In a straight line from the Rue Grosse-Horloge, it is not five minutes
to the _vieux marché_ where St. Jeanne d'Arc was martyred.
There is nothing to mark the spot but a tablet let in on the path, and
the words:
Jeanne d'Arc
30 Mai
1431.
Nothing else.
Beside it on one of the huge market halls hang many dirty, artificial
wreaths, and under them a marble tablet, with these words inscribed on
it:--
"_Sur cette place s'éléva le bûcher de Jeanne d'Arc._
"_Les cendres de la glorieuse victoire furent jetées à la Seine._"
And below it is a map of old Rouen (1431) shewing that the _piloi_ was
close to the spot where Joan of Arc was burnt, as was also the Church
of St. Saviour (which has completely disappeared). The square now is
surrounded almost entirely by modern buildings and hotels, and the two
large iron market halls take up nearly all the space.
I cannot imagine a greater demand on one's powers of imagination than
is required of one who stands, under these modern conditions, and tries
to conceive the scene that took place there six centuries ago.
The woman who dared much, ventured much, and suffered much, for the
sake of that which is "not seen, only believed," standing there in the
midst of the fire, her eyes on that Other Figure which, under the form
of the uplifted crucifix, was present with her, unseen by the rabble;
the English bishops who only wanted to get to their dinner; the coarse
crowd who came to gloat over her sufferings; the whole brutal scene
which was to be the last which should meet her eyes before the door
into the spirit-world should open.
Conditions of life, points of view, are so completely, so absolutely
changed, that one cannot realise the tragedy which was acted out to its
grim finish on that spot. And one looks again at the dirty, begrimed
tablet at one's feet:
Jeanne d'Arc,
30 Mai
1431,
and yet one _cannot_ realise it all, cannot mentally see it happening.
Nevertheless it did take place, and it remains for ever a stained page
in the volume of the deeds of England: a stained page of blackest
ingratitude in the annals of France.
I stood by that stone a long time. For there, on that very spot, is
sacred ground. There, six hundred years ago, a human soul dared death
in its most terrible aspect, for--the sake of an Idea. There are very
few to-day, men or women, who would dare so much for the sake of an
idea: even when that idea is backed by faith, as hers was. And yet
there is nothing greater, nothing more powerful, if one could see it in
its true light, than an idea of the kind that was hers.
A little side street leading out of the Place de Vieux Marché brings
one into the quiet little Place de la Pucelle. Here, there is a statue
(not in the least inspiring, however) to St. Jeanne d'Arc, hung round
with the inevitable artificial wreaths, so dear to the French, in
honour of her memory. The statue itself is blackened and covered with
a soft mantle of green from much wreath-bearing. There is also a
Latin inscription. The square itself is diamond-shaped, and only one
black-timbered house remains to it of all that graced it in Joan's
days. There is, it is true, standing back in its own courtyard, that
wonderful Hotel Bourgtheroulde, (which was begun in the sixteenth
century,) but this is not easily seen if you enter the square from the
further end.
Illustration: FONTAINE DE ST. CROIX, ROUEN.
[_Page 137._
I saw it at dusk. The quiet figure rising dark against the twilight
sky; some white-capped peasants crossing the street quietly; the
distant cries and laughter of children playing about the fountain in
the midst; the windows of the houses gleaming redly against the cobbled
pavement; steep roofs rising all round, standing out in the half light
distinct and sharp, made an impression on one's memory not easily to be
wiped out.
Rouen is the happy hunting-ground of the antiquary: the old houses are
almost inexhaustible. Streets upon streets of them, untouched in all
their splendid picturesqueness. One strikes up some narrow, cobbled
passage between timbered houses, rising high on either side, a narrow
strip of blue sky shewing far above, and one comes suddenly upon lovely
old corbels, exquisite bits of old sculpture, by some corner across
which strikes the soft shine from the blue lilac slate of some steep
roof immediately above it. At one's foot is the inevitable little
border to almost every old street--the trickling stream gleaming where
the sun slants down on it.
