London: J.M. Dent & Co. Aldine House, 29 and 30 Bedford Street Covent Garden, W.C. 1899 All rights reserved ST. MACLOU ST. MACLOU...

"Est enim benignum et plenum ingenui pudoris fateri per quos profeceris." T HE story of a town must differ from the history of a nation in that it is concerned not with large issues but with familiar and domestic details. A nation has no individuality. No single phrase can fairly sum up the characteristics of a people. But a town is like one face picked out of a crowd, a face that shows not merely the experience of our human span, but the traces of centuries that go backward into unrecorded time

Amis, c'est donc Rouen, la ville aux vieilles rues, Aux vieilles tours, débris de races disparues, La ville aux cent clochers carillonant dans l'air, Le Rouen des châteaux, des hôtels, des bastilles, Dont le front hérissé de flèches et d'aiguilles Déchire incessamment les brumes de la mer. T HE three great rivers that flow from the heart of France to her three seas have each a character of their own. The grey and rapid current of the Rhone, swollen with the melting of the glacier-snows, rolls pa

"Latera aquilonis civitas regis magni Deus in domibus eius cognoscetur cum suscipiet eam." F OLLOW the Rue de la République past the Abbey of St. Ouen and up the hill to the Place Sainte Marie. On your left you will find the Musée des Antiquités which contains the earliest traces of the inhabitants of Rouen. There are so few of them that they are easily contained in a few glass cases; and this Museum is itself an excellent place with which to begin your visitation of the town. Few travellers go

"Consurgit pater in filium, filius in patrem, frater in fratrem, proximus in propinquum." capital L L ITERALLY not one stone remains in Rouen to which I can point you as a witness of the tragedy in which the names of Fredegond and Brunhilda will always live. Yet the part of their tragedy which was played in Rouen must be told, if you are clearly to fashion for yourself that web of many faded colours which is to be the background for the first figures recognisable as flesh and blood, the northern

Normanni, si bono rigidoque dominatu reguntur, strenuissimi sunt et in arduis rebus invicti omnes excellunt et cunctis hostibus fortiores superare contendunt. Alioquin sese vicissim dilaniant atque consumunt. Rebelliones enim cupiunt, seditiones enim appetunt, et ad omne nefas prompti sunt. Rectitudinis ergo forti censura coerceantur et fraeno disciplinae per tramitem justitiae gradiri compellantur. T HE unity of Charlemagne's Empire existed in name alone. The agglomeration of essentially differ

"En Normandie a gent molt fiere Jo ne sai gent de tel maniere; Chevaliers sont proz é vaillanz Par totes terres conquéranz.... ... Orguillos sunt Normant è fier. E vanteor è bombancier; Toz tems les devreit l'en plaisier Kar mult sunt fort à justisier." Robert Wace. I T is time to look more closely at the personality of the greatest Duke of Rouen. William the Bastard has been described [16] as tall and very stout, fierce of visage, with a high, bald forehead, and, in FIGURE FROM THE BORDER OF TH

Lapis de pariete clamabit, et lignum, quod inter juncturas aedificiorum est, respondebit. I F the Norman capital that Philip Augustus added to the royal domain of France was not particularly rich, as I have shown, in architectural beauty, it possessed something more enduring even than stone, more THE ARMS OF FRANCE THE ARMS OF FRANCE vital than any school of architecture, something also far more precious as an indication of coming prosperity and strength; and this was the beginning of the indepe

Une rue délicieuse où le monde se pourmène, où tousiours il y ha du vent, de l'umbre et du soleil, de la pluye et de l'amour. Ha! Ha! riez doncques, allez-y doncques! c'est une rue tousiours neufve, tousiours royale, tousiours impériale, une rue patrioticque, une rue à deux trottoirs, une rue ouverte des deux bouts ... brief, c'est la royne des rues, tousiours entre la terre et le ciel, une rue à fontaine, une rue à laquelle rien ne manque pour estre célébrée parmi les rues. T HE cluster of old

"War's ragged pupils; many a wavering line Torn from the dear fat soil of champaigns hopefully tilled, Torn from the motherly bowl, the homely spoon, To jest at famine.... Over an empty platter affect the merrily filled; Die, if the multiple hazards around said die." T HE Mystery Plays which I have just mentioned in the last chapter were undertakings at once so solemn and so popular that I can give no better idea of coming trouble than is contained in the fact of the postponement of the Mystery

"Je sçay bien que les Angloys me feront mourir, croyant qu' après ma mort ils gagneront le royaume de France; mais quand même ils seraient cent mille godons de plus qu'ils ne sont présentement, ils n'auraient pas ce royaume." O F the many interesting processions which must have taken place in the fifteenth century on the occasion of the great ceremony of the Fierte St. Romain, surely few can have been more impressive than that in which the Duke of Bedford, in his capacity as Canon of the Cathedr

Et concupiscet Rex decorem tuum quoniam ipse est Dominus Deus et adorabunt eum. Et filiae Tyri in muneribus vultum tuum deprecabuntur; omnes divites plebis. Omnis gloria ejus filiae regis ab intus, in fimbreis aureis, circumamicta varietatibus. A WALK from Rouen to St. Sever will leave you with the impression that Rouen has so many churches that she has to turn many of them into shops, while St. Sever has so many shops that several of them have had to masquerade as churches. But the many "sacred

'Or ça'—nous dit Grippeminaud, au milieu de ses Chats-fourrez—'par Stix, puisqu' autre chose ne veux dire, or ça, je te monstreray, or ça, que meilleur te seroit estre tombé entre les pattes de Lucifer, or ça, et de tous les Diables, or ça, qu'entre nos gryphes, or ça; les vois-tu bien? Or ça, malautru, nous allegues tu innocence, or ça, comme chose digne d'eschapper nos tortures? Or ça, nos Loix sont comme toile d'araignes; le grand Diable vous y chantera Messe, or ça'. T O appreciate what was

Sedentes in tenebris et in umbra mortis, vinctos in mendicitate. ... Comme sur un drap noir Sur la tristesse immense et sombre Le blanc squelette se fait voir.... ... Des cercueils lève le couvercle Avec ses bras aux os pointus, Dessine ses côtes en cercle Et rit de son large rictus. T HE artist who first truly understood the rendering of light is also the workman whose shadows are the deepest in every scene he drew. If I were to leave you with an impression of the sixteenth century either in Ro

"Les gens de Rouen sont honnêtes, Grans entrepreneurs d'edifices De theatres et artifices Es entrees des grans seigneurs, Roy prelatz et aultres greigneurs." T HOUGH Henri Quatre could not get through the gates of Rouen while the town remained faithful to the League, and considered him a heretic, the sturdy citizens were ready enough to accept a king of their own religion, and when the "Vert Galant" made his first solemn entry into the place in 1596, they welcomed him as heartily as any of his p

Rouen est ville bien marchande C'est à cause de la mer grande Et est ce semble sans doutance Quasi la meilleure de France. Ouy fameuse cité c'est toy qui prens la peine D'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. S UCH popular festivals as that I have just described upon Ascension Day are of very ancient origin, even if they do not date b

I T 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 spac

The Musée des Antiquités at 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;

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,