The Story of Rouen Part 7

On the fourth panel, behind four mace-bearers, rides an ecclesiastic bearing what was once a double cross: the dove that flew above his head has entirely disappeared. Then comes Cardinal de Boissey, the Papal Legate, and among the other Cardinals (who may be recognised by their hatstrings falling on their chests) are those of Bourbon, Albret, and Lorraine. Much of this has been destroyed, but there is enough left to realise what Du Bellay says about the ruinous extravagance of the dresses:--"Many of the Frenchmen," he writes, "carried the price of woodland, watermill, and pasture on their backs." Yet the taste of the Englishmen, who had not spent so much, was acknowledged to have produced as splendid an effect as the gorgeous outlay of the French; as Fleurange particularly records of the English pavilion made of wood, and drapery and gla.s.s, "elle etait trop plus belle que celle des Francais, et de peu de coutance." In one point, however, the ladies of Paris a.s.serted a superiority they have retained almost ever since; the Englishwomen confessed themselves beaten; but when they followed the fas.h.i.+on of their fair rivals, it was not much better; for, says the truthful historian, "what they lost in modesty they did not make up in grace."

Most unfortunately, on the fifth and last panel, though the stair-rail has preserved some of its details better than any of the rest, the superiority of these French ladies cannot be sufficiently studied, though several of their heads may be seen watching the procession from the windows and balconies of Ardres. The plumed hats and horses of the escort are particularly clear here, and they are more numerous than in the famous "Triumph of Maximilian" or in the "Entry of Charles V. into Bologna." The figure of the courtier just mounting his horse is the one I like best of all except the dignified personage who bears the cross before the French ecclesiastics.

If the English amba.s.sador in 1596 was easily able to recognise the subject of these carvings, no less quickly would the Cardinal de Florence, the Papal Legate who came to Rouen in the same year, and was also lodged in this house, remember the originals from which were taken the carvings on the frieze above the windows on this wall. For though later generations have misunderstood them, just as they imagined the lower carvings to be the Council of Trent, it is quite clear from some words first discovered on the stone in 1875, that the frieze was inspired by the "Triumphs" of Petrarch. These words are as follows; and I have added their proper continuation and beginning in italics:-- "Amor vincit mundum Pudicitia vincit amorem Mors vincit pudicitiam Fama vincit mortem Tempus vincit famam Divinitas seu Eternitas omnia vincit."

M. Pal.u.s.tre has pointed out that an edition of these "Triumphs" was published in Venice in 1545 by Giolito, with woodcuts; and though this is rather too late for the carvings (unless, as was the case with Holbein's "Todtentanz," we may imagine the cuts were known long before the book) it is a matter of common knowledge that the subject was a favourite one not only for such ill.u.s.trations but especially for tapestry; as Agrippa d'Aubigne records of contemporary tapestries at Lyons: "Elles representent quatre triomphes, chacun de trois partis...." And it was also by just such chariots, cars, and elephants, or other animals, that virtues and vices were represented in the great processions of the kings and queens at Rouen and elsewhere, processions which of course were often taken as the subject for tapestries commemorating their magnificence. In Petrarch's verses you may read:-- "Quattro destrier via piu che neve bianchi Sopr' un carro di foco un garzon crudo Con arco in mano, e con saette a' fianchi.... ... Vidi un vittorioso e sommo duce Pur com' un di color, che 'n Campidoglio Trionphal carro a gran gloria conduce...."

On the third of these upper panels (just above the meeting of the two kings), is a great car drawn by oxen, whose wheels are crus.h.i.+ng prostrate bodies in the road beneath them. The fourth carving shows a stage drawn by two elephants. The fleshless head of Death is in the front, with a serpent coiling round his leg, and on the car is the figure of a woman blowing a trumpet, with a banner. This is evidently the fourth line of the verse just quoted, "Fama vincit mortem." On the fifth car, drawn by four beasts, is a great das, and personages beneath it. Before it walks a figure with a turban, beside it another figure crowned with branches and carrying a tree. Emblems of the growth of nature dispersed in the design may perhaps suggest the pa.s.sage of the seasons and the lapse of time, for "Tempus vincit famam." The last line, "Divinitas omnia vincit," is very well ill.u.s.trated, over the door. Drawn by a lion, an eagle, an ox and an angel, to symbolise the four evangelists, a great car supports the three Persons of the Trinity beneath a das; and under the wheels are crushed various uncouth figures representing heresies. Cardinals, popes, and bishops accompany the procession.

Though I have only mentioned, so far, two of those great royal entries into Rouen, for which the citizens were especially famous, the details given in Chapter XI. will alone suggest that the scenes taken from Petrarch's verses would be very appropriate to a house in this particular town. The still more gorgeous festivities arranged for Henri II. and Catherine de Medicis, which I shall mention later on in this chapter, are even more like the triumphal cars and set pageants here represented, which have lasted on in England in the somewhat debased form of our own Lord Mayor's show, and were perhaps themselves the symbolical descendants of the Triumphs of the ancient Romans.

This gallery of the Cloth of Gold and the Triumphs, is decorated in every other part with beautifully designed arabesques, and is joined to the main facade by an exquisite turret, which rises at the corner near the short flight of steps, and breaks up the straight line of the walls in a way that the early Renaissance builders were extremely fond of doing, before the transition period had advanced so far as to make them forget the principles of the rising line of "Gothic" and adhere solely to the horizontal line of the Italian. But this turret is even more remarkable for the carvings it bears than for the delicate taste which dictated its position in the whole design. Upon the two sides visible to the spectator from the courtyard it is covered with representations of the pastoral scenes that might be seen any summer in the sixteenth century on the hills near Rouen. To see them all upon these walls you will need a good field-gla.s.s, but they deserve the closest inspection that is possible.

Standing by the door of the gallery, the first relief above the window in the turret shows a scene by the banks of Seine, in which men are swimming about and playing various tricks on each other in the water. On sh.o.r.e some labourers are cutting gra.s.s with long scythes which have only one handle rather low down in their long straight stem, and women are piling up what has been cut for hay. In the distance the same scene is continued, a man stops to drink out of his flask, a hawk is swooping down upon a heron, and trees and towered houses fill up the further s.p.a.ce. Above it, and beneath the next window higher up the tower, the country grows more mountainous, and sheep are pasturing among the fields. In front a gallant shepherd ties his mistress's garter, while she reproves his rustic forwardness. Behind them a somewhat similar declaration of affection is going on. A third shepherd quenches his thirst from a round flask. A traveller on horseback, with a bundle tied behind him, rides up the winding road, near which stands a rude shepherd's hut on wheels, which is still used in many an upland pasture to this day. On the other side of the road is a windmill. Scattered houses rise above the hills, and among the clouds is seen a flight of birds. Beneath is written the appropriate legend, "Berger a Bergere pr[=o]ptem[=e]t se ingere." Beneath the small window at the top of the tower on the same side, the game called "Mainchaude" is in full progress. A shepherdess blindfolds with her hand the shepherd whose head is resting in her lap, and his comrades stand ready to take advantage of his helpless position. Various modest sheep pretend they are not looking, another man calls to his friend in the distance, and a fifth is pensively playing a hautbois in the usual miraculous countryside with artistically disposed tufts of clouds above it. The motto reads:-- "Pa.s.se temps legers nous valent argent Silz ne sont dargent ils sont de bergers."

