 83;

331 etc.
Bourse (Quai de la), 48.
Bouvreuil (Castle oQ, 5.
(PorteX 91.

Brazil, 349.
Brazilian FSte, 350.
Brazilians, 351.
Br£z£ (Jacques de), 263.

( fomD of Louis de), 314.

(Pierre de), 261.

Brunhilda, 3^ etc.
Bureau des Finances, 385.
Burgundians, 175.
Burning of Jeanne d'Arc, 338.

Cache Ribaut (bell), 9 ; 137.
Calende (Place de la), 43 ; 48;

Canada, 383.

Index

Canaries (King of the), 15a
Cantblbu, 3.
Caradas (Nf aison), 346.
Carmes (Rue des), 7 ; 90; Z14.
Carvings of Maison Bourgther-

oulde, 338 etc.
Cathedral, 115 etc. ; 256 etc.

Architects, 126 etc.

Catherine de Medecis, 350.
Catherine (Mont Ste), 2.
Cauchoise (Place), 6.

(Rue), 6.

Cauchon (Pierre), 306 etc.
Caudebbc, 186.
C^LBSTiNS (Couvent des), 197.
C^LBSTiN (Joyeux), 198.
Cembtbry of St. Maclou, 299 etc.
— — of St. Ouen, 222.
Champ du Pardon, 69.
Channel Islands, 52.
Chapel of the Archbishop, 213.
Chapbllb de la Fierte, 5 ; 37 ; xo8 ;

357.

St. Juhen, 96.

des Ordres, 214.

Charles V., 129.

VI., 155.

VII., 232.

VIII., 40.

VIII. in Rouen, 240 etc.

le Mauvais, 148.

Chartreuse de la Rose, 182.
Chartreux, 95.
Chassbli&vrb (Rue), 17.
Chastel (St. Pierre du), 5.
ChAteau, Gaillard, 87.
Churches of Rouen, 233 etc.
Civille (F'ran^ois de), 316.
Clarendon's House at Rouen, 383

etc.
Clement (St.), 42 ; 48.
Clercs (Tour aux), 71.
Clock of the Town, 139.
Clos aux Calebs, 112.
Clos aux Juifs, 7b.

ClOVIS. 21.

Commerce, 85; 112; 349; 369 etc.
Commune (of Rouen), no.
CONAN, 80.

Conception (Confrferie de la), 69.
CoNFRkRiES, 79 ; 85.

(carvings), 259.

CoNFRkRiE de la Conception, 69.

de la Passion, 168.

CoNFRfeRiE de St. Michel, 305.
St. Romain, 356 etc.

404

CORDAY (Charlotte). 391.
CoRDELiBRS (Rue oes), 5 ; 48.

CORNBILLE, 377 etc.

(Pont de Pierre), 7.

CouR d'Alb.ine, 218.

des Coinpte«, 287.

CousTOu's Bas Relief, 389.

Crbpin (St.), 85.

Crimes. See Records of the

Fierte.
Croix (He St.), 3.

(St., des Pelletiers), 85.

Crosnb (Intendant de), 392.
Cryptb, St Gervais, 9 ; 18 etc.
Custom-Housb, 389.

D'Amboisb (Tomb of the Car-
dinals), 310.
Damiettb (No. 29 Rue), 12.

(No. 30 Rue), 384 etc.

(Rue), 299.

Dansb Macabre, 306 etc
DarA (Pierre), 369.
Darn^tal, a.
Death, 392 etc.

personified, 293.

itecture, 1x9.
Dbnis (Rue St.), 15 ; 48.
D^TANCOURT (Maison), 140.
Donjon of Chateau de Bouvreuil,

208 etc.
DuDO of St. Quentin, 40.

Eau db I^obbc (Rue de 1), 6.
Edward the Confessor, 66.
Eglisb St. Paul, 99.
Election of Georges d'Amboise,
253 etc.

fLOi (St.), 23 ; 42 ; 48.
MBNDREViLLE (St. Sever), 68.
Enfants (Hdtellerie des Bons), 9.
English Army of 1418, 179.
Englishmen and Rouen, 326.
English Palace, 196.
Englishmen with Henry of Na-
varre, 319.
Entry of Francis I., 280 etc
Ep4b (Rue de 1'), 6.
Epicbrib (Rue de T), 9 ; 352 ; 353.

Index

ONDBviLLB {St. Sever), sj.
SSSS^M ToDnelim (St), 70.

— dEt Roin, 383.

.0 or'thc Doili or Gold, 31&
tTi<Cliapelkdels), 3.
-(i^T<ed=l.) 69.

— (PriiOMls reliMtd bF)> 1*3-

— (Rrcord of lh(), afti

GsevAis (CrypH! Si.l, g ; "8 «
(Fur of Si.). 63.
(Prioiy otSi.),i7; 77-

loujoB {J«aii>. "44-
WKDPonl(Rug.J.

rAmbiMw (Eltclioo), 1

Herlwih,t7.
HlLAimK (Si.), a.

(Plice St.), «.

H0LBBIM, »;-
HaxuKEdeUVUIc, ije

(Rut de U GiosM

HOTMt Boiirglheraulde,

HOlW.doVille.84; 1.0: T«.

