The Story of Rouen

Chapter Xiii., the Plan in Chapter Ix. by Jacques Lelieur, Who Also

drew the view of the whole town reproduced in Chapter XIII. This plan is the only instance of which I am aware which enables us to see a French town of 1525 exactly as it was, for by a queer but easily intelligible mixture of plan and elevation, the architect has drawn not merely the course of various streets but the façades of the houses on each side of them. And this leads me to my last, and perhaps my most striking debt, that to my illustrators; not only to my mother, who drew the arms of Rouen, from a design of 1550, for the first chapter, and Coustou's charming bas-relief of Commerce for the last, but more especially to Miss James; of her work I need say nothing; it is quite able to make its own appeal; but for her indefatigable desire to draw exactly what I wanted and to assist the whole scheme of the

Book I Cannot Sufficiently Express My Gratitude. Her Drawings of the

Crypte St. Gervais, of the Chapelle St. Julien, and of the Église St. Paul, will be as new as they are valuable to architectural readers; her picture of the Cour des Comptes, and of the old house in the Rue St. Romain were made under exceptional circumstances which may never recur again; and the view of the Chartreuse de la Rose is the first representation of the headquarters of our Henry V. in France which has ever, to my knowledge, been produced in England.

In conclusion I must express the earnest wish that the pages I have written about the carvings of the Maison Bourgtheroulde, and the illustrations accompanying them, will not have been published in vain. That the only authentic contemporaneous record of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, except the one picture at Hampton Court, should now be mouldering into decay in a French town is hardly creditable to those who can act with authority in valuable questions of historical art. If it be impossible to procure any good reproduction of these carvings for the pleasure and instruction of the public in our own National Galleries, a suggestion might at least be made that would secure their better preservation in the French house which they will soon cease to adorn.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. Page

PAGE Introductory 1

CHAPTER II

The First City 12

CHAPTER III

Merovingian Rouen 24

CHAPTER IV

Rouen under her own Dukes 44

CHAPTER V

The Conquest of England and the Fall of Normandy 72

CHAPTER VI

A French Town 103

CHAPTER VII

La Rue de la Grosse Horloge 134

CHAPTER VIII

The Siege of Rouen by Henry V. 169

CHAPTER IX

Jeanne d'Arc and the English Occupation 200

CHAPTER X

A City of Churches 233

CHAPTER XI

Justice 264

CHAPTER XII

Death 292

CHAPTER XIII

Life 321

CHAPTER XIV

Literature and Commerce 369

A Madrigal of 1550 362

Appendix 394

Index 403

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

St. Maclou Frontispiece

The Arms of Rouen* 1

The Original Fontaine Croix de Pierre 13

Crypt of St. Gervais 19

Statue of St. Louis 22

Initial Letter from an old Manuscript 24

The Arms of Rouen* 35

Chapelle de la Fierte de St. Romain 37

The Arms of Normandy* 44

Figure from the Border of the Bayeux Tapestry* 56

Figure from the Border of the Bayeux Tapestry* 64

Figure from the Border of the Bayeux Tapestry* 72

Horses for the Army of William the Conqueror crossing the Channel, Bayeux Tapestry* 74

