A MEDIÆVAL CITY
Rouen is surrounded by high hills, and can be seen lying on the margin
of the river in the aspect of a toy city. In this there lies one
great advantage, namely, that she is not easy to forget. Perhaps the
remembrance of any place is sharpened more by having seen it whole
than by any other circumstance. If this be impossible, one’s mental
pictures are often blurred or only partial. Into what, for instance,
does the remembrance of Caen resolve itself? Fragmentary peeps, or at
best, the view from the railway, where the town is seen on edge, a thin
line, above which spires rise irregularly. At the mention of the word
Rouen, on the contrary, what a vision leaps up in the mind, a wonderful
glittering picture of spires and bridges, of shining water, and piled
house-roofs, of islands and tall chimneys!
France has an excellent plan of tucking away her chimneys and other
unsightly commercial accessories on one side of a river, leaving her
residential quarter free from smoke; so it is here. To southward,
in the Faubourg or suburb of St Sever, lie the working quarters,
with all the smoke--which, however, never seems so smoky as in
England--the noise and din of men who manufacture. On the islands, as
in an intermediate quarter, are the houses of the workmen, and on the
northern shore is the grand old city.
We have spoken previously of the difficulty of putting on paper the
soul, character, entity--call it what you will--of a country, and the
same thing holds good of a city; but in the case of such a city as
Rouen, how is the difficulty increased! There is one obvious note,
however, which must strike anyone at once, and that is that the town is
French, not Norman--thoroughly French; and the difference between it
and the towns further westward, if not so marked as in the days when
little Richard of Normandy was sent to be educated at Bayeux, is still
noticeable. The modern houses are, of course, severely French, the
people in the streets are French, the shops are French, and the whole
tone of the life is French altogether.
Secondly, Rouen is, as might be expected, a city of contrasts,
the broad boulevards have cut deeply into her, but the change is
superficial, not radical, she is still to all intents an ancient
city,--a mediæval city to which a certain trimming of the latest
fashion has been added. Electric trams run along the boulevards, but
the parts between the boulevards remain mediæval. Let anyone who
doubts it go to a topmost room in a block of buildings, say between the
Rue Jeanne d’Arc and Rue de la Republique, and, craning his neck out,
“see what he will see,”--a grotesque and curious medley of chimneys,
leaning walls, slanting house-roofs, and old-fashioned projecting
stories, mingled in an inextricable fashion. The crooked buildings
seem to have grown on to one another and stuck there, in the manner
of cowries and periwinkles on a rock. There is hardly a line exactly
horizontal or perpendicular; it is difficult to tell where one house
begins or the other ends; to pull down one would be to have all the
others tumbling about one’s ears. High up are tiny platforms with
doors opening on to them; the roofs are broken by many a quaint dormer
window; the whole could only be swept away by a great fire, such as
came to London in 1666. Then above and about these roofs and gables
and angles rise wonderful towers containing some of the best work that
man has done: the towers of the great Cathedral, or one of the famous
churches.
[Illustration: OLD HOUSES, ROUEN]
There are streets in Rouen which might have come straight from mediæval
London. Such is the Rue St Romain, near the Cathedral. Here there are
rows and rows of timber framed, heavily projecting houses with small
quaint windows. In a courtyard beneath the very shadow of the Cathedral
is a delightful row, with a carved stone parapet running across the
frontage, and the oddest mixture of lines and angles and irregular
windows ever seen out of a picture. In almost every side street
may be found traces of the ancient city. In one corner there are
grotesque figures carved on the supports of a house bowed out with age,
in another we see suddenly a bit of stone carving, worn and defaced
with continual rubbing, where the women of Rouen fill their cans at a
fountain as their mothers and grandmothers have done before them. Here
a low dark arch like a cathedral crypt is used as a small vegetable
shop, and in it a pleasant blue-bloused man and comely woman pass their
time contentedly though their heads nearly touch the roof; there an
arcade betrays what has once been a chapel, but is now a yard filled
with lumbering omnibuses. One of the most delicate and fanciful of
frontages, belonging to an old house, was preserved at the time of the
demolition which took place at the making of the Rue Jeanne d’Arc, and
re-erected beside the Tower of St André, of which the body, by the way,
was sheared off at the same epoch. It has often been overlooked, this
pretty bit of work, which must have occupied a man’s time and thoughts
and skill for many months, because it does not face the street, and
is partly concealed by the church tower. A tiny bit of railed-in
garden--that is to say, some gravel and a couple of seats--surround the
tower, and even this wee spot has its “gardien” to accompany visitors
to the summit, if they wish to ascend.
