_Justice_
'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'.
To appreciate what was involved by the building of the famous "Palais
de Justice," which is perhaps the greatest pride of Rouen, I must
needs bring before you a little more of the social life which made a
court of law and justice necessary; and I can make no better beginning
than by quoting again, from the Record of the Fierte St. Romain, those
instances after 1448 which throw the greatest light upon the manners
and customs of the years when the Échiquier de Rouen first became a
permanent assembly in its own House.
In 1453 occurs an entry which suggests that the modern idiot who plays
with a loaded revolver and shoots his friend "by accident" has been in
existence ever since deadly weapons were invented. A carpenter named
Guillaume le Bouvier drew his bow at a bird which was sitting on a
tree-top. The arrow glanced off a bough, rebounded from a stone, and
killed the son of the Sieur de Savary. Twenty-two years before, a
woman had been killed by a bolt from a crossbow in almost the same
way, and in 1457 a boy was shot by his brother in an exactly similar
manner. In 1474 Bardin Lavalloys provided another particularly
unfortunate example during a game which was in great favour at
Christmas time, and consisted in throwing sticks at a goose which was
tied by the leg to a tall pole. Jehan Baqueler missed his shot, and
hit poor Lavalloys on the temple. A more serious weapon, the
"couleuvrine," a long thin cannon, was responsible for an accidental
death in 1476. Guillaume Bézet had made a bet that he could shoot at a
gate better than his friends. His aim missed, and he killed a man
sitting by a hedge not far off. A case that is still more instructive
of the manners of the time occurred in 1475. Guillaume Morin, who was
apparently making the best of his last chance of a good meal before
Lent, had gone to feast with some neighbours on Shrove Tuesday, and
when they had finished the beef, he threw the bone out of the window.
It happened to be an especially large and heavy bone, and unluckily
his little daughter of seven was just that moment returning from the
tavern with more wine for the company. It fell upon her head from some
distance and killed her. Another curious sidelight is thrown on
fifteenth century society by the record of the next year. During a
wedding-breakfast in Rouen Pierre Rogart upset the mustard-pot over M.
Gossent's clothes. They quarrelled, the other guests took sides,
swords were drawn, and the prime offender's nephew ran a man through;
a crime for which the canons pardoned him.
But these are rather of the nature of the modern "manslaughter." The
"crime passionel" and the downright murder of malice aforethought, are
even more frequent. In 1466 Catherine Leseigneur was scolded and even
threatened with a beating while in bed by her mother-in-law. In a
sudden passion she snatched up a large stone and killed the other
woman with it. How a stone large and heavy enough for the purpose
happened to be in a bedroom we are not told, but it is quite easily
explained in the case of Jehan Vauquelin, who was annoyed while
working in the fields by Lucas le Febure in 1471, and killed him with
the weapon that is as old as the first murder in recorded history, and
seems to have been rather favoured in the fifteenth century. The year
1473 is only notable because Étienne Bandribosc was delivered by the
Chapter contrary to the expressed wish of Louis XI., after he had
killed a man who had insulted him. But in 1483 the element of romance
appears again. A priest called Robert Clérot, with a sword beneath his
cloak, was accustomed to pester with his attentions a pretty
seamstress in the parish of St. Eloi. Her legitimate lover interfered,
and, when the priest drew his sword, called in help and killed him
with his dagger. Twice more in this period is a "couturière" the
heroine of the Fierte. In the very next year Denise de Gouy, whose
previous history is not pleasant reading, took service with a citizen
of Rouen, and by means of false keys provided by her lover, robbed her
employer of a considerable quantity of linen, using her special
knowledge to pick and choose the best. She only escaped being hanged
with her paramour by being about to give birth to a child, and was
finally pardoned by the Chapterhouse. In 1492 a dressmaker was far
less fortunate. She was unable to satisfy a lady as to the fit of her
stays, and this angry customer, whose name was Marie Mansel, gave her
so shrewd a blow with her fist that the poor little dressmaker died in
a week. The canons apparently so sympathised with the annoyances of a
badly fitting corset, that they gave Marie Mansel her freedom. But the
episode has its value in showing that the modern muscular female is
not so new an apparition as she fancies. Tradesmen did not always get
the worst of it, however, in such disputes as these; for in 1525 a
butcher complained bitterly that his hair had been cut too short, in a
barber's shop near St. Ouen. The mistake so preyed upon his mind that
when he met the barber next day he smote him on the head and ran away
into the cemetery of St. Ouen. But Nicolas Courtil pursued him
valiantly, armed only with the instruments of his calling, and finally
killed the butcher by stabbing him in the neck with a pair of
scissors.
