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 1731 he came back, and in the Rue du Bec, 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 climats ont produit d'assez rares merveillesC'est le pays des grands talentsDes Fontenelle des CorneillesMais ce ne fut jamais l'asile du printemps."
HOUSE IN RUE PETIT SALUT
HOUSE IN RUE PETIT SALUT. (RUE AMPÈRE 13.)
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 Quartier Cauchoise is set apart for industrial work, for silk and wools and linens; there is a great storehouse for grain, a huge "Halle des Toiles"; a Boursefor business men. In 1723 a new "Romaine," or Custom-House, was built, which involved the destruction of the Porte Haranguerie and the Porte de la Viconté, and upon its triangular pediment was placed Coustou's beautiful carving of "Commerce," of which I reproduce a drawing in these pages. After the Revolution the "Tribunal des Douanes" was held in the Maison Bourgtheroulde, until in 1838 the present "Douane" was built by Isabelle, and Coustou's relief was set beneath its rotunda inside. The various fortunes of the Custom-House of Rouen have been described by M. Georges 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 beautiful courtyard (illustrated in this chapter) in the Rue Petit Salut (now No. 13 Rue Ampère) 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 undoubted 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'Orléans in 1452, who is said to have lodged in the "Hôtel d'Estellan, Rue Petit Salut." But the house is worth visiting if only to speculate on the dungeon windows in the corner 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.
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 Duc 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 doubtful honour was a very cold one. And when Louis XVI. 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 XII. 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 beheaded nearly as many in suppressing the disorders that followed the general disorganisation of society. Even on the 1st of November 1793 we hear of the first night of Boieldieu's "La Belle Coupable" performed at the Théatre 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 "drawthe line." In 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 Mémoires 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 façade 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 Corneille's statue carved by David d'Angers. In 1871 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 manœuvring to and fro to the sound of words of command in a strange tongue. General Manteuffel, the Duke of Mecklenburgh, 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 mediæval characteristics, under the levelling régime 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. Laurent and St. Ouen, among many other atrocities, did most injury in abolishing those picturesque local bodies, like the "Cinquantaine" and the "Arquebusiers," and substituting 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 traditions. A town that in art can show the names of Poussin, Jouvenet, and Géricault; 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 archæology of their own town, their "Ville Musée," that Rouen has been especially blest. In Farin the historian, in M. de Caumont the archæologist, in Langlois, de la Quérière, Deville, Pottier, Bouquet, Périaux; above all, in Floquet, the town can point to a band of chroniclersof 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 reference to the records of the town; MM. Noël and Beaurain, who preside over the Library; M. Georges 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 1896 died a "Professor of German" in the Lycée de Rouen, who had held her post since 1882. There had lived Camille Selden, in a quiet seclusion, from which she published the "Mémoires 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, I 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.
"Strength is not won by miracle or rape.It is the offspring of the modest years,The gift of sire to son, thro' these firm lawsWhich we name Gods; which are the righteous cause,The cause of man, and manhood's ministers."
IT was in my mind at first to place here an itinerary I had planned by which it would be possible to visit everything of interest in Rouen in six days, starting from the Hôtel 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 theChartreuse de la Rose, it will be good to take the Route de Lyons la Forêt past the château calledNid de chiens(a name which preserves the memory of the old Dukes' Kennels) where Henri IV. was entertained. You 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 theAubetteon your right, and turn round the wall of the great Hospital enclosure till you reach theRue Edouard Adam, and pass the Rue Eau de Robec which is beautiful on each side of you. Pass the newFontaine Croix de Pierre, and as you turn down theRue Orbelook quickly at the backs of the houses on the Robec, and then swing to the right up theRue des Champs. At theRue Matelasyou must stop.St. Vivien'sChurch closes the quaint vista of the street, and at No. 19 is an aged doorway to a dark courtyard, and beyond that, a charming turret staircase on the roadway with a gallery outside all wreathed in roses. The gables and the woodwork and the shadowed windows make up an exquisite little picture of mediæval domesticity. When you return again to the Rue Orbe, look down the RuePomme d'Orto your left, and then turn up the Rue Poisson and admire the beautiful choir ofSt. Nicaise, remembering the story of the famous "boise" I told you in thelast chapter. Up the Rue St. Nicaise, past the Rue Floquet,the hideous slit of theRue d'Enferopens on the left, so you turn away to the Rue Roche opposite, and keep swinging to the left up theRue de la Cageand so on to theBoulevard Beauvoisine. ThePlace du Boulingrin, where I have no doubt the English garrison of 1420 played at bowls, is still green and inviting a little to your right. But pushing on still westwards to the left you come to theBoulevard Jeanne d'Arc, and pass the road that leads northwards to a fascinating Cider-tavern in theChamps des Oiseaux. A little further on is the Rue Verte (leading northwards to the Railway Station and southwards to the Rue Jeanne d'Arc and the river) and at last you reach thePlace Cauchoiseand theRue