HuCH II.'(Aic^l>ubop), sB.

Index

(Rue), 7 ! '5- .

(Tout),!; 6: »««■

Lai d'AiiHcxe, 196 ; 960.
Ubfrahc, 63; £4:871 7Si J]
I.ATIH Luneiiag*, 377-
L»iiiiBKT(Bi,),as; J*a,
LlCOlNTB (GuillsuoiBl, »7'
LSLIBUH U"'*!''*''' Si ™ J 4° '

li¥'u¥{d=sPnUcod5).S9.
liltouK (Rouland), 130.
LbRouk, 3^i. _ .„

LeSTKAHGB (Aichfaiatiop trDlJlt

Lion (Potte Guillaume), «; *-
m (Pari* of St.). 90-
{Priory St.), >5

Lothaib (of France). 57
Louis (orF™ace),j3.
Louiad'OuUenwt, SI.

i-»"»yM;*;i .t™^,

-XIV., 387

- XV 590.

(Sl.|.3oi<8,

(St,H. d« lil

(St., Sm Rene

HVAL'WDTkmen, iiB.

MnloH (St.), 17 : i8-
Merbiiitk (Geoige). rfij ; 19

\i. "co™r^= di li.), 3«
lAorRouea, 147.

CLH Plavs. las-

MorBBLMKN'(i'Dl)°S.

Index

Museum, 6.

Music sung in 1550, •^fa.

Mystbry Plays, 105 ; 167.

Napolbon (the Great), 30X.
Nation ALB (No. 41 Rue), 48.
Newfoundland, 383.
NiCAiSB (St.), 17.

(story of St.). 371.

NiD DB Chibns, 183 ; 394.
Norman Architecture, lox.
Norm AMDS (F£te aux), 69.

Odd of Bayeux, 63 ; 78.
Old Houses, 304 etc.
Old Hundredtn, 359.
Ordbric Vital, 40.
Osmond, 53.

OuBN(St.), 5; 6; 17; 35 ; 48;
333 etc.

(Cemetery of St.), 332.

xsa

Ours (Rue aux), 15 ; 43 ; 48.

Palais (Rue du Vieux), 6.
de Justice, 15 ; 43 ; 377 etc.

Palinods (Puy des), 69.

Pantagrubl, I4Q.

Papegault, 375.

Pardon (Champ du), 69.

■ (Foire du), 69.

Parvis of Cathedral, 4 ; 6 ; x6 ; 43

70 ; 86.
Pascal, 380.
Pastourbaux, XX4.
Pecquignv, 53.
I'BDRO Nino, 170.
Petit Qu6villy, 3 ; 95 etc. ; 97.

Salut, 389.

Petrarch's "Triumphs," 333.
Philip Augustus, 6 ; 90.
Pictures, 309.
Pierre db Br^zA, 361.

(Eglise St., du chastel), 48.

(Fontaine Croix de), 13.

Pilon (Germain), 308.

Place de la Calende, 43 ; 48 ; 70.

•

Place de la Haute Vieille Tour,

du March^ Vieux, sx.

de la Pucelle, 3a6 ; 337 ; 33X.

de la Rougemare, 56.

Verdrel, 43.

de la Vieille Tour, 354.

du Vieux March^, 336 etc.

Pont Boieldieu, 96.

de Pierre Comeille, 7 ; 68.

de TArche, 46.

(Rue Grand), 7.

de Robec (Place des), 6 ; x6 ;

PoNTiFZ (Guillaume), 129.
PoRCUPiNB device, 386.
Portail de la Calende, X36.

des Libraires, 6 ; 70.

' aux Libraires, 131 etc.
aux Marmousets, 235 ; 993.

Port Morant, 16.
Porte Beauvoisine, 54.
Guillaume Lion, 4.

Potbrne, 43.
Pr£ de la Bataille, 53.
Pretextatos, 85 ; 39 ; 3X ; 32 ; 33.
Prisoners released by the Fierte,
364 etc.

released by the Privilege St.

Romain, 395 etc.
Priory of St. Gervais, 17.
St. Lo, 15.

Privilege St. Romain, ^7 ; X04 etc.
St. Romain (Prisoners of).

X63 etc.

St. Romain (Records of the).

395 etc.

Procession of the Fierte, 354 etc*.

Psalms c. and cxxxiv., 35a.

Punishments of the XVIth cen-
tury, 373.

Puy de Conception, 370.

Puy des Palinod.s, 69.

QuENTiN (Dudo of St.), 40.

QufiviLLV, 66.

(Petit), 3 95 etc.

Rabelais, 149.

Ragnar Lodbrog, 45.

Records of the Fierte St. Romain,

163 etc.; 300 etc.; 364 etc ; 395

etc.

Index

Rehabilitation of Jeanne d*Arc,

929.
Reign of Terror, 390.
Religious Wars, 315.
RftpuBLiQUE (Rue de la), 7.
RAvoLTE de la Harelle, 150 etc.

des Va-nu-Pieds, 38a.