[Illustration: PALAIS DE JUSTICE
TOURELLE IN THE RUE ST. LÔ]
Priests are almost as interesting as the ladies in this extraordinary
record. In 1520 a curate from Marcilly hired Germain Rou for two
sovereigns to hide a baby in a chalk-pit, and then fled to Rome. The
cries of the child were heard two days afterwards by some travellers,
and Germain Rou, condemned to have his hand cut off and then be
hanged, was pardoned. In 1535 an even more flagrant crime is
registered against an ecclesiastic. Louis de Houdetot, a subdeacon,
had been so successful in his courtship of Madame Tilleren, that the
lady's husband sent her out of the town to her father's house. But
this did not stop the priest from continuing to visit her, and while
M. Tilleren was in Rouen news was brought him that Houdetot had
actually beaten M. de Catheville's servants in trying to get into the
house. This was too much; so Tilleren "took a corselet of beaten iron
(hallecrest) and a crossbow with a long bolt, and took a companion,
named Justin, armed with a helmet and a long-handled axe, with five or
six others." The gang, who evidently meant to make sure of their man,
met Houdetot in a street in Rouen; Tilleren fired his crossbow on
sight and shot him through the body; a piece of summary justice which
evidently appealed to the Canons of the Cathedral, in spite of the
fact that the sufferer was an ecclesiastic.
But in 1501 a gallant priest intervened in the most creditable manner,
and without any bloodshed, in a love-affair that should set all our
promising young historical novelists by the ears to tell it afresh.
There was a certain Jean de Boissey who was much in love with Marie de
Martainville. Her mother was not averse to a wedding, but the father
refused entirely. Luckily for Jean he was on excellent terms with the
lady's cousins, Philippe and Thomas de Martainville; so the three
friends with Pierre de Garsalle and other youthful sympathisers betook
them to the Abbey of St. Pierre-sur-Dives to talk it over. Jean found
an ally he could have hardly expected within the Abbey walls, for
Nicolle de Garsalle, a relation of one of his comrades and a brother
of the House, asked them all to stay to supper with him, and before
the porter let them out again he had arranged a plan for carrying off
the lady. The young men were delighted with this jovial monk's
suggestions, and the next morning the whole company met again with
seven or eight more ardent blades, and entered straightway into the
Manor where the lovely Marie dwelt. Cousin Philippe stayed outside and
kept watch at the drawbridge. In a short time--after adventures which
are discreetly concealed--Jean and his friends came out with the lady,
and the whole party made off to Caulde, where the betrothal was
solemnised. The next day they rode to Cambremer, and the happy pair
were married, "le sieur de Boissey," says the manuscript, "espousa sa
fiancée sans bans," and no doubt Brother Nicolle de Garsalle helped to
tie the knot. No less than sixteen persons being implicated in the
capital charge of abduction which followed, you may imagine how lively
the Procession of the Fierte was that year, and the cheers of the
populace as Jean de Boissey (begarlanded with roses, as all the
prisoners were) moved along, no doubt with Marie on his arm, and the
sturdy monk walked behind him from the Place de la Basse Vieille Tour
to the Cathedral. The de Martainvilles gave the Chapter a large
Turquoise set in gold, in token of their gratitude, and the gem was at
once placed upon the shrine to whose sanctity they owed deliverance.
Few stories have either so romantic a beginning or so fortunate an
end, in this record of the Fierte; but the large number of prisoners
then released has its parallel, is even surpassed indeed, on two
occasions soon afterwards; for in 1522 the whole parish of the village
of Étrepagny received the Fierte as accomplices of a young ruffian
called de Maistreville; though considering that his victim was one of
their own women, their ardent support of the man against all the
officers of justice is somewhat inexplicable. In 1560, when another
whole village was pardoned, their sympathy with a fellow-labourer who
killed a servant of the Overlord is more easily intelligible. But
nearly all of the most prominent cases have a woman at the bottom of
them. One that is especially instructive as to the morals and the
manners of the public occurred in 1524.
Antoine de la Morissière, Sieur de la Carbonnet, had, it seems,
insulted Mademoiselle d'Ailly, and beaten her so badly that she died a
short time afterwards with five of her ribs broken. So Étienne le
Monnier, her relation, resolved to avenge her, and took out a warrant
against the ruffian who had killed her. Desiring to make quite sure
that justice should not miscarry, he took some fifty gentlemen, all
armed, and accompanied the police-sergeant to the man's house. They
found de la Morissière[61] in a somewhat compromising position, and he
did not reply to their request for admittance. Le Monnier, determined
to get him out, set fire to the roof in four places. The fellow then
cried out that he would surrender, and trusting to the presence of an
officer of the law he came down. Le Monnier at once wounded him in the
chest with a long pike, and two other relations of Mademoiselle
d'Ailly hit him over the head with clubs, "so that he fell to the
ground as one dead." But le Monnier, seeing that he still showed signs
of life, drove his dagger into his throat and finished him off. Two
accomplices were actually hanged for this crime, but de Monnier, after
paying 1200 livres to the dead man's family, and being unsuccessful in
securing the royal pardon, was given the Fierte with the rest of his
friends by the Chapterhouse of Rouen.
[Footnote 61: In the words of the manuscript the man "estoit couché
avec une femme mariée, autre que la sienne."]
