A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY MADRIGAL

"Ung autre petiz tapiz de bergerie, sur champ vert, semé de bergiers et de bergières ... ung autre vielz tapiz de haulte lice ouvré de jeunes hommes et femmes jouans de plusieurs jeux ... arbres, herbaiges, ciel fait à faucons."

This might really represent the original needlework from which Abbé 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. Vincent some of the finest sixteenth-century tapestries in France.

INNER FAÇADE OF THE MAISON BOURGTHEROULDE

INNER FAÇADE OF THE MAISON BOURGTHEROULDE.

The flattextilekind 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 have not that extravagant admiration of it, viewed purely as work of art, which may be better reserved for conceptions 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 Bourgtheroulde, 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 important reason for these details is the fact 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 conveniently studied is in the gallery of Hampton Court Palace. In that collection you may see, in No. 337, Henry's embarkation from Dover on the 31st of May in theGreat HarryorHenri Grace de Dieu, as she had been "hallowed" in 1514. And in No. 342 is a large painting 5½ 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 withour earliest notions of English history, for it is prefixed to Mr Murray's edition of Mrs Markham's "England." Mr Ernest Law's catalogue of the Hampton Court pictures gives further details in connection with it, and for a longer description refers his readers to the third volume of the State papers of Henry VIII., and to "Archæologia," iii. 185-230.[68]

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 historians and archæologists 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 exploredmany 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 authorities. 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 somewhat wider, and perhaps a more influential public, succeed in suggesting some movement that will, I am confident, be welcomed in the best spirit by Frenchmen 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 Herbière, 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 Vicomté, 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 theriver. As you pass down it now there are some wonderful old houses on your right, and a fine courtyard 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 corner 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. Périaux you may discover much more for yourself. 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 caqués" was sold for 110 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 Vicomté 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 dyablerieNy le caquet de la Pessonnerie."

Like everything else, it was under holy patronage, and fishwives prayed at the shrine of St. Julien l'Hospitalier, the saint whose story Flaubert, another child of Rouen, has so wonderfully told. The wags of the seventeenth century called these ladies "non angéliques mais harangériques"; but on fast-days every burgess and innkeeper and monk was glad enough to go to them; for was there not even an "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. His 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-façade; 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 toshow you part of the most complete representation of a town in 1525 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 onmap FinChapter 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 Robec here and there. 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 recalled from 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 four long bands of parchment, of which the Hôtel 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 secretary 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 reachednow, and after you have admired the carvings on the front of No. 41, stop at the quaint dwelling marked 29. This is the Maison Caradas, and its position at a corner with the open space of the river beyond it enables you to see it well all round. The slope of the ground upwards, which I noticed in earlier chapters, is especially pronounced here, and shows how much embankment had to be done before the town was really rescued from the swamps and mud-flats of the Seine. The fashion of building each upper storey to overlap the one beneath is very evident here, and the effects I suggested in the last chapter may be vividly realised; as Regnier[69]puts it with his usual frankness:—

"Et du haut des maisons tomboit un tel dégoutQue les chiens altérés pouvoient boire debout."

This is one of the houses drawn in Lelieur's book at the corner of the Rue Tuile, with the Fontaine Lisieux near it, that is now merely a grotesque ruin of its former splendours. So much uncertainty is exhibited by the best local authorities as to the real owner of the Maison Caradas that I shall not pretend to solve the problem here. It is clear, however, that the word is a surname, or one of the by-names so common in the first years of the sixteenth century when this was built; and it is possible that it preserves one more suggestion of the connection between Rouen and Spain, and means "amiable," as in the phrase, "Bien o mal carado." For the root of the word is evidently in the Greekχάρις, and is found in the Gaelic "cara" (the friend or ally), and the Breton "Caradoc," who was the Caractacus of Roman days.