For its size, Rouen has singularly few of those open spaces of
greenery, those charming public gardens, which, as a rule, form one of
the best features of a French town. There is a little public garden to
the east, and Solferino is certainly delightful with big shady trees
and a neat bit of water; but it is small. There is also the garden to
the east of St Ouen and the Hotel de Ville, but the combined area is
not great. In the streets of Rouen, too, there are few trees. We see
none of those bright bursts of greenery overhanging walls unexpectedly,
and telling of quiet gardens within enclosing gates, that one finds
frequently elsewhere; it is a towny town.
The chief jewel of Rouen is of course the Cathedral, which in its
bewildering variety and transition of styles, has a character of its
own sufficient to stamp it permanently on the memory. I confess that
to me personally, variety has an infinite charm; I remember far more
readily and with greater appreciation a building where the slow growth
throughout ages has ensured variety, than one where absolute harmony
proclaims its completion to the pattern of a plan. After all, nothing
in nature is uniformly monotonous; we do not see an oak or an elm with
boughs at precise angles on each side, and the trees, such as the
poplar, which approach most nearly to uniformity, are by no means the
most beautiful.
The strange unlikeness of the two towers, and the centre tower crowned
by the iron _flèche_, is sufficient to ensure attention from the most
casual observer. One of the western towers has fretwork windows,
bossy pinnacles, and an octagonal coronet; and the other is much
less beautiful, and has less decorative lines, terminating in the
ugly, high, slate-roofed gable tower. Yet it is better than if it
had conformed; the two together are perfect. The plainer one to the
north is the Tour de St Romain, which dates from the twelfth to the
fifteenth century, though with considerably more of the earlier date.
The other is called the Tour de Beurre, because built from the produce
of the sale of indulgences to eat butter in Lent. It bears its date,
namely, the latter half of the fifteenth century, in every line of its
decoration.
We wonder what the ancient church that stood on this site in the tenth
century was like; massive and grand no doubt, carrying out in stone
the character of its founder Rollo, who was baptised in it before its
completion, receiving the name of Robert. The edifice was not finished
for many generations, and when it was, a grand ceremony took place in
which Rollo’s great descendant William figured. But a hundred and fifty
years later, when Henry II. held Normandy and England, this church was
destroyed by fire.
The rebuilding was begun very shortly afterwards, and the main part
of the mighty fabric as we see it dates from then. The main part--but
each succeeding century added something, stamping its hall mark on its
style, so that one may say here is the work of the fourteenth century,
here the fifteenth, here the sixteenth, and--in the iron _flèche_
rising high and not ungracefully--here the nineteenth.
The decorated frontage with its three doors was considered by Ruskin
the most exquisite piece of Flamboyant work existing. The intricacies
of the detail are inexhaustible; and above the centre rises a fine
wheel window of the type that mediæval craftsmen loved.
But there are other doorways rich in detail also. Of these the
northern, the “Portail des Libraires,” was so-called because the
courtyard before it was once filled with booksellers’ shops, in the
same way as the space round our own old St Paul’s in London. This is a
most impressive entrance, and the innumerable sculptured figures which
decorate it are representative of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It was begun in
1280 and finished in 1470. The southern door has also its own name: it
is the Portail de la Calende.
The great drawback to the Cathedral is the difficulty of seeing it at
a “middle” distance. From afar it rears itself with splendid majesty
over the house roofs, but nearer it is too much hemmed in and enclosed
by houses. One has no place to stand in such a position as to see it in
right perspective.