Of the morality of those days you must imagine something from these
instances. There are many more with which I have neither space nor
inclination to shock susceptibilities more delicate than were those of
a Cathedral Chapterhouse in the fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries. The tale of Jehanne Dantot, for instance, in 1489, is one
of the most astonishing stories of the lengths to which desperation
and wickedness can drive a woman that I have ever read. A queer
glimpse of the economy of certain households is provided by the record
of 1534. Pierre Letellier married the daughter of Maître Hoüel, and by
a clause in the marriage-settlement it was arranged that the
father-in-law should board and lodge the young couple for three
years. They had not lived in the house long before they were
scandalised by the immoral behaviour of the old man, and Pierre
naturally quarrelled with him about it. The ill-feeling between the
two men came to a climax one night when young Letellier had been
supping in the town, and coming back late found that his father-in-law
had bolted the door. At length his wife heard his knocks, and as soon
as she had let him in he roundly abused the servants for keeping him
so long upon the doorstep. The old man at once appeared on the scene,
without much in the way of clothing, it would appear, but waving a
stout club called a "marcus." With this he beat Pierre about the head
and shoulders until the young man lost patience and killed his
father-in-law with his dagger or "sang de dey."
The taverns were of course as frequent a source of crime then as they
are now. But the fashion of wearing swords has made a drunken brawl
less fatal. The records of the Fierte might very well be used as a
dictionary of offensive weapons from the number of swords, daggers,
maces, rapiers, clubs, and pikes their pages contain from year to
year. It was at the double game of rapier and dagger that Marquet
Dubosc wiped off old scores after a quarrel at the Sign of the
Cauldron, near the Church of St. Michel, in 1502. He had been playing
dice with a man named Chouquet, and in the quarrel that followed about
payment, Chouquet had too many friends to be attacked safely. So
Dubosc waited till the next day, gathered a few companions of his own,
and killed his man in the woods near Croisset.
In 1511 the Chapterhouse records a tavern brawl that was settled on
the spot. There had been some dispute about a woman between Le
Monnier, a king's officer, and Jehan Canu, a lacquey. This man
deliberately chose out a few others to help him in the business, and
then went to drink at the "Barge," in the Rue Eau de Robec, on a
night when he knew Le Monnier would come there to supper. The officer
actually took the next table, and in a few moments swords were drawn,
and Le Monnier was killed. Why Canu and his nine accomplices were
pardoned is one of the mysteries of the Fierte which I suppose no one
will ever be able to unravel.
[Illustration: COURTYARD OF PALAIS DE JUSTICE]
If this somewhat dismal catalogue of crimes has not yet fully
acquainted you with the state of society with which the "Palais de
Justice" was first built to deal, the shortest glance at some of the
sentences inflicted upon criminals who were not fortunate enough to
bear the Fierte will be sufficient to show that the judges were almost
as far behind our modern notions of propriety as were their prisoners.
And it must be remembered that the criminals I have just mentioned are
far from being the worst of those brought up before the Courts of
Rouen; they are indeed those persons picked out by the assembled body
of trained ecclesiastics in the Cathedral Chapterhouse as worthy to
escape from the horrors which a sentence in the fifteenth or
sixteenth century involved.
What these sentences were may be gathered from such examples as the
following. In 1506 a man surprised picking pockets in the Court-room
was taken into the great open space before the entrance and soundly
flogged upon the spot. Few men escaped so fortunately. Assassins
nearly always suffered the loss of a limb before the final mercy of
hanging. In the same year several women, convicted of false testimony
and spreading scandals, were stripped naked and beaten with rods in
all the squares of Rouen. A thief suffered the same punishment; his
ear was then cut off, and he was banished from France with a rope
round his neck. On the 19th of March a miserable prisoner was drowned
in boiling water by a sentence of the Bailly confirmed in the higher
courts. In 1507 a murderer was hanged in front of his victim's house.
In 1513 a highway robber had his right arm cut off and placed on a
column by the roadside near the scene of his theft, his head was then
placed opposite to it, and the mutilated body hung upon a gibbet close
by. Forgers had a fleur de lys branded on their foreheads. Sacrilege
was punished by burning the criminal in chains over a slow fire. Some
burglars, in the same year, had their hands cut off, their arms pulled
out with red-hot pincers, and were finally beheaded and cut in pieces.
The next year some wretched coiners were boiled alive. Infanticides
were burnt. Other crimes were punished by searing the tongue with
red-hot iron, or by breaking the prisoner alive upon the wheel, and
leaving him to die without food or water. A parricide was condemned to
this, with still more hideous tortures added, in 1557. In 1524 a
criminal nearly escaped his sentence altogether because his jailor's
daughter fell in love with him, and asked the Court to be allowed to
marry him. The question of sanctuary came up very often, as may be
imagined, and only by very slow degrees were the privileges of the
holy places taken from them.
Though many of these punishments hardly seem to recognise the humanity
of the victim, the privilege of confession to a priest had been
allowed to prisoners condemned to death ever since 1397, at the
instance of a famous preacher named Jean Houard, in years when even
more barbarous tortures were still practised, though the strength of
sanctuaries was, as some compensation, at its height. Judicial ideas,
however, took a long time to become civilised; for in 1408 a pig was
solemnly hanged for having killed a little child. The invention of
printing[62] no doubt did some good in this direction, and by 1490 the
first printer in Rouen, Martin Morin, was established in the Rue St.
Lô, close by the spot where the lawcourts soon appeared. Lest you
should think that the Palais de Justice of sixteenth century Rouen was
even worse than the terrible chapters in Rabelais would lead his
readers to imagine, I must tell you here the story of an advocate of
Rouen that may in part make up for the gruesome pages which precede
it.