MAISON CARADAS

THE MAISON CARADAS IN THE RUE SAVONNERIE

If you will follow me a little further in the samedirection, as the Rue de la Savonnerie becomes the Rue des Tapissiers, 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 so long that he is certain to be there to blink at any new arrival in the next half century, and as you pass him you will remember the parrot who was discovered in Central America, full of years and knowledge, in a village where not a single inhabitant understood what the bird said. He had been found among the ruined houses of a people who had vanished utterly, and he 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 fadedbag of feathers at the corner of the Rue du 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 Marché aux Balais and the Rue de l'Épicerie. It takes its name from the Maison du Haulage, where the merchants paid town dues upon their goods, and a few steps further in the Rue des Tapissiers will bring you to the Halles themselves, to which you enter through a huge black archway that gapes upon the Place de la Basse Vieille Tour. Upon the left are some of those old "avant soliers" which you have seen in Jacques Lelieur's drawing of the Place du Vieux Marché, the covered causeways formed by projecting walls propped up by heavy timbers. There is much hideously vulgar modern decoration to spoil the full effect, but the 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 aux Drapiers in 1367. Since then they have been constantly 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 1467 as an ambassador, King Louis XI. ordered the town to furnish the English with all they wanted at his expense, with the result that "tousles gens de l'ambassade s'en retournèrent chez eux, vêtus de damas et de velours, et de ces draps fins et précieux qui asseurent au commerce de Rouen la supériorité sur toutes les villes du royaume." That "superiority" 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 commerce 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 sailed 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 "araboutan."[70]

Though various "savages" were seen there earlier, the most famous occasion of the appearance of real Brazilians in the streets of Rouen was the particularly magnificent reception given by the citizens to Henri II. and Catherine de Médicis in October 1550. They were accompanied by Marie de Lorraine, daughter of the Duc de Guise and Queen-Dowager of Scotland, who met at Rouen her little daughter Marie Stuart then eight years old and receiving a perilous education at the French Court which she was soon to rule during the short reign of François II. Marguerite de France, daughter of François 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 "théatres" and "Mystères," which you will remember were presented to François I., the citizens determined that in case mythology and symbolism had lost their pristine charms, an absolutely novel entertainment should be given to the King on this occasion. So on the fields between the Couvent des Emmurées 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 discovered 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 throughout the entire performance. There was much singing ofanthems and decoration of the streets, but the Indians were evidently the "pièce de resistance."[71]

Besides the music in the town, of which I reproduce an example at the end of this chapter, an entertainment 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 à la guelle d'un four," the whole being a satire on the well-known Norman passion for a lawsuit, which wasappreciated as much by the good people of Rouen as by their royal visitors.

But to finish this chapter with a glimpse of the people themselves, I must take you back to that old Rue du Hallage, in which our memories of Rouen's 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 common habitations that you will get by standing in the Place de la Calende and looking down the Rue de l'Épicerie 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 Marché aux Balais, where brooms were sold in 1644, after their modest commerce had been forbidden 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 "Salamandre" 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 is but quite lately that a conglomeration of tottering and leprous houses, without owners, and never entered by the police, wastorn down. The Rue Coupe-Gorge, the Rue de l'Aumône, especially the horrible Clos St. Marc, have not long been swept away. Every cellar and every attic seemed to communicate by tortuous and filthy passages with the next. No visitor was admitted who had not the hallmark of crime visibly upon him, or was not a member of that loathsome confraternity of thieves and beggars who lived by their raids upon society at large.

RUE DE L'ÉPICERIE WITH PORTAIL DE LA CALENDE IN THE DISTANCEStraight out of the Marché aux Balais the Rue du Hallage burrows under the ancient houses towards the river, hemmed in by walls on all sides, 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 l'Épicerie directly leads, the Place de la Haute Vieille Tour, where you 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 Marché aux Balais and the Rue Salamandre and the Rue de l'Épicerie itself, wereall crowded to suffocation. Every Ascension-tide, from the reign of the Norman dukes until the Revolution, 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 these occasions, because the list has provided typical instances 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 ceremony, 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 l'Épicerie 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 ceremony, 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 Cauchoises 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 Trépassés had come out into the light, their strange black cloaks all sewn with silver skulls. At last eight o'clock struck,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 Confrèrie 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 extremely 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 Prévôt and four other members of the Confrèrie St. Romain, the chaplain was escorted into the great hall, the name was solemnly read out, and the officials of the Parliament 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 Conciergerie, that his name might be enregistered as aformal prisoner of the Palais; for all the legal bodies were particularly touchy about their own prerogatives. 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 councillors stood up he knelt before the president to receive admonition for his past sins and pardon for the future. Still bareheaded, he was then led out by the "huissiers" of the court through the great open space in front, 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. "Rura jam 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 Confrèrie 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 "Christe quem sedes revocant paternæ," 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 chaplainbrought 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 "Noël! Noël!" Then a confrère 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 l'Épicerie 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 Confrèrie 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 confrère 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 canonsin violet, and the greater dignitaries in soutanes of red silk; by the officiating canon, and lastly by the Archbishop himself, blessing the people as he went along.