[Ill.u.s.tration: NOVS SOMES DES FINS: ASPIR[=A]S A FINS CARVING FROM THE TURRET OF THE MAISON BOURGTHEROULDE]

Turning to the other side of the tower, the carving beneath the highest window represents a jovial picnic under the same idyllic conditions. Out of a big bowl placed on a tree-stump, a shepherdess helps her lover with a spoon, another man makes his dog beg for a morsel of the food; music is provided behind by a self-sacrificing person with the bagpipes, and a fourth shepherd stands in the distance with some sheep, like a martyr to his duty. The window beneath this is decorated with a sheep-shearing scene, which I have reproduced from the outline drawing by E.H. Langlois, published by Delaqueriere in his "Description Historique des Maisons de Rouen" (Paris: Firmin Didot. 1821). The presiding shepherdess carries on her work with the usual embarra.s.sing distractions. By her side a musician plays his hautbois to a dancing dog. Just behind them a spirited chase after a marauding wolf is in full cry; more houses, clouds, and birds complete the picture. The motto is "Nous somes des fins: aspirans a fins." The last scene represents men fis.h.i.+ng, some with nets out of a boat, others on land with various uncouth patterns of fis.h.i.+ng-rod; everyone appears to be making a fine catch, but the extraordinary occurrence on the bank will entirely divert your attention from the fish; for a knight, who had evidently ridden down to see the sport, has been s.n.a.t.c.hed out of his saddle by a burly flying griffin, and his servant looks frantically after his disappearing body in the clouds. Untroubled by these strange events, a young woman walks calmly towards the castle, a little further on, carrying a basket of eggs and b.u.t.ter on her head, and above her some new kind of osprey flies away with a protesting pike. [See page 361.]

As carvings, these charmingly nave representations of country life break absolutely every rule that is supposed to govern the art of sculpture. Their relief is very slight indeed, they have no definite limits, for they wander vaguely round the windows, with trees and running water and clouds and birds and houses all on the same plane, and all with equal "values." I have not the slightest doubt that just as the Field of the Cloth of Gold was copied from a historical tapestry of the event, just as the Triumphs of Petrarch were copied from tapestries that might well have decorated the town of Ardres on the occasion of the royal meeting, so these window decorations, which betray their origin even more than the carvings on the other wing, were taken direct from tapestries which may have been at Ardres in June 1520, and certainly might have been seen in any great chateau of the period. Their very position on these walls is very like what tapestries were so frequently used for in the lavish mural decoration of the time. Every house hung out its best embroideries and tapestries and gaily coloured cloths; and the way in which these windows break into the background of each design represents the very probable result of draping a long piece of tapestry round the window of a house. The Chateau of Blois is known to have contained just such "bergeries" in the rooms of Anne of Brittany; at another chateau in Touraine, the Chaumont of Georges d'Amboise (the friend of the builder of this house in Rouen), may be still seen needlework, in pink and old rose, of country scenes, in the rooms used by Catherine de Medicis. Finally, in the inventory of the tapestries of Philip the Bold of Burgundy, drawn up soon after his death, you may read such entries as the following:-- "Ung autre petiz tapiz de bergerie, sur champ vert, seme de bergiers et de bergieres ... ung autre vielz tapiz de haulte lice ouvre de jeunes hommes et femmes jouans de plusieurs jeux ... arbres, herbaiges, ciel fait a faucons."

This might really represent the original needlework from which Abbe Leroux chose the subjects for his carving, and that the origin was some tapestry of this fas.h.i.+onable kind I see no reason to doubt, especially in the town which preserves in the Church of St. Vincent some of the finest sixteenth-century tapestries in France.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INNER FAcADE OF THE MAISON BOURGTHEROULDE.]

The flat textile kind of carving all over the house, which rises to excellence of workmans.h.i.+p in relief only in the meeting of the two kings, lends itself irresistibly to the same conclusion. And for this reason I have not that extravagant admiration of it, viewed purely as work of art, which may be better reserved for conceptions that are more original in the mind of the sculptor, and of more local interest in the town for which the work was done. As an example of the pa.s.sion for processions and decoration, however, few better could have been chosen in Rouen than this Maison Bourgtheroulde, and I have therefore dilated on it at some length, to emphasise the spirit of life and colour that is the main subject of this chapter. But a far more important reason for these details is the fact that the Field of the Cloth of Gold carved on this gallery, is of the greatest value and interest to all Englishmen as one of the few representations of that famous pageant which exist either in England or out of it.

The only place near London where it can be conveniently studied is in the gallery of Hampton Court Palace. In that collection you may see, in No. 337, Henry's embarkation from Dover on the 31st of May in the Great Harry or Henri Grace de Dieu, as she had been "hallowed" in 1514. And in No. 342 is a large painting 5-1/2 feet high by 13 feet, 3 inches long, of this meeting of the kings between Guinea and Ardres, which confirms in a very remarkable way many of the details in the Maison Bourgtheroulde. It is not by Holbein, though he is known to have done similar work that has not survived, but may have been painted either by John Browne or Vincent Volpe or John Cruste, all of whose names are mentioned in connection with court pageants of the reign. A small outline of this picture is very possibly connected with our earliest notions of English history, for it is prefixed to Mr Murray's edition of Mrs Markham's "England." Mr Ernest Law's catalogue of the Hampton Court pictures gives further details in connection with it, and for a longer description refers his readers to the third volume of the State papers of Henry VIII., and to "Archaeologia," iii. 185-230.[68]

[Footnote 68: In November 1774 the Society of Antiquaries published a large engraving of this picture (which is still procurable) by James Basine, after a drawing by E. Edwards from the original then in the Royal Apartments of Windsor Castle. In this you may see the Fountains of Bacchus and Cupid running wine, in front of the English Pavilion, which is full of windows. The Salamander of Francis floats in the air above. In 1781 the same engraver copied the companion picture of the embarkation of Henry VIII. from Dover in the "Great Harry," after a drawing by S.H. Grimm.]

