_My Dear Jane:_--
According to your request and my propensity to scribbling, I intend to
be very circumstantial in my details. Pray don't grow tired of them, or
if you do, keep it a secret, and my vanity may prevent my suspecting
such a misfortune. Mamma gives me great credit for being so industrious
with my pen. Sigismund and Edgar keep a journal; but that requires more
exactness than I possess, so I prefer writing a letter when the humor
takes me. We have been out _sight seeing_, every morning and afternoon,
until to-day. A brisk rain now confines us to the house, and affords me
leisure for again conversing with you. I will commence my agreeable
task with a description of the town. Its environs are beautiful, but
the interior rather gloomy--the streets are generally so narrow and the
houses so old. It was formerly surrounded by walls and moats; the walls
have been pulled down, and the moats filled up and converted into
public walks. At Rouen, the ancient Dukes of Normandy held their
courts, and it contains many vestiges of their magnificence. The palace
of justice is a vast Gothic structure of the reign of Louis the
Twelfth. Beneath it are prisons, to which they were conducting two
culprits as we entered. One of its various halls is of immense extent,
and has a singular vaulted ceiling, that reminds you of the hulk of a
vessel reversed--a comparison by the by, that is not original with me.
The venerable cathedral, with its lofty spire and painted windows,
engaged us a long while. The spire is three hundred and eighty feet
high, and visible seven or eight leagues. There are two towers; one of
them denominated the _butter_ tower, because the expense of erecting it
was defrayed with money that had been paid by the people for permission
to eat butter during lent! It contained an enormous bell, nearly equal
in size to that at Moscow, and the founder of it is said to have died
in an ecstacy at its completion. This wonderful bell was destroyed
during the revolution. Many illustrious persons are buried in the
cathedral. Among them, Henry the Fifth of France, Richard Cour de Lion,
the Duke of Bedford, and the Cardinals of Amboise. The monument of the
two Cardinals is superb, and covered with arabesque work. They are
represented kneeling on its summit. Above them is a gilded equestrian
statue of St. George, their patron; below them (ranged in niches on the
front of the tomb,) are small marble figures, emblematical of the
virtues they possessed. Opposite this mausoleum is another, equally
remarkable. It is dedicated to the Grand Senéschal Brezé, the husband
of Diana of Poitiers, and governor of Rouen in the sixteenth century.
Of the numerous statues that adorn this tomb, that which represents the
Senéschal as an extended corpse is the most striking, and it is
inimitably executed. The pinched nose, tight drawn skin, hollow cheeks,
and sunken eyes, give it the exact appearance of a dead body. Over the
grand altar of the church hangs a fine painting, by Philip de
Champagne; the subject of it is the adoration of the Magi, and the
light is ingeniously and beautifully reflected from the infant Jesus,
(the _light_ of the world,) upon the surrounding objects. But enough of
the cathedral, Allons á Saint Ouen, famous for its fine interior
perspective, which is curiously and perfectly delineated by reflection
on the surface of the holy water, in the baptismal font, near the chief
portal of the church. St. Ouen was originally a Benedictine abbey. Its
architect Berneval, is buried in one of the chapels, and there is an
_improbable_ tradition concerning him, viz: that he was hung for
assasinating his apprentice, who by excelling him in carving some
trifling ornament for the ceiling, had excited his jealousy. The
painted windows of St. Ouen are beautiful, and shed a mellow lustre
over its triple aisle, which we regretted to exchange for the glare of
the sun without; but time pressed, and we hastened to view the picture
gallery and public library in the Hotel de Ville--neither of them
extensive, though worthy of examination. We next proceeded to the
square of Joan of Arc, where a statue of her is erected on the spot
upon which she was burnt as a sorceress in 1430. Last night we went to
the play. The theatre is a handsome edifice, and the ceiling exhibits
the apothesis of Piérre Corneille. You behold him crowned by tragedy,
while painting and sculpture vie in copying his features, and fame
sounds his praise to the world. Apollo sheds over him his brightness,
and time with his scythe drives away envy and other evil genii inimical
to his glory. The ladies here dress well and tastefully, but the
costume of the peasants is very queer. It is the same throughout
Normandy. They wear high crowned muslin caps, tight boddices, full
plaited short petticoats garnished with rows of black velvet, blue
stockings clocked with red, and black sharptoed shoes, cut low on the
instep, and ornamented with rosettes. They always have a gold cross,
suspended from a black ribbon encircling the neck, and a pair of gold
earrings. But here am I continuing to scribble, and the weather has
cleared off and the carriage is ordered for a drive, and I verily
believe coming to the door. There! papa calls me to descend. In haste,
farewell.