[Footnote 62: Mr Gosse records in his "Modern English Literature" that
it was a citizen of Rouen (Andrew Miller by name) who introduced
printing into Scotland in 1507.]
The Parliament of Normandy, as the Échiquier was called in 1558, had
assembled in the Palais de Justice on the morning of the 26th of
August, to discuss a case which involved the interpretation, if not
the actual integrity, of the famous code known as the "Grand Coutumier
de Normandie"; and representatives of every court had been summoned to
the hearing. A certain burgess of Rouen, Guillaume Laurent by name,
convicted of murder, had had his hand cut off before the west façade
of the Cathedral, and was then beheaded in the Vieux Marché. His goods
and property had, as a matter of course, been confiscated by the
State. His destitute orphans went to live with their grandfather, who
soon died of grief. The terrible spectacle then followed of this old
man's daughter trying to drive the children out of the house, because
they could inherit nothing from a murderer. "Aulcun" ran the law, "qui
soit engendré de _sang damné_ ne peut avoir, comme hoir, aulcune
succession d'héritage." Against this clear decree the magistrates were
powerless to help the orphans, indignant as they were at the
inhumanity of their aunt. But the children appealed to the Higher
Court. A brilliant advocate, Brétignières by name, had decided to
oppose the "Coutumier" on their behalf, and the mass of people who had
thronged the Parvis to see the father punished now crowded the Palais
de Justice to see the children saved.
The Court assembled more slowly to hear his arguments, with the
President St. Anthot at their head, a strong, wise, and enlightened
man, after Brétignières' own heart. The advocate waited for the
supporter of the law to open his case. The precedents went back to
Ogier the Dane, to Ragnar, to Rollo the founder of the town itself,
who strove to put down the crime of murder by extending the punishment
beyond the criminal himself to his descendants, and thus appealing to
the paternal instincts of the rough warriors they had to rule.
Brétignières rose suddenly from his seat, crying that in Normandy
alone was this inhuman decree allowed, that Rome herself had never
dared to stain the statute book with such a penalty. The extension of
the punishment to the children, far from proving a deterrent, actually
encouraged these hopeless and destitute orphans to exist by crime,
since every avenue of honest livelihood was barred to them. Deprived
of all their father had possessed, they saw their relations in the
enjoyment of an increased inheritance. Ruined by punishment for a
crime in which they had had no share, they saw the prosperity of
others increased by the operations of an unjust law, a law that might
have served the turn of a more barbarous people, but which was now far
more the relic of an ancient ignorance than a symbol of modern
enlightenment. In an age when the judicial combat of the old code had
been abolished with the trial by fire, the changing customs and
growing ideas of the people in the rest of Normandy were not likely to
preserve a custom so inhuman as that which the Court of Rouen alone
still exercised.
Amid a scene of intense excitement, as Brétignières ceased, all the
king's officers in every other court in Normandy stood up, and in
answer to the President, asserted that the law had never been carried
out under their jurisdiction. It remained only for the President St.
Anthot to withdraw with his judges, and, as the Sovereign Senate of
the Province, not merely to interpret law, but to make it. There was a
long pause before they returned into the great hall, this time all
dressed in their red robes bound with ermine. In the solemn silence
that ensued, St. Anthot declared the law null and void from disusage,
restored the children to the inheritance of Guillaume Laurent, and
reinstated them in the house from which their aunt had driven them.
The people rushed into the courtyard carrying the orphans with them,
and while the barristers were congratulating Brétignières, his little
clients were borne on the shoulders of a cheering mob through the
streets of Rouen to their home; and from that day ceased the cruel law
known as the "Arrêt du Sang Damné."
It was in the hope, no doubt, that benefits of this nature would be
conferred upon the Province, that the great Cardinal d'Amboise and
Louis XII. made the Échiquier de Normandie perpetual, and gave it the
great Palais de Justice in Rouen for its home. During the English
occupation the damage done to the Château de Bouvreuil had
necessitated moving the Easter sessions of the Échiquier to the
archbishop's lodgings in 1423, and on five subsequent occasions the
Court (composed half of English and half of Frenchmen) had to hold its
sittings in that part of the halls (on the Place de la Vieille Tour),
where the weavers usually carried on their commerce. By the time of
Louis XII. the Château de Bouvreuil was in better repair, but it was
evident that worthier quarters were needed the moment Cardinal
d'Amboise had obtained the immense advantage of making the courts
perpetual. Its new home was soon decided upon. Already on part of the
Clos des Juifs a large common hall had been erected, in which the
merchants gathered to discuss their business instead of using the nave
of the Cathedral; and in 1499 this hall was made into the west wing of
the new palace, and called first the Salle des Procureurs, and now the
Salle des Pas Perdus; it is the great building on the left of the
courtyard as you enter from the Rue aux Juifs. Its roof is like the
upturned hull of some great ocean-galley, and all round the timbers,
where the upper line of walls meets the vault above, a company of
queer grotesques are carved which Rabelais himself might have
suggested. You will notice especially the twisted spire upon the
outward turret that overhangs the Rue aux Juifs, the broad sweep of
the entrance stairway, and the admirable proportions of the arch above
it. At the south end used to be the beautiful little chapel in which
the Messe Rouge was sung for the "Rentrée de la St. Martin," and in
which St. Romain's chosen prisoner knelt before he went out to the
procession of the Fierte. Beneath are the prisons and dungeons of the
High Court of Rouen. This is the building that Louis XII. ordered to
be set up, and into which he transferred the Échiquier from the
Château de Rouen on the 11th of March, 1511; the first "Messe Rouge"
was sung here to celebrate that opening, and the custom is preserved
to this day.