I cannot leave this subject without expressing the earnest hope not only that our own National Portrait Gallery may soon be able to let the public see some good reproduction of a scene that is of the greatest historical interest, but that efforts may be made to secure the better preservation of the original carvings in Rouen. The connection between that city and England is of long standing. It was the capital of those Norman dukes who conquered us at Hastings and flooded us with their art, their learning, and their civilisation. It was the most cherished foreign possession of our King Henry the Fifth, who died too soon to wear the crown in Paris. It has been the especial pilgrimage of our best historians and archaeologists and artists almost from that time until the present day. The "Monuments Historiques" in which it is so rich are being worthily cared for by an enlightened government, and I must believe that the sympathy and kindness extended by every authority in Rouen towards a visitor who honestly confessed his interest and carefully explored many of its inexhaustible treasures, would be more than doubled if that interest were expressed by some representative body like our Society of Antiquaries. That society would once more deserve well of its country, in the interests of both history and art, if it would come forward with some suggestion either to the Ministre des Beaux Arts, or to the local authorities. The Maison Bourgtheroulde is now in the safe hands of the Comptoir d'Escompte de Rouen. Every English traveller goes there to change his notes; and every Englishman must see with regret that the English portion of these valuable carvings is the one that is most damaged. This was inevitable from their position; but further injury can at once be prevented by s.h.i.+elding them with gla.s.s. If these modest pages which bring the subject before the notice of a somewhat wider, and perhaps a more influential public, succeed in suggesting some movement that will, I am confident, be welcomed in the best spirit by Frenchmen on the spot, I shall feel that the "Story of Rouen" has not been told in vain.

There is another house belonging to a famous citizen in Rouen, which is very different, but perhaps even more characteristic of the place; and with our walk towards it we may resume that discovery of the life of the town which I am just now concerned that you should realise. To reach the Maison Caradas you have a pleasant choice of paths. As you stand outside the Maison Bourgtheroulde and look east towards the Cathedral towers, the first street that goes south towards the river is the Rue Herbiere, on your right out of the Place de la Pucelle, and that will bring you out by the Douane on the Quais. An even better way is to take the Rue de la Vicomte, quite parallel to this, but further east, which pa.s.ses the western gate of St. Vincent, and is full of interesting old houses from the Rue de la Grosse Horloge to the river. As you pa.s.s down it now there are some wonderful old houses on your right, and a fine courtyard at No. 25. Still a third choice is the Rue Harenguerie, which takes the same direction from the south door of St. Vincent, and by this I usually pa.s.sed myself, for the sake of weaving stories in my mind about No. 21, a house that Balzac would have delighted to describe, with an open staircase in the corner of its old courtyard.

The names of streets have often a fascination in themselves, and this one has probably been called the same ever since the herring market was set upon the quays in 1408. I wish I had had s.p.a.ce to tell you more of these old names, which nearly all preserve a little local history, when they have not been stupidly and unnecessarily changed. But you may take this as a type of what many another will suggest, and in the laborious pages of the excellent M. Periaux you may discover much more for yourself. The sale of herrings, which was always a large and an increasing business on the northern coasts, was organised in 1348, and by 1399 a barrel of "harengs caques" was sold for 110 sols. "Brusler tout vifz comme harans soretz," says Rabelais, of the poor regents of Toulouse University; and your salt herring from Guernsey, Scotland, and Biscay was in much request at the old market on the quay between the Porte St. Vincent and the Porte du Crucifix, where on large tables and slabs of stone the fishwives hired places from the Sergents de la Vicomte d'Eau to sell their eels from the Marne, congers from La Roch.e.l.le, trout from Andelys, fresh herrings from Le Havre. You may see the scene still in a stained-gla.s.s window of the Cathedral, and you may well imagine the state of mind of the old poet:-- "Nul n'orra toute la dyablerie Ny le caquet de la Pessonnerie."

Like everything else, it was under holy patronage, and fishwives prayed at the shrine of St. Julien l'Hospitalier, the saint whose story Flaubert, another child of Rouen, has so wonderfully told. The wags of the seventeenth century called these ladies "non angeliques mais harangeriques"; but on fast-days every burgess and innkeeper and monk was glad enough to go to them; for was there not even an "Abbaye aux Harengs" no further off than Mantes, and what better present could the Archbishop think of sending to his friend the Archdeacon than 2000 salted herrings in a specially holy barrel?

All the sound of the chaffering and howling of prices has gone into silence long ago in the old Rue Harenguerie of to-day, and you will be glad to turn into more lively quarters by taking the corner to your left, eastwards, down the Rue des Charettes. It is lighted up every now and then by a break in the houses and a glimpse of the river to your right, though it is more of masts and sails than water you will see. As you walk along, the name of a street that turns northwards on your left hand should be familiar if you have followed me thus far; for it is called Jacques Lelieur, as is only right and proper, to commemorate the name and fame of one who did a great deal of good in the Rouen of his own day, and has made it much more interesting to ours. His house is No. 18 in the Rue Savonnerie, which continues the Rue des Charettes in the same direction, and you will know it by the tablet on the wall. It has two fine gables with excellent woodwork upon the street-facade; though showing slight traces here and there of restoration, it was well worth keeping in good order as the house of an artistic burgess of the sixteenth century who lived up to his position in the town.

To Jacques Lelieur we owe it that I am able to show you part of the most complete representation of a town in 1525 which is known to exist. For he drew the course of the various fountains and water-conduits in Rouen, not only in plan, but adding the elevation of the various houses, as may be seen on map F in Chapter IX., so that you may actually walk down every street and see what he saw three hundred and seventy years ago. All that part which was lucky enough to be comprised in his plan of the waterworks is accurately preserved in his naif and faithful drawings, in which the scaffoldings are put in as carefully as the finished buildings. The rows of gables that occur so often are not quite planed away into rectilinear dulness yet, as you may see along the Rue des Faux, or even Eau de Robec here and there. But the greater part of what he drew is only a melancholy memory, and the background of the old life of Rouen can only be recalled from his drawing now to frame some such sketch as the present one of the inhabitants who have vanished with it. The view of the town at the end of this chapter contains a little microscopic vignette in the centre showing the artist presenting his famous Livre des Fontaines to the civic dignitaries. It is on four long bands of parchment, of which the Hotel de Ville carefully preserves one, and the fourth is in the City Library. The drawings are done in black ink, with the houses coloured a pale yellow, the roofs shown with red tiles or bluish slates, the gra.s.s touched with yellowish-green. Besides being a secretary and notary of the Royal Courts, Lelieur held office in the town as councillor, sheriff, and finally President of the General a.s.sembly in the absence of the bailli and lieutenant in 1542. He was crowned for his poem in the famous poetic tourney of the Puy des Palinods de Rouen, and he owned two or three fine estates outside the town.