St. Gervaiswhich mounts to the north-west. Look at No. 31 (the Menuiserie Brière) as you pass, for the sake of the charming old wooden gallery in its courtyard, and then at No. 71 with its pretty eighteenth-century panels like plaques of Wedgewood, an ornament which is closely imitated in the medallions on the wall at the corner of theRue Chasselièvre. After visiting St. Gervais come back to the Place Cauchoise and take the Rue Cauchoise until you reach theRue des Bons Enfants, where at No. 134 died Fontenelle. As you pass theRue Étoupéestop to look at the sign of the house at No. 4, built in 1580. If you are wise you 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 theRue Ganterieand so by way of the Rue de l'Hôpital to the crossing of the Rue de la République. Almost in front of you on the other side is the queer little alley called theRue Petit Mouton, and as you pass down it you will see how much bigger the streets look on myMaps(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 theRue Eau de Robecwhere 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 corner of the Rue de la Grande Mesme is fine, and so is No. 187 at the angle of theRue du Ruissel. All the while the inky water is trickling under countless bridges on your left hand ("Ignoble little Venice" Flaubert calls it all 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 thePlace St. Vivien and the Church, the Eau de Robec still continues; and, as the Rue du Pont à Dame Renaude opens on your left, there is a good house at the corner of the opposite street. Further on to the left a great building with overhanging eaves stretches from 34 to 30. Then, over a broader bridge, the Rue des Célestins goes northwards, and this street of bridges ends in the green trees of the Boulevard, with a lovely view of that Maison des Célestins which the Duke of Bedford endowed, far to your right in the distant corner of the old wall of the Hospital.
Coming back by the Robec (for it well deserves looking at from each end), when you reach the Rue de la République turn northwards for a sight of the south front of St. Ouen, and then leave the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville by way of theRue de l'Hôpitaldue west. No. 1 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 façade. Upon its entrance columns (which are double, one set above another) two delicately 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 theRue des Fossés Louis VIII.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 theRue aux Juifs, in which No. 35 is an exact model of its ancient predecessor. In theRue du Becthere are remains of fine houses and spacious courtyards, and through it you arrive at the Rue de la Grosse Horloge and the great archway 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 theRue St. Étienne des Tonneliers, which opens out of the Rue du Grand Pont just before the quays. Where the Rue Jacques Lelieur enters it are the ruins 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.
TheMusée des Antiquitésat the northern end of the Rue de la République contains some very interesting prehistoric remains; 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 confrèries; coins of the Dukes of Normandy from 911 to 1216; an eleventh-century Oliphant; some glassmosaics; 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 "La Capucine," as the first municipal fire-engine was called, which was only instituted in 1719. 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 good examples of tapestry and furniture, and in a room by itself is a magnificent mosaic from Lillebonne. Of the inner quadrangle and the front courtyard I have spoken already in earlier pages.
TheMusée de Rouenin the Rue Thiers has four separate divisions each worthy of your attention. Thefirstis the beautiful garden which stretches westward to the Rue Jeanne d'Arc. Thesecondis theTown Library, which is entered by its own door opposite the Église 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. Among 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. Noël, 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 theArchives, near the Prefecture in the Rue Fontenelle; and he will find further documents of interest in theHôtel de Villeand theLibrary of the Chapterhouse, which is reached by way of the staircase out of the north transept in the Cathedral. Thethirddivision of the Musée de Rouen is theGallery of Faience and Ceramics. The enamelled tiles for Constable Montmorency, called the "carrelages d'Ecouen," which bear the mark, "Rouen, 1542," were not made by Bernard Palissy, but by the man of whom a record exists in May 24, 1545, "Masséot Abaquesne, esmailleur en terre demeurant en la paroisse St. Vincent de Rouen." After1565 this "terre émaillée" is not made here any more, but in 1645 Esmé Poterat is the best maker of porcelain in France, and was the founder of the famous Rouen school of the "fond jaune ocré," in which Guilleband and Levavasseur were 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 queerly Celestial atmosphere. There is also the famous "violon de faience" to be seen. Thefourthand most important division is, of course, that which contains the pictures, and by a very sensible arrangement those which have especially 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 galleries themselves, No. 413 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 Ile 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 reproduction 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.
Though I desire to express my indebtedness to all the works mentioned in these pages, the books given in the list that follows 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 Duc, of Michelet, of many other standard works. Those who yet have it to discover can find it for themselves in any library.
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 mediæval cities. All the publications of the "Société Rouennaise des Bibliophiles" and of the "Société des Bibliophiles des Normandes" may be consulted with advantage, and every volume of "Normannia" issued by the "Photo Club Rouennais."
The works published by M. Charles Robillard de Beaurepaire 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 reprints 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 contribution 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:—