Richard (the Fearless), 53; 58.
Richard II. (Duke), 68.
Richard Cgbur de Lion, 86 ; 87 ;

98.
RiBOUDBT (Mont), a.

RiCARVILLE, 330.

RoBBC, 3; zs; 48; 70; 382.

(Eau de), 48.

(Fonts de), 15; 43.

Robert (The Devil), 62.

^Duke of the Franks), 49.

(The Magnificent), 63.

■ Short Hose, 75 ; 81.

(Son of the Conqueror), 78.

RoLLO (RolOi 45*
Rolf the Ganger, 46.
Romain (St.)« 37 etc. ; 4x ; 69.

(St.j his shrine), 98.

(Privilege of St.), 37 etc. ;

104 etc.

(Rue St.), 6.

(Tour St.), 7X.

ROMAINE 389

Roman de Rou, 69.
Romanesque, x8.
RoNSARD, 309.

ROTOMAGOS, 14.

Rou (Rollo), 45.
RouGEMARB (Place de la), 56.

ROUMARB, 3.

RouvEL (bell), 9 ; 86 ; 137.

ROUVRAV, 3.

Rue des Chanoines, 320.

■ des Charettes, 113,

■ Croix de Fer, 2x7.
Damiette, 384.

■ St. Denis, 48.

Dinanderie, 222.

St. Eloi, X62.

de I'Epicerie, 352.

de la Grosse H or lege, X34 etc.

des Fossfe Louis VIII., 42 ;

"3-

de I'Hdpital No. i, 396.

Massacre, 42.

St. Nicolas, 2x7.

aux Ours, 42.

St. Romain, 210 etc.

de la Salamandre, 352.

RuissEAU (Rue du), 6.

RUSKIN, X3X ; X32.

Sacristan of St. Ouen, 58 ; 940.
Saint Denis (Rue), 15.
Marie (Place), x6.

Salamandre (Rue de la), 353.
Sang Danin6, 275.
Satyrs M6nipp6e, 386.
Saut de Conan, 80.
Savonnerie (Rue). 344.
** Sege of Roan " (Poem), 132.
Selden (Camille), 393.
Seneschal, 36x etc.
Sbrifontaine (Chateau de), X73.
Sever (St.), 3; 17; 68.
Siege of 946, 53-

of Rouen by Henry V., 169

408

etc
Sieges of Sixteenth Century, 3x5

etc.
Sigebert, 35 ; 27.
Sixteenth Century, 294 ; 300 etc.
Sotteville, 3.
Spain and Rouen, 173.
Staircase of St. Maclou, 345.
Starvation in Rouen, x88.
St. Am and (Abbess oOt 953*
St. AndrA, 347.
St. Catherine's Mount, 99.
St. Clement, 43.
St. Eloi, 43 ; 352.
St. GervaiSi 5.
St. Godard (windows), 248.
St. Hbrbland, 41 ; 135.
St. Hilairb, 2.
St. Julien (frescoes), 95 etc
St. Laurent, 248.
St. Louis, XX4.
St. Martin, 30.
St. Maclou, 243 etc
St. Ouen, 5; 35; 48; 55; X52 ;

233 etc.
St. Patrice (Windows), 250.
St. Paul (Church), 99.
St. Pierre du Chastel, 5.
St. Quentin, 84.
St. Romain, 37 etc. ; 4x ; 69.

(Fete), 107.

(Record of the Privilege),

163 etc ; 200 etc. ; 264 etc. ; 295

etc.
(Shrine), 98.

Index

St. Sbvkk, a.
St. Vihcbnt (Eglise), 147.
-— -- 249; 250 ; 338.
St. ViviBN, 252.

Talbot, 205.

Tapissibbs (Rne desX 15.

Tbstimony of Jeanne d'Arc, 316.

Thibks (Roe), 6.

Thoubbt, 390.

Tomb of the Cardinab d'Amboise,

3x0.

of Louts de Bf6s6, 3x4.

T0NNELIKK8 (St. Etienne des), 70.
Tour ( Place de la Hante VieilleX 38.

(Basse Vieille), 5.

de Beurre, X29 ; 256.

aux Clerc^ yx.

■ da Colombier, X97.

-Haute VieilleX S-

Jeanne d'Arc, 5 ; 205 ; 207 ;

214 etc. : 230 etc.

de Rouen, 57 ; 8x.

St- Andr6, 247.

St Romain, 91 ; 71.

Valdory (CaptainX 3x7.
Velocassss, X4.

Vbsorkl (Place), 15.
Vbxin, Z4.

VicomtA db l*Eau, 84 ; 86.
ViBUX Biarch^ (Place du), 6.

Palais (Rue duX 6.

Vital (OrdericX 40.
VOLTAIRB, 387.

Wacx (Robert), 57 ; 69.
Wallingpord, 76.
Wantagb, 80 ; 3x9.
Wbst Hannby, 3x9.
Whitb Ship, 82.
William the Bastard. 62 ; 72.
William thb Ck)NQUBROR, 72 etc
William op JuMiftcES, 40.
William Longsword, 50.
William Rupus^ 80 ; 81.
Workmen (Medueval), X19.

Xaintraillbs, 23a

YvsTdT, 36 ; 242.

409

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