As the chanting died away, after a short interval came the beadle all in violet livery bearing the great "Gargouille" of the town, and followed by a rabble of laughing, screaming lads in motley, 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 summit of the Tour St. Romain floated down upon the people, all men passed in through the Portail de St. Romain of the Western Front, under the great shrine held crosswise, 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 Confrèrie 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 background of Lelieur's drawing, but even with the soundof 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 100th about 1562. It was Händel'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.

WINDOW IN THE MAISON BOURGTHEROULDThemadrigalI have printed here was written in a rare old book I found in the Library of Rouen.[72]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 tothe enjoyment of a song that has never been published since 1551, and that will reproduce for you, for the first time since then, the sound of the welcome given to Henri II. and Catherine de Médicis as they entered their good town of Rouen in 1550.

In the history of music this four-part song is interesting as giving evidence of the general cultivation 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 us the typical national music of mediæval times, it is important 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 regarded as an off-shoot (see Grove, "Dict. 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 treatment 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 theoriginal is clearly and correctly printed, in four separate parts on the same double page. In scoring it, the accidentals, which do not occur in the original, have been added in brackets. It is, of course, impossible to surmise who may have been the author, but it is certain that, whoever he was, he had attained to a remarkable skill in writing effective music. If we consider the prescribed limitations in which he worked, with nothing lower than the second alto part for his bass, it is surprising to notice the sonority of sustained tone that is got by skilful disposition of the harmonies, while the beautiful antiphonal effect at the point "Vive le Roi" is of a kind that must appeal to hearers of all classes and periods alike.

A WINDOW IN THE MAISON BOURGTHEROULDE, DESCRIBED ONPAGE 337

Listen to[audio/mpeg]Listen to[audio/mpeg]Listen toMIDI without piano accompanimentListen toMIDI with piano accompanimentView/downloadPDF sheet musicView/downloadMusicXMLViewlyrics

madrigal 1

madrigal 2

madrigal 3

madrigal 4

madrigal 5

madrigal 6

madrigal 7

Louange et gloire en action de grâce,Chantons à Dieu de la paix vray auteur:Par qui la France en seur repos embrasse,Ses ennemys faictz amys en grand heur.Vive son Roy, vive,Vive son Roy de ce bien protecteurSoubz qui de paix divers peuples jouyssentDont luy est deu cybas joye et honneur,Puis que les cielz de la paix s'ésiouyssent,Puis que les cielz de la paix s'ésiouyssent.

Note.—For the benefit of those not learned in Sixteenth-Century Music, it may be interesting to hint that the melody is written here for the Second Soprano, and to add, for their encouragement, that the experiment of performing this Madrigal, unaccompanied, with two ladies, and two male voices in the Alto parts, proved perfectly successful, thanks to the science of Mr Fuller-Maitland and the goodwill of the singers.

VIEW OF ROUEN

VIEW OF ROUEN, FROM THE ENGRAVING BY MÉRIAN IN 1620

COMMERCE OF ROUEN

THE COMMERCE OF ROUEN, FROM THE BAS-RELIEF BYCONSTON IN THE BOURSE

Rouen est ville bien marchandeC'est à cause de la mer grandeEt est ce semble sans doutanceQuasi la meilleure de France.

Ouy fameuse cité c'est toy qui prens la peineD'aller chercher bien loin l'ambre, la porcelaine,Le sucre, la muscade, et tant d'excellents vins....... Soye, oüate, tabac, draps de laine, poisson,Bois, bleds, sel, bescars, tout luy vient à foison.