The object of our little pilgrimage is nearly reached now, and after you have admired the carvings on the front of No. 41, stop at the quaint dwelling marked 29. This is the Maison Caradas, and its position at a corner with the open s.p.a.ce of the river beyond it enables you to see it well all round. The slope of the ground upwards, which I noticed in earlier chapters, is especially p.r.o.nounced here, and shows how much embankment had to be done before the town was really rescued from the swamps and mud-flats of the Seine. The fas.h.i.+on of building each upper storey to overlap the one beneath is very evident here, and the effects I suggested in the last chapter may be vividly realised; as Regnier[69] puts it with his usual frankness:-- "Et du haut des maisons tomboit un tel degout Que les chiens alteres pouvoient boire debout."

[Footnote 69: Regnier had come to Rouen to be treated by Lesonneur, a famous local specialist; but he unfortunately celebrated his recovery with a little too much Vin d'Espagne, and died in the Rue de la Prison in 1613.]

This is one of the houses drawn in Lelieur's book at the corner of the Rue Tuile, with the Fontaine Lisieux near it, that is now merely a grotesque ruin of its former splendours. So much uncertainty is exhibited by the best local authorities as to the real owner of the Maison Caradas that I shall not pretend to solve the problem here. It is clear, however, that the word is a surname, or one of the by-names so common in the first years of the sixteenth century when this was built; and it is possible that it preserves one more suggestion of the connection between Rouen and Spain, and means "amiable," as in the phrase, "Bien o mal carado." For the root of the word is evidently in the Greek [Greek: charis], and is found in the Gaelic "cara" (the friend or ally), and the Breton "Caradoc," who was the Caractacus of Roman days.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MAISON CARADAS IN THE RUE SAVONNERIE]

If you will follow me a little further in the same direction, as the Rue de la Savonnerie becomes the Rue des Tap.i.s.siers, you will find the corner of the aged Rue du Hallage on your left marked by an ancient parrot in a decrepit cage. He has been living there for so long that he is certain to be there to blink at any new arrival in the next half century, and as you pa.s.s him you will remember the parrot who was discovered in Central America, full of years and knowledge, in a village where not a single inhabitant understood what the bird said. He had been found among the ruined houses of a people who had vanished utterly, and he had become the sole repository of syllables that have been never heard elsewhere. If anyone could really understand him, I have often fancied that this faded bag of feathers at the corner of the Rue du Hallage could use the most astonis.h.i.+ng language about the things that he has seen, for he could hardly be in a better place in Rouen than this strange street that crawls beneath shadowed archways to the Marche aux Balais and the Rue de l'epicerie. It takes its name from the Maison du Haulage, where the merchants paid town dues upon their goods, and a few steps further in the Rue des Tap.i.s.siers will bring you to the Halles themselves, to which you enter through a huge black archway that gapes upon the Place de la Ba.s.se Vieille Tour. Upon the left are some of those old "avant soliers" which you have seen in Jacques Lelieur's drawing of the Place du Vieux Marche, the covered causeways formed by projecting walls propped up by heavy timbers. There is much hideously vulgar modern decoration to spoil the full effect, but the main outlines of the old building are all there, and you may imagine what it looked like for yourself.

On each side, as you enter the dark tunnel, great warehouses stretch out to right and left, still on the same spot where Charles V. gave Rouen the Halle aux Drapiers in 1367. Since then they have been constantly filled and constantly rebuilt. Beneath your feet are immense vaults that have been used since 1857 for storing oil and goods under warrant, and in the South Hall are piled the famous "Rouenneries" and coloured cottons, and those "draperies" which have been famous almost since Edward the Confessor allowed the Rouen merchants to use his Port of Dungeness, and the town was granted the monopoly of the Irish trade, with the exception of one s.h.i.+p a year from Cherbourg.

When Warwick the Kingmaker made a memorable visit to Rouen in 1467 as an amba.s.sador, King Louis XI. ordered the town to furnish the English with all they wanted at his expense, with the result that "tous les gens de l'amba.s.sade s'en retournerent chez eux, vetus de damas et de velours, et de ces draps fins et precieux qui a.s.seurent au commerce de Rouen la superiorite sur toutes les villes du royaume." That "superiority" lasted well through the sixteenth century, and when Huguenots fled from Rouen to Westminster and Rye and Winchester, they were nearly all cloth-makers and silk-weavers. Such names as the Rue aux Anglais, the Rue aux Espagnols and others preserve the memory of commercial ventures that are even more picturesquely suggested by the s.h.i.+ps carved here and there upon old house-fronts in the town. Nor did Rouen commerce stop at England, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Flanders, or other countries of the old world. Her citizens, as we have seen, had known long ago a "King of the Canaries," and it was no doubt at the suggestion of either Spanish or Portuguese companions that Rouen s.h.i.+ps sailed on towards the Guinea Coast, to the Cape Verde Islands, and "the Indies," even across the Atlantic to Brazil, whence they brought back the rare wood called by Jean de Lery "araboutan."[70]

[Footnote 70: The native name for this staple of trade was "ibirapitanga," and with it they s.h.i.+pped across monkeys and parroquets for the ladies of the French Court. That there was a considerable rivalry with Portugal in these matters may be gathered from the remark in Marino Cavalli (Venetian Amba.s.sador to the Court of France) that a Portuguese vessel was burnt off Brazil in 1546. But the first doc.u.ment on Brazil ever published in France was the account of the savages exhibited before Henri II. in 1550. It is probably written by Maurice Seve and Claude de Tillemont and was published in 1551. Before that year it will be remembered that the only works about America known were the book of Fernandez in Spanish, Ramusio's account in Italian, and the letters of Cortes in German. After it, Thevet's "France Antarticque" appeared in 1558, and Nicolas Barre's letters in 1557. So that the book of the entry of Henri II. has the importance of filling a gap in "American Literature."]