[Illustration: A STREET IN ROUEN]
The interior is graceful enough, and the delicate arcade running round
choir and transepts is attractive. One great defect, which at the same
time is a curious feature, is the cutting in two of the nave
arches by a sort of false story with a second and shorter arch over the
primary one. The effect is unpleasing and inharmonious. How infinitely
more graceful the arcades would have been if allowed to rise to their
natural height, may be gathered from the instances in the side aisles.
The dust of Rollo and William Longsword lie within the great walls,
while an empire mightier than ever their wildest dreams foreshadowed,
governed by their descendant, covers half the earth, and its sons and
daughters come to do homage at the cradle of their kings. There is here
also the heart of Richard Cœur de Lion, though Richard himself lies at
Fontevrault.
The churches in Rouen are almost innumerable, and in many, notably
St Patrice and St Vincent, the glory of the old stained glass in the
windows is a great attraction. But out of all the two which every
visitor goes to see are St Maclou and St Ouen. St Maclou is quite
small, but no one who has seen, under favourable conditions, its
curious convex western façade will ever forget it. The fine, deeply
recessed doorways, with their magnificent carved doors, are unique.
The stonework is like lace; and the stone is of that variety which
shows artificial shadows in its stains. The whole appearance is so
original, so unlike the conventional western façade, that the beauty
is heightened by the rarity which tends to emphasise the impression.
The interior is disappointing, and there is a mass of metal high over
the altar, which looks as if it might suddenly descend, and cause ruin
to all beneath. St Ouen is the fifth church on the same site. It can
be observed at leisure from the green garden that lines its sides,
and it is wonderful, with its coronet tower and flying buttresses. It
was built in the first half of the fourteenth century and restored in
1846, when the western façade was added; and if possible it is better
to make a _détour_ to avoid the western façade, or the memory of an
almost perfect piece of work will be blurred. It was in the garden
beside St Ouen that two scaffolds were erected on the 24th of May 1431.
On one was placed Joan of Arc, strictly guarded by armed men, and on
the other stood the dignitaries and judges who had gathered to hear her
recantation. This and her submission she formally made, saying all that
her persecutors wished, but afterwards, having fallen back into her
“errors” and announcing that saints still visited her and voices spoke
mysteriously, she was adjudged a witch, and condemned to death.
[Illustration: THE TOWERS OF ST OUEN]
One of the oddest bits of Rouen, and one which it is to be hoped will
be long cherished, is to be found in the Rue de la Grosse Horloge.
The great clock itself is a marvellous work in gilt, standing on a
low, heavy archway which bestrides the street, as Temple Bar bestrode
Fleet Street before a utilitarian age hustled it away. In London,
the only specimen of this kind of gateway, suffered to remain over a
public street, is the gateway of St John’s, Clerkenwell. La Grosse
Horloge conceals an older clock of the fourteenth century, and itself
dates from 1529, when it was put up on the newly completed arch. The
inner part of the arch is highly carved, the chief figure being the
Good Shepherd. Close at hand is a strongly built and well-designed
tower or belfry, begun in 1389 and finished about a hundred years
later. It contains a deep-toned bell, from which the hour of curfew
sounds sonorously every night. This bell, whose name is Rouvel, is
cherished by the citizens, as in times of danger and distress they
have been summoned by its tongue echoing over the walls and roofs for
many a hundred years. In 1382 a new tax on merchandise was imposed
by the French Government, and its first enforcement was demanded
at Rouen. The people rose in revolt, named one of themselves king,
and made him solemnly revoke the tax. The procession gathered as it
went, mockery turned to riot, blood was shed, and condign punishment
followed. The Duke of Anjou, at the head of troops, marched in the
king’s name to the city to enforce order, and as it was Rouvel who had
called the men of the city to rebellion, he commanded that the belfry
should be destroyed. So it was; but the citizens preserved their bell,
and very soon after began building a new tower for him, so Rouvel’s
deep-throated notes still vibrate every night.