SUCH popular festivals as that I have just described upon Ascension Day are of very ancient origin, even if they do not date back to that earliest "Fête aux Normands," whose institution you will remember in 1070. Two years afterwards began the Confrèrie de la Vierge to which Pierre Daré, Lieutenant-General for the King, gave fresh lustre when he was elected its Master in 1486. Though older poems (like that of Robert Wace) are connected with the Confrèrie, tohim is due the beginning of those "Palinods" sung in honour of the Virgin in the Church of St. Jean des Prés, which were called the "Puy de Conception," like the Puy d'Amour of the Provençal 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 rondeaulxBeaulx pallinotz et chans royaulxEt sappelle celle journeeLa feste du Puy honorée."

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. TheMuse Normandeof 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 warwaged, 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 proceedings 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 desecration. 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, merchants had wrangled over sharp practice in their business, 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 palladium 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 NicaiseOnt le cœur haut et fortune basse."

This was a bad pun on thechœur, 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 twistingstreets 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 GodardL'esprit ne venait qu' à 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 Clément 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 Grémonville, 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 gathering 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 contrastbecame 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 "Abbé Raillard" in 1557, an "Abbé 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 ingénieux jeux chansons et menus flaiollements d'icelle jeunesse puérille, receuilly de plusieurs rues lieux et passages où il estoit répandu depuis la primitive récréation, 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 œufLa lange dun bœufQuatre vingt moutonsAutant de chaponsVingt cougnons de painAncore ayge faim,"

or this, again—

"Gloria patri ma mere a petriElle a faict une galletteHouppegay, Houppegay j'ay bu du cidre Alotel (bis)."

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 ofguard at St. Hilaire should make that customary noise of clinking arms and tramping feet which every citizen would recognise and forget, sixty of the bravest champions 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, detached the time-worn rivets, and dragged off the famous timber, the "Boise" of St. Nicaise, the palladium 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 evening, 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 Duc de Longueville, Governor 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 François de Harlai, Archbishop of Rouen, aided their efforts, and at last the feud died down; but the event was never forgotten:

"Donc qu'o mette o calendrierQu'o dix huitiesme de JanvierFut pris et ravy notteBoiseBoise dont j'etions pu jalouxEt pu glorieux entre nousQue Rouen n'est de Georg d'Amboise."

David Ferrand'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 fêtes and jollities lasted on till well into the seventeenth century. The Fête 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 November, when the principal dish of roast goose was provided 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 Levée 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. Likethe 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 countless 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 fête called the Gâteau 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 "chandelles des Rois" to every household. At the favourite meeting-places of Ponts de Robec, or the Parvis Notre Dame, or the Église 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 sweetmeats and of fruit, some even had brought bottles of the famous mineral water sold at the Church of St. Paul, and the Confrèrie de St. Cécile 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 neighbouring hill-top, or of the luck of their compère Jehan, whose boy, born on the day of the conversion of St. Paul, was safe for all his life fromdanger of poison or of snake-bite. All these customs and superstitions are reflected in Hercule Grisel's Latin verses, which he begins with a needless apology—

"Rotomagi patriæ versu volo pandere mores,Quis captum patriæ damnet amore suæ?"

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 Malherbe and Corneille, 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. "Victurus 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.

PIERRE CORNEILLE

PIERRE CORNEILLE, FROM THE ENGRAVING BY LASNE

The greatest name of seventeenth-century Rouen is Pierre Corneille,[73]"ce vieux Romain parmi les français" 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,[74]he gave up stilted affectations 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 affair in Rouen. In the comedy of "Mélite," 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 friendand married the lady. It was to another Rouen acquaintance 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 paraphrase of Livy, yet Corneille was the first to realise that the speeches of lawyers, which were then little known to the general public, would form a very interesting scene upon the stage. His immediate 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 advantage of the opportunity to secure it from further mutilation. 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, Molière brought his travelling troupe to Rouen, and set up his theatre at the bottom of the Rue du VieuxPalais. There he played in "L'Etourdi" and "Le Dépit Amoureux," which Corneille went to see, and tradition says that the most distinguished of her audience fell in love with du Parc, the pretty actress, from the spectators' seats, not improbably on the occasion when his own play of "Nicomède" was being performed. It is certain at any rate that Molière, 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 recognised as the Molière 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 Molière'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 firstdébutin public was at the famous Foire du Pardon. What Rouen looked like at this time you may see in the view, reproduced from Mérian's engraving 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 concerned, but in sketching the history of his birthplace, I may be permitted to suggest some of the influenceswhich 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 interesting 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 meeting 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 influence 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 "Théodore," even if it be too great an extension of the idea to suggest that Racine's "Esther" and "Athalie," even Voltaire's "Zaïre," were also due to the same impressions.