Though various "savages" were seen there earlier, the most famous occasion of the appearance of real Brazilians in the streets of Rouen was the particularly magnificent reception given by the citizens to Henri II. and Catherine de Medicis in October 1550. They were accompanied by Marie de Lorraine, daughter of the Duc de Guise and Queen-Dowager of Scotland, who met at Rouen her little daughter Marie Stuart then eight years old and receiving a perilous education at the French Court which she was soon to rule during the short reign of Francois II. Marguerite de France, daughter of Francois I. was there too, and Diane de Poitiers, just over fifty years of age, who maintained over the King the same influence she had exercised over the Dauphin when she first came to Court from Normandy. It is interesting to note that her nephew Louis d'Auzebosc was pardoned by the Fierte St. Romain seven years afterwards.

Besides the "theatres" and "Mysteres," which you will remember were presented to Francois I., the citizens determined that in case mythology and symbolism had lost their pristine charms, an absolutely novel entertainment should be given to the King on this occasion. So on the fields between the Couvent des Emmurees and the left bank of the Seine a great sham fight was arranged between a number of Norman sailors and fifty "Brazilian savages" of the newly discovered tribe of Tupinambas, "naivement depinct au naturel," which may be understood as "clad only in their own skins and a few stripes of paint." They must have felt the climate of Rouen in October slightly raw, but no doubt the sham fight kept them warm, and everything seems to have gone off very pleasantly. The ladies were especially interested in these unknown creatures, and the King devotedly displayed the triple crescent of his lady Diana throughout the entire performance. There was much singing of anthems and decoration of the streets, but the Indians were evidently the "piece de resistance."[71]

[Footnote 71: In that year was carved for No. 17 Rue Malpalu the "enseigne" of the Brazilian savages, which has only disappeared in the last few years. It is difficult to say that any ecclesiastical carvings are meant for Indians, for I have seen figures with plumes and tattooing and tomahawks in a French church of the thirteenth century which were merely meant for peculiarly gruesome devils; but the feathered dresses and bow and arrows of the figures in the Church of St. Jacques at Dieppe are of an age that may very well agree with this appearance of Brazilians as public characters in France.

In 1565 G.o.defroy's "Ceremonial de France" records that they were again shown to Charles IX. at Troyes, and Montaigne's questions to them in 1563 will be remembered. They replied that what astonished them most was (Essais I. x.x.x.) to see so many strong men armed and bearded (meaning the Swiss guard probably) obeying a puny little person like the King. They were also fairly puzzled at seeing men gorged with plenty and living in ostentation on one side of the road, and starveling ruffians begging their bread in the gutter on the other without attempting to take the rich men by the throat, or even burn their houses. On which the essayist's comment is "Tout cela ne va pas trop mal; mais quoy! ils ne portent point de hault de chausses," a truly Rabelaisian reason for their want of intellect!]

Besides the music in the town, of which I reproduce an example at the end of this chapter, an entertainment was provided for the King and Queen and all the ladies in the great Palais de Justice, with which those rogues, the gay members of the "Basoche," must have been heartily in sympathy. For Brusquet, the Court jester, went into the Advocate's Box, and before the Queen upon the seat of justice, with all her ladies round her, he pleaded several important causes both for the prosecution and for the defence, "et faisait rage d'alleguer loix, chapitres, et decisions, et luy croissoit le latin en la bouche comme le cresson a la guelle d'un four," the whole being a satire on the well-known Norman pa.s.sion for a lawsuit, which was appreciated as much by the good people of Rouen as by their royal visitors.

But to finish this chapter with a glimpse of the people themselves, I must take you back to that old Rue du Hallage, in which our memories of Rouen's trading voyages suggested the festivities of this royal entry. And I can imagine few greater contrasts than that from the s.p.a.cious courtyard of the Palais de Justice to the view of the queer twisting streets and common habitations that you will get by standing in the Place de la Calende and looking down the Rue de l'epicerie towards the river. As you wander down it you must look at No. 14, an excellent type of early sixteenth-century building, with its old figured tiles and high gable, and the division between the ground floor and the next storey strongly marked by carvings and brackets. You are now not only in a typical part of the old city, but on ground that has borne the name since the fourteenth century, and earned it (as did the Rue Harenguerie) from the kind of commerce carried on there. You have already pa.s.sed the Rue des Fourchettes on your right, and a little further on is a still more fascinating name, the Marche aux Balais, where brooms were sold in 1644, after their modest commerce had been forbidden near St. Martin sur Renelle. On one of the small houses round it is the date 1602, and near it the carving of a salamander, which evidently gave its name to the Rue de la Salamandre, which had originally been known as "Mauconseil" ever since 1280, a name that is almost as appropriate to its darkness now as "Salamandre" must have been suggestive of its condition in the sixteenth century. It needs very little imagination to conceive amid these surroundings just such a "Cour de Miracle" in Rouen as Victor Hugo described in Paris. And, indeed, it is but quite lately that a conglomeration of tottering and leprous houses, without owners, and never entered by the police, was torn down. The Rue Coupe-Gorge, the Rue de l'Aumone, especially the horrible Clos St. Marc, have not long been swept away. Every cellar and every attic seemed to communicate by tortuous and filthy pa.s.sages with the next. No visitor was admitted who had not the hallmark of crime visibly upon him, or was not a member of that loathsome confraternity of thieves and beggars who lived by their raids upon society at large.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUE DE L'ePICERIE WITH PORTAIL DE LA CALENDE IN THE DISTANCE]

Straight out of the Marche aux Balais the Rue du Hallage burrows under the ancient houses towards the river, hemmed in by walls on all sides, that catch up every breath of air that moves, and shut out nearly all the light. The backs of its crowded dwellings you can see from the great square into which the Rue de l'epicerie directly leads, the Place de la Haute Vieille Tour, where you must go forthwith and see the beautiful little building that was set up for the great ceremony of the Fierte St. Romain.

This was the ceremony that gave their one great day in all the year to the drowsy archways of the Rue du Hallage; for the Marche aux Balais and the Rue Salamandre and the Rue de l'epicerie itself, were all crowded to suffocation. Every Ascension-tide, from the reign of the Norman dukes until the Revolution, not these streets only, but every window in the houses, and the very roofs above, were crammed with people waiting for the great annual procession in which the prisoner was set free. I have quoted many extracts from the records kept by the Chapterhouse

of these occasions, because the list has provided typical instances of men and manners in Rouen from the thirteenth century onwards. And I can close my tale of the most brilliant portion of Rouen's history in no better way than by suggesting to you something of the interest and the excitement created by a processional ceremony, which may itself be taken as typical of the people's life.