The only sound that breaks on one's ear in these old streets is the
clatter of sabots, and the sedate, slow-paced _carillon_ from the
cathedral bells close by. Sometimes in one's wanderings one comes upon
one or other of the numerous old carved stone fountains which stand
here and there at street corners in Rouen--sculptured, but generally
much discoloured and defaced.
Quite unexpectedly, again, one chances on flagged courtyards, the
houses round having magnificent, old black oak staircases giving on
to them. One street was especially full of characteristic corners.
I remember once passing down it when the whole place seemed asleep:
and the only sounds that struck on one's ear were the plaintive, soft
lament of an unseen dove, and the distant wail of a violin from some
projecting upper story of a gabled house.
Beside a panelled door, hanging loosely on its hinges, hopped a tame
rook, rather out at elbows as touching its wing plumage, pecking at
the rain-water which had dripped into an old silver plate of quaint
design which lay tilted against the kerb stone. Further up was a house
with a bulging front, as of someone who has lived too well and attained
thereby his corporation. In some streets the houses are slated down
the entire frontage, and only the ground floor timbered. Many of the
houses are labelled "_Ancienne Maison_," and the name beneath, and
some--but only some, alas!--have the date over the door. There are
some exceedingly quaint dedications over one or two of the shops in
Rouen. One, which specially arrested our attention, was over a shop
in the Rue Grosse-Horloge, and ran thus:--"_Au pauvre diable et à St.
Herbland réunis!_" Another was to "Father Adam"; another to "_Petit
St. Herbland_,"; another to "_St. Antoine de Padue_:" this last was
a very favourite dedication, and one came across it in all parts of
the city. Though, when one saw how often he was the patron saint of
"Robes and Modes," I must say one wondered what the connection was
between the saint and a milliner's shop. Was it a reminder of that one
of his temptations in which three beautiful maidens, scantily attired,
appeared and danced before him? Only, if so, surely the _double
entendre_ suggested by the dedication would act as a deterrent, if it
acted at all, on those who were tempted by the chiffons, _draperies et
soieries_, displayed in the shop window, to go within. One could see
that there was a singular fitness in "Father Adam" being the patron of
an eating shop, as was the case in one street.
At midday the street leading into the cathedral square is a scene of
multitudinous interests. A little boys' school, marshalled solemnly
by a master--spectacled and sticked--the boys all stiff-capped and
starched looking; a square, closed-in cart, with neatly packed rows of
those appetising long loaves lying cosily side by side; a huge cart,
_messageries Parisiennes_, drawn by splendid cart-horses, five bells on
each side of their splendid collars--collars edged with brass nails,
and brass facings with pink background--the peasant conducting it,
wearing the high-crowned black hat and loose, navy-blue blouse reaching
to knee, and opening wide at collar; a barrow of some sweet-smelling
stuff pushed over the cobbles by a costermonger who, as he passed,
stretched out a disengaged hand to re-arrange his truck of oranges to
make the vacant places of those gone before seem less deserted and
more enticing to a possible customer. The stream beside the way was
swinging merrily along in a succession of weirs, forming itself into
different patterns as it went along, owing to its course being over
rough, uneven cobbles. Here, as it turned a corner, the sun shone full
on it, and from being a stream of doubtful reputation--being in most
instances the receptacle of the castaway Flotsam and Jetsam of many a
household--it straightway became a river of pure molten steel.
Then, down another street as I accompanied it, its tide turned--the
tide which is swelled by many pailfuls from the doors that lie beside
its route--and like the bottle imp, it dwindled into a tiny thing, and
flowed along weakly--creased and lined.
The Guide-book urges one on from Rouen, to Caudebec-en-Caux. But I
found so much to see in the way of old streets and old buildings in
Rouen itself, that I postponed our day's journey to Caudebec till just
before we were leaving. Then our choice fell on a day when the powers
of the weather fought against us in our courses, and it rained almost
continuously for the whole day long. But there are special beauties
which are abroad in these times, which those who have seen them once,
recognise at their true value, and would not forego.