It is pleasant to imagine that cultured circle, conversing 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 theprize at the Puy des Palonods, 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 theirs 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 remember that he was not merely born at Rouen, but that he lived and wrote there till he was fifty-six.

EAU DE ROBEC

The Pascals left Rouen in 1648 during the disturbances of the Fronde. They had come there in even more troublous times, for the riots called the "Révolte 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 little 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 Ponts de Robec to the eastern confines of the town. Chancellor Séguier was sent down with several thousand infantry and 1200 horse, called the "Fléaux 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 année," says the local chronicler sadly, "il n'y a point eu d'estrennes,ny chanté 'Le Roy Boit.' En la maison de Ville n'y eust point de gasteau party, ni le lendemain à disner." And the loss of the famous "Fête des Rois" at the Hôtel 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 fève," 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 "Bûche de Noël," 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 conducted 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 Cathedral, early in December, of Amantacha, a native of Canada, who was "held at the font" by Madame de Villars, and the Duc de Longueville, to be blessed by Monseigneur François de Harlay. Half a century later, it was from Rouen that René Cavalier de la Salle set out to explore the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico; and by a Rouen diplomat, Ménager, was drawn up in 1713 the Treaty of Utrecht, against which modern British inhabitants of Newfoundland are complaining so bitterly in 1898.

But for Englishmen a far more interesting fact in seventeenth-century Rouen is that Lord Clarendondied at No. 30 Rue Damiette on December 7, 1674. The house is standing still, behind a garden that is shut off from the street by high gates, and is not open to the public, though by a fortunate accident I was enabled to see it in the August of 1897. It is known as the Hôtel d'Aligre, and as the property of Mademoiselle 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 façade 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 Hôtel de Ville in Rouen record that the King of France had allowed "Monsieur le Comte de Clarendon, Chancelier de l'Angleterre" 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 littlerecord) 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 seventeenth-century ornaments) by Guillaume le Fieu, who had been treasurer of the Stables of Catherine de Médicis, or "Receveur de l'Écurie de la Reine" in 1558, and the Archives of the Department now possess, 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 attempting to describe the habits of a queen whose abilities as a horsewoman were so highly praised by Brantôme. Guillaume le Fieu had evidently considerable financial abilities, for we find him promoted, later on, to be "Receveur Général de la Généralité de Rouen," and finally "Maître Ordinaire de la Chambre des Comptes de Normandie," so that he is also connected with the two beautiful buildings, so different in style and date, which were described inChapter XI.

In No. 30 Rue Damiette he died in 1584, having scarcely completed the house before his daughter married one of the King's secretaries. In January1646, an old lease shows that the house was owned by Henry Dambray, "Conseiller au Parlement," and it was by him let for a year to Lord Clarendon. It was called the Hôtel de Senneville until the Revolution, when it became the property of the families of Pommereux and d'Alligre. Though Lord Clarendon was first buried in Rouen, when his grand-daughters (through the marriage of the Duke of York, brother of Charles II., 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 Captain 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 archæologists will not permit a visitor to forget, the authorship of the famous "Satyre Ménippée," 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 États de la Ligue of January 1593. De Thou said, "le premier auteur de l'écrit est, croit-on, un prêtre du pays de Normandie, homme de bien...." And the edition of 1677 gives his name as "Monsieur LeRoy, chanoine de Rouen, qui avoit esté aumosnier du Cardinal de Bourbon." In the portions before each harangue, he mentions the tapestry in Rouen Cathedral, the Révolte de la Harelle, the Foire St. Romain, and other details, with an accuracy and affection 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 theFronde princes had been arrested in January 1650, the Duchesse de Longueville tried to continue the rôle of her husband, though his party had fairly 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 fashion, for it reduced the population of the town by 20,000 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."

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