It is not however the clock, the arch, and belfry that constitute this
one of the most quaint and picturesque corners in Rouen, though they
all add to it. There is also a fountain, begun in 1250, and decorated
with a large stone bas-relief in the reign of Louis XV. There is a tiny
house of carved woodwork that looks as if it were glued to the wall
behind. There are many other quaint houses near at hand, and if one had
to choose a sample of the old city one could not do better than select
this bit. Take it as we may see it any day from the western side. There
is the heavy arch, with its sombre shadows beneath its broad curve;
there is the wonderful glittering clock, which may perhaps catch the
rays of the declining sun. Rising high at the corner is the solid tower
with its cupola. We may people this background with figures to fancy.
A group of loungers there is sure to be, the men in caps and a few of
them in blouses, though the blouse is not so ubiquitous in the town as
in the country; perhaps a neat little shopwoman comes tripping by, with
her hair screwed up on the top of her head in a glossy tight knot; an
old country-woman passes her, wearing a close-fitting coif-like cap,
and bearing on her shoulders a wooden frame from which are suspended
baskets of ripe strawberries. Then out of the darkness of the arch,
starting dazzlingly into the sunshine, there comes a lithe slim figure,
robed from head to foot in a sheet of white muslin: it is a young girl
returning from her First Communion. The loitering vendors with barrows
stop to look at her, and the tourists from England, of whom there are
sure to be two or three, for the Hotel du Nord is just the other side
of the archway, turn to stare also. Such is a slight sketch of the
best-known corner in Rouen.
But besides her mighty Cathedral, her wonderful churches, her street
vistas, and her quaint corners, Rouen has much to show. We have not yet
touched on her Renaissance palaces, and her historical memories, to say
nothing of the twenty-six other fountains with which she is credited,
and her busy quays.
To take the Renaissance houses first. There is a magnificent “hotel,”
standing in a part lying west of the Rue Jeanne d’Arc, which has also
a little group of associations of its own. Here, where the great
iron-bound markets stand, Joan of Arc was burnt to death, after which
her ashes were cast into the river. In these days when the thought of
the public hanging of a notorious criminal turns us faint and sick, we
can hardly, even in imagination, fancy a great crowd gathered to watch
the agonising torture and death of an innocent young girl.
It was thought for long that Joan was burnt in the open space near by
the Place de la Pucelle, and here stands a grotesquely hideous statue
of her, the very epitome of all it should not be; but it is now fairly
certain that the place of her last agony was on the site of the market.
Facing the statue is the entrance gate of the beautiful house of which
we have spoken, the Hotel Bourgtheroulde, now the “Bureaux du Comptoir
d’Escompte.” The house was begun in 1486 by Guillaume le Roux, Lord of
Bourgtheroulde, and was decorated by the most famous of the Renaissance
architects, Jean Goujon, to whom almost as impossible an amount of work
is attributed as to Grinling Gibbons. The decoration in the courtyard
is a splendid example of the period, and can hardly be overpraised.
Under the five broad windows on the left hand, run large panels, with
scenes of the meeting between François, King of France, and Henry,
King of England; for the mansion was not finished until 1532, a date
when that meeting was still one of the greatest of political events.
Above the windows the artist has given his fancy full rein, and in the
symbolical scenes and strange beasts we find a representation of the
“Triumphs” of Petrarch. All the uprights and lintels of the windows
are richly carved. In the corner is a hexagonal tower, and in this the
carving is in marvellously sharp and clear preservation, treated with a
certain flatness of the most prominent surface, difficult to describe,
but very effective and original; the scenes are pastoral. There are
two splendid windows on the frontage beyond, rising into high, pierced
pediments, with pinnacles and tracery, and on this side also is
exquisite carving.
The Earl of Shrewsbury was lodged in this house when he came as
Ambassador from Elizabeth to invest Henri IV. with the Order of the
Garter.
Another magnificent example of Renaissance work in Rouen is the Palais
de Justice, begun in 1499, on the site of the Jewry. It was meant to
be partly the Exchequer and partly the Exchange. Unfortunately, the
worst end--the west end, which is of eighteenth-century sham Gothic,
unmistakably so, even to the merest novice in architecture--is that
most frequently seen, as it faces the open space in the great Rue
Jeanne d’Arc, whereas the really fine court has to be sought for down a
side street.