In this case there was a driving white scud of rain slanting across
the meadows. It swept over steep slopes redly orange with fallen
leaves lying thick in layers everywhere. The tree trunks stood, yellow
in contrast, over streams in which the rain made spear pricks, which
swiftly became pin-point centres of ever widening circles. Cows moving
lazily on, in their grazing, stepped in the squelching gravel of the
deeply-rutted roads, shining up dully, in dark slate colour. Here and
there, but not often, black-timbered barns came into sight, sparsely
covered with vivid green moss.
Then would come a field with mangy patches of colourless grass, the
trees standing sharply outlined in all shades of vivid emerald green:
an orchard of gnarled branches of the very palest green imaginable--a
sort of etherealized mildew, backed by a fine old slated farm-house.
Close beside it a farmyard, the ground literally dotted all over with
black hens, busy over remunerative pickings. A little further on was
another orchard, this time filled with whitened skeletons of trees,
their bark all being stripped from off the trunks. The hedgerows were
crowned with quick successions of briary--the grey hair of the dying
year--and at the end of one of them was an avenue of gnarled dwarf
willows bordered by a winding stream; their rounded heads shewing soft
purple against the green meadow.
At Duclair it was evidently market-day. The train was ushered in by a
clatter and jabber of voices, shrill and hoarse mixed: all shouting
at the top of their voices. The platform was littered with various
coloured sacks, well filled out; market baskets in all positions, and
little wooden barred cages for the poor cramped domestic fowl. Beyond
Duclair the trees look like brooms the wrong way up: as if grown on the
principle of the received tradition in London markets as to the correct
complexion of asparagus--long bare trunks and only at the latter end a
little bit of spread green to shew that it was the business end.
These trees were presently merged in a dark belt of forest, standing
clear against a soft grey lilac horizon of distant land shouldering
the sky. Deep-roofed cottages, velveted with moss and lichen; an old
_château_ with steep slate gables; alternate green and red brown
meadow, picked out in places with sombrely dark brushwood, with
delicate, incisive, clear cut edge against the softer foliaged trees.
Then a broad band of glittering steel encircling the hills which rose
abruptly behind it.
Most of the cottages here have a sort of hem of arabesque ornamentation
from the flowers which grow freely all along the tops of the roofs. The
Seine, like the Jordan of old, overflowed its banks pretty considerably
this autumn, to judge by the look of the land in this district. Just
before the train slowed into the little primitive terminus of Caudebec,
the rain, which had held up for half an hour or so, came on again,
whipping the river's surface into long weals.
Caudebec itself is on the banks of the river, with rising ground almost
surrounding it. Were it not for the modern element which has, as usual,
played ducks and drakes with the picturesque element, Caudebec would be
unique.
Indeed, not so very long ago it evidently did possess an individuality
in ancient buildings, which set it quite apart by itself. But _nous
avons changé tout cela_; and now, though it has three charming old
streets with black-timbered houses and a mill stream racing beneath
them, and a little bridge, its features are considerably altered.
Here again, as everywhere else where I went, with the exception of
Gujan-Mestras, the same absence of costumes was a keen disappointment.
They are not forgotten, it is true; the numerous photographs of them
prevent that, but they themselves are an unknown quantity.
Coming away from Caudebec, there was a temporary cessation from
showers, and a brilliant, narrow strip of sunshine fell across
the hillocky, spattered surface of the river, which a freshening
wind was driving before it. It shone fitfully through the straight,
close-clipped line of poplars which lined the river bank on the farther
side. A few moments later and the sun was setting in a flare of yellow
light, and a flood of misty radiance lay full on the dancing ripples.
At Rouen the pavement was all a medley of colour: red, soft green,
yellow, and dull grey, so that the flags beneath one's feet shone like
a tesselated flow of many colours. Overhead the blue, lurid flashes of
lightning from the electric wires shot up and died away every now and
then. The light from the arc lights made the wet asphalt shine like a
crinkled sea under the moonlight. We went to bed that night with the
soft pattering of the rain upon our window panes: now hesitating, now
hurried, now in triplets, that suggested to one's mind gentle strumming
on an old spinet.