[Illustration: PALAIS DE JUSTICE. THE OCTAGON ROOM OF LOUIS XII.]
In 1508 Louis XII. established in his new palace the jurisdiction
known as that of the "Table de Marbre," because the Cathedral
Chapterhouse sold for the use of this new Admiralty Court an old
marble tomb, round which the members sat in the great hall. Corneille
and his father were both officers of this jurisdiction later on. In
the same year was begun the "Grand Chambre" in which the President
held his High Court, called now the Cour d'Assises, and decorated with
a magnificently carved ceiling in panels of polished wood. It is just
behind that octagonal turret which juts from the centre of the main
building exactly opposite the entrance from the Rue aux Juifs. Within
this turret is the lovely little circular chamber which was reserved
for the King's own use. Its beautiful proportions break the symmetry
of the long front wall, yet are clasped to the building by the cornice
whence the line of gargoyles spring; and in the same way the long and
steep rise of the roof is broken up by the crests above each window
that rise into the air in a pinnacled tracery of fretwork filled with
carved arabesques and statues. Among them are the arms of France,
supported by two stags, a memorial of the badge used by Charles VI.
according to the story told by de la Mer. It is this central block of
buildings that contains most of the original work of Roger Ango and
Rouland Leroux. The wing on the right of the entrance from the Rue aux
Juifs is modern, and though that part of the left wing which faces the
courtyard is old, the façade upon the Rue Jeanne d'Arc at the Place
Verdrel was rebuilt in 1842. The courtyard was originally enclosed by
a fine crenulated wall like that round the Hôtel de Cluny in Paris.
This has been replaced by a badly designed iron railing. But as a
civic building, in spite of its railing and its new Cour d' Appel, the
Palais de Justice remains the finest of its kind in Europe, and is
superior to the Hôtel de Ville both of Brussels and of Louvain.
Of many famous ceremonies were these great Halls the scene after Louis
XII. had built them. In the next reign Francis I. held a solemn "Lit
de Justice" here, in order to do at Rouen as he had done at Paris, and
ask the Parliament of Normandy to register the Concordat which Duprat,
Boisy, and others in his suite had helped to frame. His entry into the
city had been especially brilliant, not only because the King himself
desired to impress the occasion on his faithful subjects, but because
in the first prosperous years of a reign that seemed so full of
promise, the citizens of Rouen were even readier than usual to give
the loyal reception to their sovereign for which the town was famous.
The officers and councillors of the city were clad in velvet, and the
burgesses in camlet and satin, and all were very anxious indeed to see
the King, and get what was possible out of the visit. The Italian
victories, brilliant as they were, had not been without their expense
to Rouen as to every other town in France, not in money merely but in
the caring for hundreds of disbanded soldiers. Besides this the
especial privileges of the city had to be upheld and confirmed, and
particularly those appeals from the maritime courts which were settled
by the jurisdiction of the "Table de Marbre."
Those who were inclined to pessimism were reminded that at Lyons, at
Amboise, at Paris, and at Compiègne, Francis had already favourably
received the representations of the town, and had even told them: "Si
vous avez esté bien traictez par mes prédecesseurs, j'entens et veux
vous traicter encore mieux." So that when the King had reached the
Priory of Grandmont, the deputies sent out to meet him were in
excellent spirits. They were de Brézé, Captain of the Town and Grand
Seneschal; the Bailli, Jean de la Barre; the President of the
Financial Court, Jean Auber; and the President of Parliament, Jean de
Brinon. By three o'clock these gentlemen joined the royal cortège and
advanced towards Rouen itself, being met at the bridge by the Town
Councillors bearing above the King's head a great and spacious canopy
of cloth of gold, the highest mark of honour that the town could
render.
Before His Majesty rode the "Grand Écuyer," Galéas de Severin, bearing
the sword of state on a great white horse. On his right was Cardinal
de Boisy, brother of Admiral Bonivet, and on his left Cardinal Antoine
Bohier, the nephew of Chancellor Duprat. Next to the King was Monsieur
d'Alençon, whose powers as Lieutenant-Governor of Normandy were
wielded by d'Amboise during his absence at the Italian wars. Behind
him came Charles de Bourbon the Constable, who was to die as a rebel
in Rome two years later. With them were John Stuart, Duke of Albany,
nephew of James III. of Scotland; the Comte de St. Pol; Louis de la
Tremouille, the most brilliant knight of his time; Maximilian Sforza,
the eldest son of that Il Moro who had been imprisoned in the dungeons
of Loches; Jacques de Chabannes; Anne de Montmorency, who had been one
of the King's playfellows and grew up into the sternest Constable
France ever had; Guillaume, Sieur de St. Vallier, the father of Diane
de Poitiers, who also learnt the horrors of Loches for his share in
Bourbon's wild conspiracy; the second Georges d'Amboise, himself
Archbishop of Rouen, with their Lordships of Lisieux, Avranches,
Evreux, and Paris; Antoine Duprat, the Chancellor; and Florimond
Robertet, the King's Treasurer, whose house is still at Blois.