From the earliest hour at the breaking of the dawn of Ascension Day, the whole of Rouen was thinking and talking of nothing else except the prisoner, and in every quarter of the city the interest in him took a different form. All the countryside of Vexin and of Caux had trooped into the town with women and children in their Sunday best. From the attic windows of the Rue de l'epicerie girls in flapping white head-dresses leant across the road and screamed their good fortune to the neighbours opposite; for these were some of the best places to see the ceremony, and in 1504 the crowd who scrambled for them was so great that the roofs fell in. The open square itself was gradually filling up; the gay Cauchoises who were chambermaids at the Auberge de la Herche were doing a roaring trade; soldiers of the Cinquantaine in green velvet doublets were taking their morning draught at the Trois Coulombs, before each man shouldered his arquebus and went off to keep his guard; even the Crieurs des Trepa.s.ses had come out into the light, their strange black cloaks all sewn with silver skulls. At last eight o'clock struck, and there was a general movement towards the Parvis, for the luckiest in the front rows of the crowd could look through the Chapterhouse

door and actually see the preliminary meeting of the canons about the choice of their prisoner. But the door was soon shut, and at last the crowd could only hear the solemn notes of the "Veni Creator" sounding from within, as the good ecclesiastics prayed for divine direction in their solemn office. At last a name was written down, sealed up and given to the Chaplain de la Confrerie de St. Romain, who pa.s.sed solemnly out with the fatal missive in his hand, and the canons at once proceeded to fill up the interval of waiting with a huge dinner.

Followed by a number of the citizens the chaplain took his way towards the Palais de Justice. There, too, ever since eight o'clock everyone had been extremely busy. Two by two the members of the High Court of Parliament in their scarlet robes had marched out of the Council Chamber, with their four state officials in violet preceding them, and a guard of the Cinquantaine before. In this chapel they all heard the "Messe du Prisonnier," and then sat down to the enormous repast called the "Festin du cochon," with which (on a smaller scale), every public body and every household in Rouen fortified themselves for the doings of that splendid day. By the end of dinner the chaplain and his cartel had arrived, and the whole courtyard of the Palais was ringed with crowds of people. Accompanied by his Prevot and four other members of the Confrerie St. Romain, the chaplain was escorted into the great hall, the name was solemnly read out, and the officials of the Parliament went to the particular gaol in which the prisoner happened to be kept. Bareheaded, with his irons still upon one leg, the man was brought quickly to the Conciergerie, that his name might be enregistered as a formal prisoner of the Palais; for all the legal bodies were particularly touchy about their own prerogatives. When a man could not walk he was carried, as was Antoine de Lespine in 1602, who had been wounded in a duel two days before, and could only be got to the Conciergerie in a clothes-basket.

After certain solemn preliminaries the prisoner was brought into the great hall, and while all the councillors stood up he knelt before the president to receive admonition for his past sins and pardon for the future. Still bareheaded, he was then led out by the "huissiers" of the court through the great open s.p.a.ce in front, and as his foot touched the pavement of the street beyond, a signal set the great bell Georges d'Amboise ringing from the Cathedral tower. At the sound, every steeple in Rouen rocked with answering salutations. "Rura jam late venerantur omen." From every parish church for miles round the ringers, waiting for the "bourdon's" note, sent out a joyful peal in chorus, and every villager drank b.u.mpers to the prisoner's health. Himself, a little dazed we may imagine with this sudden tumult in the streets and in his heart too at deliverance from death, he marched along with the arquebusiers beside him, through a cheering crowd towards the old Halles. There the authority of the law let go its grip, and he was handed over to the chaplain and the deputies of the Confrerie St. Romain, who took him to an inner room. There he was given refreshment, his chains were struck off and wound round one arm, and he was dressed in fresh clothes.

Meanwhile, after the Cathedral choir had sung a solemn Te Deum, the great procession of the church had moved out of the Portail des Libraires, chanting in mighty unison "Christe quem sedes revocant paternae," down the Rue St. Romain to the western gate of St. Maclou, where choir-boys met them bearing lighted candles and swinging incense. And the chaplain brought the prisoner out into the Place de la Haute Vieille Tour, and leading him up the right-hand steps of the Chapelle de la Fierte, presented him to the ma.s.s of people in front just before the procession arrived from the Cathedral. So he knelt bareheaded and kissed the holy shrine which two priests had borne up to its place; the Archbishop addressed him in the hearing of his fellow citizens, and before them all he made confession, receiving his absolution as he raised the shrine of St. Romain thrice by its bars upon his shoulders, while all the people cried "Noel! Noel!" Then a confrere de St. Romain put a garland of white flowers upon the prisoner's head, and holding one end of the shrine himself he gave the prisoner the other, and all men put themselves in order for the march back up the Rue de l'epicerie to the Place de la Calende and so to the Parvis and the western gate of the Cathedral.

As the first notes of the "Felix Dies Mortalibus" were chanted by the priests, a hundred and twenty poor orphans moved forward, each carrying in one hand a wooden cross all wreathed with flowers and in the other a great loaf of bread. Behind them came the shrines of all the saints whose churches guarded Rouen, each with the Confrerie over whose interests they watched; St. Blaise with his wool-merchants, St. Jean with the orange-sellers, St. Sebastien with the hatters, and many more; each marching confrere wreathed in flowers, and every shrine attended with its special banner and its priests and candles. These were followed by the archers of the Cinquantaine, and the banner of their great Dragon, who appeared again upon a lofty pole, swallowing a fish; by a band of sweet music and of singers chanting melodiously their "cantiques and motets"; by all the burgesses of Rouen walking decorously two by two; by the choir-boys of the Cathedral and two hundred of the clergy, the canons in violet, and the greater dignitaries in soutanes of red silk; by the officiating canon, and lastly by the Archbishop himself, blessing the people as he went along.

As the chanting died away, after a short interval came the beadle all in violet livery bearing the great "Gargouille" of the town, and followed by a rabble of laughing, screaming lads in motley, swinging bladders, and throwing flowers and cakes about the street--that note of ribaldry without which no such procession was complete--and then came suddenly a silence, for the most holy shrine of St. Romain pa.s.sed by, borne by the prisoner and a priest. The last seven prisoners followed him, bareheaded and with torches. And then the laughter and the cheering broke out again as more burgesses tramped along with bouquets in their hands, and young girls all in white with garlands of flowers about their bosoms scattered blossoms on the bystanders, and more guards and soldiers closed up the procession and kept the crowd from breaking through its ranks.

By this time the first line had reached the Parvis, and as the voices of two priests singing on the summit of the Tour St. Romain floated down upon the people, all men pa.s.sed in through the Portail de St. Romain of the Western Front, under the great shrine held crosswise, so that all who went beneath received the blessed influence. When everyone had entered, and the shrine was once more on the High Altar, the Grand Ma.s.s was sung, and the prisoner was once more publicly exhorted by the Archbishop, before he was taken away again by the Confrerie St. Romain to a great feast in the Master's House which was the real celebration of his return to freedom.