Lying northward, hidden away by houses beyond the Solferino Garden,
not far from the great buildings of the Musée and the Library, is a
solitary relic, namely, the round tower called Tour Jeanne d’Arc. It
is not very attractive in appearance, being a solid cylindrical mass
of masonry capped by projecting wooden battlements and a conical slate
roof, both of which were added in restoration. The battlements are
interesting, as they are of the ancient sort, formed to protect the
defenders, who poured down boiling lead or showered stones upon their
attackers.
It was not in this tower, however, that Joan was kept a prisoner from
December 26, 1430, to May 30, 1431, but in another which stood near
the top of the present Rue Jeanne d’Arc. Both of these towers belonged
to the great castle begun by Philip Augustus in 1205, when he had at
last snatched Normandy from England, and was feverishly anxious about
the safety of his new dominions. Before beginning his own castle, he
destroyed all that remained of the old castle built by the Norman
dukes, and now his own has followed the same fate, and has vanished,
excepting the Tour Jeanne d’Arc, an interesting relic, dating far
further back than most of the ancient buildings we have seen.
Joan was brought to the tower, still standing, on the 9th of May,
for an examination before her accusers, and the torturer was held in
readiness to prompt her replies did she fail in answering. The very
room in which she stood is here to be seen; though it was in the chapel
of the archbishop, near the Cathedral, that her death-warrant was
signed. When Joan was in Rouen the oldest of the timber houses must
have been fresh and new, the Palais de Justice and Hotel Bourgtheroulde
had not been begun. The oldest parts of St Ouen stood, and St Maclou
was incomplete. Could Joan but have looked on into the future and have
seen the finest street in Rouen called after her name, have known that
her memory was regarded as that of heroine and martyr, how astonished
she would have been.
The thought of Joan and the various scenes in which she played a
central part, conjures up many other historical memories also.
Rouen is rich in such pictures, not the pictures painted by human hands
and representing imaginary scenes, but living pictures which, though
lacking the cinematograph, have nevertheless remained indelibly fixed
in the great drama of history. The earliest of all is the vision of a
dying man, royal in position and by nature a king, alone, forlorn, and
stripped of every vestige of glory.
From the day when he had been a boy amid the turbulence of a headless
court, had heard men whisper this and that, and look aside at himself
with significance, he had ever stood out by virtue of some compelling
power, which, even while he was still undeveloped, drew the force
from the strong and made it a weapon on his behalf. Yet now, perhaps,
those weary eyes, fast closing, saw more plainly than ever before. The
dominions he had gained were but as the shuffling of a pack of cards
in a game, his clemency, his loyalty of life, outweighed all the deeds
that men called great.
He was only sixty, but his life had begun so young that it seemed
long since that first wild dash at Val-ès-dunes, where he had settled
himself on the ducal throne and given the outward sign of his mettle,
to the day when, soured by the loss of the wife who had been to him the
true mate, lonely, in grim dignity, he had irritably replied to the
coarse jest of the King of France by a red-hot retort which had cost
him his life.
Now there stands a modern church on the site of the abbey of St
Gervais, in which William then lay. It stands a little away from
the din of tempestuous Rouen, and beneath it is the oldest crypt in
France, the crypt of St Mellon. Dimly through the dying Conqueror’s
brain scenes would flit; in them he himself would be always the most
prominent, the principal figure; and now an end----
Hark! what was that? The tones of the bell in the Cathedral of Rouen
were wafted across in at the heavy unglazed window; it was the call for
prime, at six in the morning, and as the slow strokes fell on his ear
William recognised in them another call; he offered up a prayer, and
died.
Yet, by a strange mischance, those who would have honoured the mighty
dead were not present. The pious Anselm had been summoned from Bec; but
travelling was slow, the prior was ill, and he had not arrived. William
the Conqueror’s best-beloved and ever favourite son had hasted to seize
on that inheritance which his father had hardly dared to leave him,
except provisionally; Henry had disappeared on a similar errand, though
some say he returned in time to accompany the body on its last journey;
between Robert and his father no love had lain, and Robert was missing.