Men were thinking little of the future of this brilliant company as
they passed through Rouen in the summer sunshine, and even on the
south side of the river the welcoming pageantry began. For at the
first "theatre" the King beheld a great Fleur de Lys, which opened and
slowly displayed three damsels representing the virtues of His
Majesty, of the Queen, and of Madame la Régente. The stream itself, on
each side of the bridge, was gay with the flags and sails of every
craft along the quays. Beyond it was a group of Titans, thunderstruck
by Jupiter amid the stupor of the other gods in a dismayed Olympus.
The next stage showed Theseus welcomed by Thalia, Euphrosyne and
Aglaia, who led the hero to Pallas to receive from her the shield of
Prudence, and take his place among the starry divinities. Need it be
added that both Jupiter and Theseus were the King? Within the
cemetery of St. Ouen three martial monks were storming the semblance
of a guarded tower. At the Ponts de Robec appeared a wondrous
similitude of the sky upheld by Hercules and Atlas, in the midst
whereof disported a bellicose and most lively salamander, slaying a
bull and a bear, in graceful reference to the victory of the
Marignano, with this astonishing quatrain:--
"La Salamandre en vertu singulière
Lors estaignit l'horrible feu de Mars
Quant au grant ours emporta la banière
Et du thoreau rompit cornes et dardz."
At the Parvis Notre Dame appeared the image of a marvellous great
horse, rearing up his forefeet into the air, on which sat the effigy
of the King, of so natural a mould that breath alone was wanting to
its life, an ostentatious decoration which was done, say the Town
Accounts with some pride, "pour ancunement ensuyvir et émuler le
triumphe des Romains." All the streets were hung with gaily-coloured
cloths, and tapestries fell gracefully in glowing folds from every
window. All the church-doors, opened to the widest, displayed their
ornaments and shrines in bewildering profusion. All the church bells,
which had their signal from "Georges d'Amboise" and "Marie
d'Estouteville" in the Cathedral, were ringing lustily. And at last,
his official reception over, François I. was able to go to the
lodgings prepared for him in the palace of the Archbishop. Neither he
nor any of his suite were allowed to forget the welcome of the Town;
for, after the Chapterhouse had presented their traditional and proper
loaves of bread and wine, His Majesty was offered a great golden
salamander ("assise sur une terrasse," whatever that may mean) by the
Town, who must have wished that they had got off as easily as the
canons; for, in addition to this, the councillors gave to the Queen a
golden cup, to Louise de Savoie a pair of silver-gilt goblets, to
Princess Marguerite a silver-gilt image of St. Francis, to M. de Boisy
two great ewers and basins, to Chancellor Du Prat six silver "hanaps"
and five great dishes, all richly gilt. And no doubt both gifts and
recipients had been carefully chosen with a view to securing an
impartial consideration for the claims made by the Town.
On the next afternoon, from the Priory of Bonne Nouvelle, rode in
Queen Claude, dressed in a white robe of cloth of silver, on a white
hackney, with Louise de Savoie, her mother-in-law, on one side, and
Marguerite d'Alençon (afterwards Queen of Navarre) upon the other. And
for the Queen was prepared at the Portail des Libraires a special
"theatre," wherein was represented a garden, and the Virgin Mary clad
all in white damask, with a lamb beside her, feeding upon grapes and
rosebuds, at which the clever Princess Marguerite must have laughed
almost as much as at the clumsy quatrains. Every prisoner in the
dungeon of the new "Palais de Justice" and in every prison of the town
was set free, except three especially "bad cases," who were hurried to
Louviers before Francis reached Rouen, and brought back to Rouen when
he had got to Louviers. As a contrast to this unfortunate greediness
of the law, it is recorded that many persons hastened to confess their
crimes, got imprisoned just before he arrived, and were joyfully
delivered at his entry, all of which satisfied justice in 1517 very
thoroughly indeed.
Some substantial results soon began to reward the Town and the
Chapterhouse for all their loyalty, in the subscription of 10,000
livres from His Majesty (in yearly instalments) to the Cathedral Fund
for restoring the central spire which had just been burnt. Most of
what the Town Councillors desired was also granted. So that everybody
was thoroughly well satisfied with the royal visit, and some little
choir-boys were so fascinated with the royal escort that when the King
went to Louviers and Gaillon, these little runaways marched off with
Lautrec's troops, and I regret to relate that the priests caught them
at the next halt, and not only soundly flogged the truants, but took
away all their holidays as well.
[Illustration: BUREAU DES FINANCES, FROM THE PARVIS]
But it must not be thought that the King had come to Rouen merely to
delight his subjects with the sun of his presence and the favours of
his consent. He had certain business of his own to transact, of a
financial nature; and for raising the various sums he needed, both for
personal and patriotic reasons, there was already in existence certain
financial machinery which was housed in very fair quarters in Rouen.