The life of a sixteenth-century French town has often been described before, but I am particularly fortunate in being able to sketch you something of what went on in Rouen, not merely with the background of Lelieur's drawing, but even with the sound of the music which was heard in her streets; and, if I mistake not, the one is as unknown to English readers as the other. It has been said that Guillaume le Franc, a musician of Rouen, actually composed the tune known as the "Old Hundredth," originally set to the 134th Psalm in the Geneva Psalter, and used by English Protestants for the 100th about 1562. It was Handel's opinion that Luther composed it, and to Claude Goudimel, who was a.s.sa.s.sinated in the St. Bartholomew of Lyons, the honour has also been attributed; but local patriotism insists upon le Franc, and after reading the specimen of local musical talent I shall give you, I believe you will be readier to allow that Guillaume le Franc may have done what his fellow-citizens believe.

The madrigal I have printed here was written in a rare old book I found in the Library of Rouen.[72] It was most kindly copied out for me on the spot by M. Baurain, and Mr J.A. Fuller-Maitland was so good as to decipher the ancient notation and provide me with a score that anyone can play and sing to-day. He has also written the last paragraph of this chapter, and with his learned explanation I may leave you to the enjoyment of a song that has never been published since 1551, and that will reproduce for you, for the first time since then, the sound of the welcome given to Henri II. and Catherine de Medicis as they entered their good town of Rouen in 1550.

[Footnote 72: Its t.i.tle-page is too good to be lost, and runs as follows, without the charming s.p.a.cing and lettering of the original:-- "Cest La Deduction du sumptueux ordre plaisantz spectacles et magnificques theatres dresses et exhibes par les citoiens de Rouen ville Metropolitaine du pays de Normandie, A la sacree Maieste du Treschristian Roy de France Henry sec[=o]d leur souverain seigneur, Et a Tresill.u.s.tre dame, maDame Katharine de Medicis, La Royne son espouse, lors de leur triumphant joyeux et nouvel advenement en icelle ville, Qui fut es iours d'Octobre, Mil cinq cens cinquante, Et pour plus expresse intelligence de ce tant excellent triumphe, Les figures et pourtraictz des princ.i.p.aulx aornements d'iceluy y sont apposez chascun en son lieu comme l'on pourra veoir par le discours de l'histoire.... Avec priuilege du Roy. On les vend a rouen chez Robert le Hoy Robert et Jehan dictz du Gord tenantz leur Boutique Au portail des Libraires. 1551."]

In the history of music this four-part song is interesting as giving evidence of the general cultivation in music that must have prevailed among the French people at the time. In the present day we are apt to think of the madrigal or motet writers as a cla.s.s of specialists working at elaborate harmonic and contrapuntal problems for their own delight, but as having little influence on the national acceptance of music. Nothing could be further from the truth, as far as England, the Netherlands and Italy were concerned; and in France, where the art of the simple tunes of the troubadours represents for us the typical national music of mediaeval times, it is important to have a doc.u.ment which shows as clearly as this does the kind of music which was recognized as suitable for a great pageant. In style, the French school of the sixteenth century differs not at all from that of the Netherlands, of which it is generally regarded as an off-shoot (see Grove, "Dict. of Music and Musicians," vol. iii., p. 267). In the works of Pierre Certon, Claude Goudimel, and others, would be found many compositions constructed on similar lines to the example here given; that is to say, that the rules of madrigal writing are strictly observed, although the preference for ma.s.sive treatment of the opening of each line seems to point to the use for which it was intended, viz., to be sung in the open air. There are not many instances of works of this cla.s.s apparently meant for female voices only, and there may have been some reason for this connected with the general plan of the ceremony. The little piece is in the Dorian mode, and in the original is clearly and correctly printed, in four separate parts on the same double page. In scoring it, the accidentals, which do not occur in the original, have been added in brackets. It is, of course, impossible to surmise who may have been the author, but it is certain that, whoever he was, he had attained to a remarkable skill in writing effective music. If we consider the prescribed limitations in which he worked, with nothing lower than the second alto part for his ba.s.s, it is surprising to notice the sonority of sustained tone that is got by skilful disposition of the harmonies, while the beautiful antiphonal effect at the point "Vive le Roi" is of a kind that must appeal to hearers of all cla.s.ses and periods alike.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WINDOW IN THE MAISON BOURGTHEROULDE, DESCRIBED ON PAGE 337]

A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY MADRIGAL [Music: Louange et gloire en action de grace, Chantons a Dieu de la paix vray auteur: Par qui la France en seur repos embra.s.se, Ses ennemys faictz amys en grand heur. Vive son Roy, vive, Vive son Roy de ce bien protecteur Soubz qui de paix divers peuples jouyssent Dont luy est deu cybas joye et honneur, Puis que les cielz de la paix s'esiouyssent, Puis que les cielz de la paix s'esiouyssent.]

NOTE.--For the benefit of those not learned in Sixteenth-Century Music, it may be interesting to hint that the melody is written here for the Second Soprano, and to add, for their encouragement, that the experiment of performing this Madrigal, unaccompanied, with two ladies, and two male voices in the Alto parts, proved perfectly successful, thanks to the science of Mr Fuller-Maitland and the goodwill of the singers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VIEW OF ROUEN, FROM THE ENGRAVING BY MeRIAN IN 1620]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COMMERCE OF ROUEN, FROM THE BAS-RELIEF BY CONSTON IN THE BOURSE]

CHAPTER XIV.

Literature and Commerce.

Rouen est ville bien marchande C'est a cause de la mer grande Et est ce semble sans doutance Quasi la meilleure de France.

Ouy fameuse cite c'est toy qui prens la peine D'aller chercher bien loin l'ambre, la porcelaine, Le sucre, la muscade, et tant d'excellents vins.... ... Soye, ouate, tabac, draps de laine, poisson, Bois, bleds, sel, bescars, tout luy vient a foison.

Such popular festivals as that I have just described upon Ascension Day are of very ancient origin, even if they do not date back to that earliest "Fete aux Normands," whose inst.i.tution you will remember in 1070. Two years afterwards began the Confrerie de la Vierge to which Pierre Dare, Lieutenant-General for the King, gave fresh l.u.s.tre when he was elected its Master in 1486. Though older poems (like that of Robert Wace) are connected with the Confrerie, to him is due the beginning of those "Palinods" sung in honour of the Virgin in the Church of St. Jean des Pres, which were called the "Puy de Conception," like the Puy d'Amour of the Provencal troubadours. The name probably originated in the refrain which ran through all the various metres allowed in the poems which were sent in for compet.i.tion, as Pierre Grognet describes in 1533-- "On y presente les rondeaulx Beaulx pallinotz et chans royaulx Et sappelle celle journee La feste du Puy honoree."