A living dog is better than a dead lion; and living dogs there were
at hand. Within an hour of his death, the Conqueror’s body had been
stripped of all that was valuable, even the hangings of tapestry in the
chamber had been seized, and the craven souls who had trembled at the
flicker of the king’s eyelash in life handled him contemptuously in
death.
[Illustration: AN HOTEL COURTYARD, ROUEN]
A whole day he lay there, alone and untended. Then the news spread
abroad, and bishops and barons gathered together. The body was placed
on a bier, suitably draped, and with a great procession was carried to
Caen, as had been commanded, passing down the Seine in its route. And
to Caen we must follow it for the last terrible scenes of that drama,
for it is with Rouen only we are now concerned.
The picture of William dying is the first of those connected with the
town which can never be forgotten. Another of a different sort calls
us for a moment to the river-side. By 1090, Robert, the Conqueror’s
eldest son, had so misruled his duchy that there was a prominent party
in Rouen which held it would be better to apply to William the Red,
who, though cruel enough, was a strong and able governor. At that time
Henry Beauclerc was in league with his eldest brother, and the two
together entered Rouen, and established themselves in the tower by the
river, which was indeed the only part of the city where they could feel
safe. This tower had been built by Duke Richard (996) on the right
bank of the Robec, near the Seine, to replace that of Rollo, which was
falling to pieces. An affray succeeded the brothers’ entry, in which
Beauclerc led his men through Rouen, and engaged in combat with the
leading citizens. The place was turned into a shambles, the narrow
streets ran red, and many peaceful citizens were involved. Meantime
Robert had retired to a little abbey near the city, where he awaited
the result in fear and trembling. Henry captured the principal leader
of the town party, who was named Conan, and brought him captive to
the castle. Robert thereupon returned, and vindictively declared that
he would not kill the traitor, but condemn him to a far more hideous
punishment--perpetual imprisonment, which in those days of noisome,
airless dungeons was equivalent to perpetual torture. Henry, however,
had no mind to do the thing; he thought death was preferable from many
points of view; notably, because a dead man is forgotten, and provokes
neither sympathy nor reprisal. Therefore, with cold brutality which
equalled that of the occasional streaks of hardness to be found in
his otherwise great father, he dragged Conan to the top of the tower,
and pitched him straight over the ramparts. “The mangled corpse,
contumeliously dragged amidst the soaking filth from end to end of the
town, gave insulting warning to his compeers and townsmen” (Palgrave).
This is the record of the Conqueror’s sons.
More than a hundred years later, this ancient castle or tower was
the scene of a tragedy so dark and mysterious that it has never been
wholly penetrated, and some hold that it cannot be proved to have taken
place at Rouen at all; but our greatest dramatist notwithstanding, the
evidence against Rouen is pretty strong, and though we can never know
the method of young Arthur’s death, there is little doubt that here
by the Seine he was murdered. There are various suppositions as to
the manner of his death; some, with Shakespeare, believe that he fell
from the tower walls in attempting his escape, but if this were so we
may be pretty sure that John would have made the most of it to absolve
his craven soul from the accursed stain resting on it, which made him
abhorred of his contemporaries. The commonly received theory is that
John took the boy out in a boat and stabbed him with his own hand.
This does not seem impossible, for notwithstanding the cheapness of
assassins in that day, it may be remembered that John had already been
disobeyed once when he gave orders for Arthur’s mutilation, and he may
have dreaded a like result, for even in those days, to kill a helpless
boy of fourteen was a crime not lightly to be bought. By whatever means
it was effected, no trace remained of Arthur, who suffered his last
agonies of terror or revolt alone and helpless, and with the added
hideousness of enduring his death at the hands of a near relative.
Every vestige of the old castle has now disappeared, and on its site
there stand market buildings round three sides of a square. On the
south side is a curious double cupola--an arch over an arch--called
a chapel, the Chapelle de la Fierté, and this is associated with a
strange custom, which must originally have had its rise in that solemn
scene when the crowd called, “Not this man, but Barabbas!”