Two of the most beautiful of the sixteenth century buildings have to
do with finance. One of them is the "Bureau des Finances" (as its
latest title ran), opposite the Cathedral at the corner of the Rue
Ampère; the other is the "Cour des Comptes," whose Eastern façade and
courtyard has just been opened to the Rue des Carmes, north-west of
the Tour St. Romain.
With the first of these the same King had to do who built the "Palais
de Justice." It was during his visit in 1508 that Louis XII., shocked
with the narrow crowded streets all round the Parvis, destroyed the
various money-changers' hovels, and ordered the building of a "Hôtel
des Généraux de Finance" on the spot where these had stood. The Church
of St. Herbland was only just finished at the corner of the Rue de la
Grosse Horloge, and in 1510, Thomas Bohier asked the canons to allow a
hut to be built in the Parvis for the convenience of his masons, just
as the Church had done. In 1512 the neighbouring citizens petitioned
the Chapterhouse that this hut should be removed. It was between these
dates, therefore, that Rouland le Roux, whose work on the Cathedral
façade you will remember (p. 130), began the building of this
exquisite house. It was certainly completed by 1541, and was probably
used some time before that date.
Mutilated and degraded to base uses as this fine piece of French
Renaissance has now become, it is still possible to realise what Le
Roux first built; and in his heavy cornice I cannot help imagining a
suggestion of Italian feeling made by that same King whose wars in
Italy had given him a sense of proportion and of beauty that may be
seen again in his desire to clear the surroundings of the Cathedral,
an idea quite contrary to French mediæval notions, and in his spacious
plans for the great Palace of the Law. Be that as it may, nothing
could well be more appropriate than the whole decoration of this
corner house. Before shops had invaded its ground-floor, and
advertisements had defaced the exquisite line of carvings just above,
the Rez de chaussée had seven low arcades whose pilasters and windows
were carved with medallions, candelabra, and "grotesques" in low
relief. Over the vaulted entrance was the shield of France, borne by
the Porcupines of Louis XII. Above this is an "entresol" of tiny
circular windows alternating with medallions of crowns held up by
genii. The next storey has seven windows with beautifully carved
pilasters. It is far better preserved than the rest, but the two
niches have lost their statues, and a corbelled tower was destroyed in
1827, when shops were first put in.
The first Général des Finances for Normandy was Thomas Bohier, whose
fortunes I have traced at his Château of Chenonceaux in Touraine. He
was as unfortunate as every other great financier of these centuries,
and though his end was less ignominious than the disgracefully unjust
punishment which Louise de Savoie inflicted on his relation, Jacques
de Beaune Semblançay, his life was scarcely less troubled; and after
leaving his bones in Italy with so many of the best of François'
courtiers, he bequeathed little but embarrassment to his son, and
Diane de Poitiers took his château. His office in Rouen he held from
1494, in the town where his brother Antoine had done so much for St.
Ouen. Indeed every one of these "Surintendants," even to Fouquet of
more modern memory, is associated either personally or indirectly with
so much of the beautiful in architecture and art that posterity has
almost forgiven them mistakes which were due more to the régime they
lived under than to their own shortcomings.
After 1587 the prisons of the Hôtel des Généraux were changed from the
ordinary criminal cells to separate dungeons in the Rue du Petit
Salut, where I have fancied I could still trace them in the gloomy
cells at the back of No. 13 Rue Ampère, which tradition assigns to the
"Filles Repenties" of the eighteenth century. In 1554 the Hôtel des
Généraux was called Cour des Aides, and by the changes of 1705 it was
joined to the Cour des Comptes in the Rue des Carmes, and the new
Bureau des Finances took the house in the Parvis I have just
described, which still preserves its name. In the general destruction
of 1796 the house was sold to a private owner.
The second Financial building you must see is the Cour des Comptes,
whose courtyard opens on the Rue des Carmes,[63] with another entrance
on the Rue des Quatre Vents. This was originally the property of M.
Romé, Sieur de Fresquiennes and Baron du Bec Crespin, who received
there the Duc de Joyeuse, Governor of Normandy. The large square which
originally composed it was built about 1525, and its beauty may be
imagined from the eastern façade and the southern wing (containing the
Chapel) which still remain. On this eastern front, the two stages
above the ground-floor are of equal height, each with six windows,
separated by pilasters of several different orders, decorated with
capitals and candelabras and groups of mythological subjects, such as
Mars, Venus, the Muses, and various instruments. The south wing is
built in four round-arched arcades with flat Corinthian pilasters,
three of which are in the nave of the Chapel, and two in its
Sanctuary. The second floor has square windows.
[Footnote 63: This clearance was effected in August 1897, and Miss
James took advantage of it to make her drawing from a point of view
which has been invisible for centuries and may soon be lost again.]