Figure from the Border of the Bayeux Tapestry* 88

Interior of the Chapel of St. Julien 96

Corbel from the old Church of St. Paul 99

Apse of the old Church of St. Paul 101

The Arms of France* 103

A Mason at Work* 118

Portail des Libraires 123

Rouen Cathedral from the North-West 128

The Good Shepherd of the Grosse Horloge 141

The Salt Porter of St. Vincent 147

La Grosse Horloge and the Town Belfry 151

Hôtel des Bons Enfants 159

A Cobbler at Work* 161

The Rue du Hallage 165

The Chartreuse de la Rose 181

The Apse of St. Ouen 193

Maison des Célestins 196

Rue St. Romain 206

La Cour d'Albane 218

Central Tower of St. Ouen from the South-East 222

Tour Jeanne d'Arc 230

The Original West Front of St. Ouen 236

Nave of St. Ouen 239

Staircase of St. Maclou 245

Door of St. Maclou 246

Tour St. André 247

Église St. Laurent 249

Western Porch of St. Vincent 257

Palais de Justice. Tourelle in the Rue St. Lô 267

Courtyard of Palais de Justice 272

Octagon Room of the Palais de Justice 278

Bureau des Finances, from the Parvis 284

Cour des Comptes, from the Rue des Carmes 288

The Dead Body of De Brézé, from his Tomb in Rouen Cathedral* 292

Entrance to the Aître St. Maclou 299

The Cemetery of St. Maclou 304

Tomb of the two Cardinals d'Amboise, from Rouen Cathedral 311

Tomb of Louis de Brézé in Rouen Cathedral 313

A Monk praying, from the Tomb of the Cardinals d'Amboise 315

Sir Christopher Lytcot, from the Brass in West Hanney Church* 319

Des Todes Wappenschild, after Holbein* 320

Rouen in 1525, by Jacques Lelieur Facing 321

The Gallery of the Maison Bourgtheroulde 323

The Field of the Cloth of Gold 327

A Window in the Maison Bourgtheroulde 335

Inner Façade of the Maison Bourgtheroulde 339

Maison Caradas 347

Rue de l'Épicerie 353

A Window in the Maison Bourgtheroulde* 361

Rouen in 1620, by Mérian Facing 369

Coustou's Bas-relief of Commerce* 369

Pierre Corneille, by Lasne Facing 376

Eau de Robec 381

Courtyard in the Rue Petit Salut 388

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

MAPS

PAGE

A. The Site of Rouen between the Seine and the Hills 3

B. Main Streets and Boulevards, showing the Walls besieged by Henry V. Facing 5

C. The Gallo-Roman Walls, and the oldest Streets in Rouen Facing 71

D. Rouen in the Thirteenth Century Facing 103

E. The Extension of Rouen Eastwards at the end of the Fourteenth Century Facing 169

F. Plan (and elevation of the Houses) of the Vieux-Marché and the Marché-aux-Veaux (now Place de la Pucelle) drawn by Jacques Lelieur for his "Livre des Fontaines" in 1525 Facing 209

CHAPTER I. _introductory_

Introductory

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.

The 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 past the imperishable monuments of ancient Empire, and through the oliveyards and vineyards of Provence, falls into the blue waves of the southern sea. The sandy stream of Loire goes westward past the palaces of kings and the walled pleasure-gardens of Touraine, whispering of dead royalty. But the Seine pours out his black and toil-stained waters northward between rugged banks, hurrying from the capital of France to bear her cargoes through the Norman cliffs into the English Channel.

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

Rouen that is now "cheflieu du département de la Seine-Inférieure," was once the Norman stronghold which commanded all the basin of the river from the incoming of the stream of Eûre. The Seine and its tributaries have cut vast plâteaux some four hundred feet in height, through chalk and débris piled above the Jurassic bedrock that crops out here and there, as it does at Bray. On the right bank of the river, at the summit of a huge curve, the city lies between the valley of Darnétal, that is watered by Robec and his mate Aubette, and the valley of Bapaume. Upon this northern side the town is guarded from east to west by the hills of St. Hilaire, Mont Fortin, Mont aux Malades and Mont Riboudet, and from these the houses grow downwards to the water's edge. Upon the plateau above perch the villages of Mont-Saint-Aignan and of Bois-Guillaume. But between the valley of Darnétal and the Seine, is yet another natural buttress, the promontory on whose summit is Mont Ste. Catherine and the hamlet Bonsecours. From this magnificent height you may take the best view of the natural setting of the town. The western horizon is closed by the plateau of Canteleu and the forest of Roumare. To the south, within that strong bent elbow of the stream, the bridges bind to Rouen her faubourg of St. Sever with its communes of Sotteville and of Petit Quévilly; and the forest of Rouvray spreads its shadow to the meeting of the sky.

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