Once a year, on Ascension Day, the Chapter of Rouen Cathedral were
allowed, by the “Privilege of St Romain,” to release a prisoner
condemned to death, and the list of such releases runs from 1210-1790.
The ceremony took place at this little chapel; it was performed with
great solemnity, and was witnessed by a vast crowd. As it was always
necessary in mediæval times to have some legend to account for the
origin of any custom, a legend was forthcoming, as follows:--A mighty
dragon dwelt in the marshes by the river, and devoured all whom he
could catch. The saint Romain, however, lured him from his place of
security by the bait of a condemned criminal, and then made the sign
of the cross over him, after which he had no difficulty in leading
the beast captive to the town, at the end of his stole. Therefore, in
memory of this great deliverance, a condemned criminal was freed each
year.
Among historical scenes it is impossible to forget the terrible siege
of 1417, when stern-faced Harry of England sat down before the walls
and waited. His fleet was to the north, his army had crossed to the
south, so that Rouen was cut off from assistance from Paris and left to
her fate. The citizens made desperate sorties now and again; they could
make no impression on the mighty force opposed to them. It was the end
of July when Henry appeared, and by the time winter came, the horrors
of starvation were at their height. A scene which has been enacted
in other sieges, and more than once depicted with ghastly power upon
canvas, now took place. Fifteen thousand “outsiders,” countrymen who
did not belong to Rouen, but had taken refuge inside her walls, were
turned out, and on the bitter icy slopes, between the full-armoured
English and the rigid walls, they writhed in agony, tearing up the
very earth to still their craving, and dying raving mad, or of utter
weakness. It is said that 50,000 persons died before New Year’s Day,
when envoys were sent to ask terms of the English. But it was not for
another ten days that terms were agreed upon as follows: Life to all
but nine persons whom Henry chose, was granted, and an enormous price
was fixed as ransom. Then Henry received the keys, and until 1449 the
town remained English. The Duke of Bedford ruled here as regent during
the infancy of King Henry VI., and he was succeeded by the Duke of
Somerset, under whom the final surrender took place. He was supported
by the veteran Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, who had seen a hundred
fights; but well they knew that the case was hopeless. Fortress after
fortress had fallen before King Charles of France, and in the town
itself was a strong party in favour of France. At length Somerset made
a disgraceful compact with the French before his gate, by which he
surrendered the town, and delivered Talbot and other officers up as
prisoners. He also pledged the English to surrender Honfleur, Caudebec,
and Arques, and to pay 50,000 crowns. Charles VII. entered on the 10th
of November 1449.
It would be impossible to give the slightest sketch of Rouen without
mentioning the names of the great among her sons. Greatest of all is
Corneille the poet, born in 1606, in a house standing on the site of
No. 4 in the present Rue Pierre Corneille; Maupassant and Hector Malot
owed part of their education to Rouen; Flaubert was born at Rouen in
1821; and the roll of lesser names contains many which, if not known
across the Channel, are representative of good work to their own
countrymen.
Such is Rouen, a city with as many facets as a jewel, each one of which
contributes something to the perfect whole. We can see her as a city
of magnificent churches, a city of famous Renaissance buildings, a
city of narrow, crooked, winding streets, cobble-paved, and lined by
mediæval timbered houses; we can see her in the light of an historic
past, or as a wideawake city of the present day, with trams running
along broad thoroughfares, with spacious quays and busy trade; she is a
medley of the past and the present, and the one or the other is seen as
it is sought. But there is one thing to be noted, she is not a city of
the Normans, those Norman dukes who held her as their capital seem to
have been utterly effaced; there are but few fragments surviving from
their time, and those either difficult to find, or so much incorporated
and overlaid with later work, that for all superficial purposes they
are obliterated: in Rouen the magnificence of mediæval times has made
an ineffaceable impression; she is a mediæval city if you will, or a
modern city, or both together; but above all things she is thoroughly
French, and not Norman.