What Rouen had asked from Charles VII. a century before she only
obtained when Francis I. gave her a Cour des Comptes separate from the
Financial Committee in Paris; but the boon was scarcely appreciated
when it was discovered that the King not only levied taxes on local
merchandise to pay his new judges, but also made quite a good thing
out of selling the offices to the highest bidder. In 1580 the need of
this Court began to be felt again, in a town which possessed its own
High Court of Justice, suitably housed, and also its Financial Bureau
in the Parvis. But all receivers of taxes had to go to Paris to settle
their accounts, so had all proprietors of fiefs, all men who wished to
register their letters of naturalisation, nobility, exemption, or
enfranchisement, and many others. So in December of that year the
Sieur de Bourdemy, then President of Parliament, established a
separate Cour des Comptes at Rouen, modelled upon the Court in Paris,
and held its first meetings in the Priory of St. Lô. In 1589 the house
just described in the Rue des Carmes was bought by Tanneguy le Veneur
for eight thousand crowns, and the arcaded wing was consecrated as a
chapel in 1593. In 1790 it was swept away like every similar
organisation in France, and to the fact that it was probably forgotten
and built over, we owe the preservation even of what little still
remains.
[Illustration: COUR DES COMPTES, FROM THE RUE DES CARMES]
Before you leave the atmosphere of Finance and Justice, which in this
chapter I have striven to realise for you round those monuments that
alone recall the spirit of the age which built them, there is one more
tale of Justice in Rouen which may perhaps leave a more charitable
impression of the Palais de Justice and its officials. It has been
told before by Étienne Pasquier, but it will bear translation (and
even shortening) for an English audience. In the days when Laurent
Bigot de Thibermesnil was first King's Advocate in the Parliament of
Normandy, one of those brilliant intellects of which the sixteenth
century was so full, it chanced that a merchant of Lucca, who had
lived long and prosperously in England, desired to come home and die
in Italy. So he wrote to his relations to prepare a house for him in
six months' time, and started from England with his servant, carrying
his money and bonds with him. On his way to Paris he was known to have
stopped at Rouen, but he was never heard of again.
His servant, however, appeared in Paris, cashed his master's papers,
and returned. Meanwhile the family at Lucca waited for a whole year
and heard nothing. At last they sent a messenger for news to London,
who was told that the merchant was known to have started for Rouen,
and traces of the man were also found at the hotel in Rouen, where he
had lodged before setting out for Paris. Then all searches and
inquiries proved useless; the merchant seemed to have vanished into
thin air; and in despair the messenger applied for help to the High
Court in the Palais de Justice of Rouen. An officer was at once
appointed to conduct investigations in the town, while Laurent Bigot
searched for evidence outside. The first thing the officer found out
was that a new shop had been started in Rouen soon after Zambelli the
Italian had disappeared. He at once determined to examine its owner,
who was a stranger in the town, named François; and with this object
he had him arrested on a trumped-up charge and put in custody. On his
way to prison the man denied the charge, but asked, "Is there anything
else you have against me?" The officer at once went a little further,
and taking the prisoner apart he roundly charged him with having
robbed and murdered Zambelli, but intimated at the same time that
"the matter might be arranged quietly."
François evidently imagined this to be a hint that a bribe might not
be unsuccessful, and admitted that his crime must have been
discovered, but by what miracle he could not understand, for he had
been alone at the time. However, when he was asked to swear to this,
he withdrew hastily, recognising his mistake. The officer then
remanded him, and searched for further evidence. Bigot meanwhile had
been making inquiries all along the road from Rouen to Paris, until at
Argenteuil he found a Bailly who had held an inquest over a dead body
found among the vineyards. While Bigot was taking a copy of the
minutes of this inquest, a blind man came up to the hotel where he was
lodged asking for alms, and, as he listened to their conversation,
asserted that he had heard a man crying out on the slopes above
Argenteuil, and that when he had tried to find out what was happening,
a second voice had told him it was a sick man in pain, and he had
therefore gone on his way thinking no more about it.
Bigot took him back to Rouen forthwith, and made him give the same
story on oath before a justice, with the addition that he would
certainly be able to recognise the second of the two voices he had
heard. The new shopkeeper, François, was then brought into Court, and
after twenty other men had spoken, the blind man picked out his voice
among them all, as that which had spoken to him on the slopes above
Argenteuil. The test was repeated again and again, and invariably the
blind man picked out the same voice. François, who had weakened
visibly as each test proved successful, at last fell on his knees and
confessed that he had murdered his master and taken the papers to
Paris; and the Court immediately condemned him to be broken on the
wheel.
I have been able to suggest but a very few of the thoughts which the
Palais de Justice of Rouen should arouse in you; and of many points in
its history I have no space to tell; as of the "Clercs de l'Échiquier"
called the "Basoche," a merry company established in 1430, and
enlivening the records of the law for many centuries afterwards, as
you will see at the visit of Henri II. But after all, the main
impression is a very sombre one. The bitter sarcasms of Rabelais are
but too well founded. Mediæval justice was almost as terrible as
mediæval crime, and both were followed only too frequently by death.
For these old judges let no money go, however prodigal they were of
life and suffering; they scarcely ever let a prisoner go who had once
got into the grim machinery of their courts; and any miserable victim
who was once cast into one of their many dungeons must have welcomed
his release from lingering agony in death.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: THE DEAD BODY OF DE BRÉZÉ, FROM HIS TOMB IN ROUEN
CATHEDRAL]