In these rhymes are preserved just those details of the people's life for which we have been looking. Great events and mighty personages in the world outside are pa.s.sed unnoticed. The important trivialities of the householder's existence are the main theme of every verse. The Muse Normande of David Ferrand is a collection of such fragments of many "Concours des Palinods" from its beginning till his death in 1660. They are chiefly written in that "langue purinique ou gros normand" which was the distinctive patois of the working cla.s.ses, and especially of those "purins" or "ouvriers de la draperie" who dwelt in the parishes of Martainville, of St. Vivien, and St. Nicaise in the city. You may hear it to this day in the villages of Caux. Here the gossip of the populace is reproduced, and you read of the burdens laid upon the people, of the abundance of wine (which did away with any need for beer), of the rivalries of corporations, of the amus.e.m.e.nts of the town, the mysteries and Miracle Plays, the Basoche, and the rough practical joking of the populace.

One of the most important subjects, for our purpose, in all David Ferrand's verse is that famous "Boise de Saint Nicaise," round which a seventeenth-century war waged, more bitterly and fiercely disputed than half the contests which take up the pages of your sober royal histories. You must know that this "Boise de Saint Nicaise" was an enormous beam of wood, chained by iron bars and links to the church walls, where every evening the gossips used to gather in the cemetery and talk over the scandal of the parish, or regulate the proceedings of the town. Thrice in 220 years had Rouen been besieged, once by the English and twice by its own countrymen, and each time the virtues of the famous "boise" had saved it from pillage and desecration. Upon its black and s.h.i.+ning length the disputes of every century had been heard and settled: masters had brought up their quarrels with the workmen, merchants had wrangled over sharp practice in their business, girls had been summoned to receive a lecture from the elders of the parish on the flightiness and immodesty of their behaviour. No parish had ever such a palladium of its dignity. And you can easily conceive the derision and contempt with which the mighty "boise" was treated by the boys of the rival and neighbouring parish of St. G.o.dard, who used to sing-- "Les habitants de Saint Nicaise Ont le coeur haut et fortune ba.s.se."

This was a bad pun on the choeur, or choir, of the church that was too good for its wors.h.i.+ppers. For there was a great contrast between the populations on each side of the dividing line. St. G.o.dard was filled with magistrates and mighty men of law, who lived in sumptuous houses and carved their coats of arms upon their ma.s.sive sideboards, who quoted Malherbe, and approved the early efforts of a young man called Corneille, and prided themselves upon the delicacy and scholars.h.i.+p of their speech. In St. Nicaise, on the contrary, you heard little save the "purinique," or patois of the workmen; in narrow, dark, and twisting streets the drapers and weavers and dyers carried on their trades and earned their bread by the sweat of their brow. Their children had to work early for their living, and helped the business of their parents when still in the first years of their youth. No wonder these who "scorned delights and lived laborious days" laughed at the effeminacy of their neighbours, saying that "Aux enfants de Saint G.o.dard L'esprit ne venait qu' a trente ans."

By 1632 this feeling of rivalry and mutual distrust had been sharpened into positive hatred; for, of course, when the troubles of the Ligue had come, and St. G.o.dard had declared for its old kings and saints, St. Nicaise had openly professed belief in Villars and Mayenne, and almost raised a chapel to the memory of Jacques Clement the a.s.sa.s.sin; and you may imagine the gibes of Royalist St. G.o.dard when the tide of fortune turned against the rebel parish. Athens and Sparta were not more different, or more hostile. One day the smouldering fires broke into flame. It was the day of a procession when, at the very meeting line of the two parishes, the clergy of St. G.o.dard, splendid in gold and embroidery, with a cross of gold before them, and behind them a line of ladies richly dressed and escorted by red-robed magistrates, were moving in procession, with the banner at their head presented by the Lady President of Gremonville, whereon the figure of the patron saint was embroidered upon crimson velvet hung round with cloth of gold. Consider the disdain of these fine ladies for the modest little gathering that walked, across the way, beneath a little banner of ordinary taffetas bearing a tiny effigy of St. Nicaise, worked in worn colours of old faded pink, and followed by a crowd of workmen clad in blouse and sabot and rough woollen caps. At a certain point the contrast became unbearable. The workmen, with a shout of fury, made a sudden rush upon that hateful new banner of St. G.o.dard, tore it from the standard-bearer's hands, and threw it in the muddy waters of the boundary-stream. How the two processions got home after that you may imagine for yourself. It says much for the control of the respective clergy that there were no open blows at once. But that night St. Nicaise was vulgarly merry, and St. G.o.dard wrapped its wrongs in ominous and aristocratic silence. What the songs were that those workmen sang in the cemetery of St. Nicaise you can read in a queer little book written by one "Abbe Raillard" in 1557, an "Abbe des Conards," who imitates Rabelais when he tries to be original, but is of far more value when he merely reproduces what he heard, to wit, "la fleur des plus ingenieux jeux chansons et menus flaiollements d'icelle jeunesse puerille, receuilly de plusieurs rues lieux et pa.s.sages ou il estoit repandu depuis la primitive recreation, aaze, jeunesse et adolescence Normande rouennoise."

Here is a chorus which no doubt resounded on that night of victory over St. G.o.dard-- "Jay menge un oeuf La lange dun boeuf Quatre vingt moutons Autant de chapons Vingt cougnons de pain Ancore ayge faim,"

or this, again-- "Gloria patri ma mere a petri Elle a faict une gallette Houppegay, Houppegay j'ay bu du cidre Alotel (bis)."

Unfortunately, after having gone shouting to bed, the men of St. Nicaise slept sound without a thought of possible reprisals. But the young bloods "across the way" were all alert. Waiting till the change of guard at St. Hilaire should make that customary noise of clinking arms and tramping feet which every citizen would recognise and forget, sixty of the bravest champions crossed the Rubicon and advanced in the depth of the darkness to the cemetery of St. Nicaise. With heavy labour they broke up the sacred chains, detached the time-worn rivets, and dragged off the famous timber, the "Boise" of St. Nicaise, the palladium of the obnoxious parish. The next morning the gossips discovered to their stupefaction that there was no log to sit upon! Following a few traces that were left here and there, the horrified drapers and tanners found the smoking remnants of their cherished wood scattered in the square of St. Hilaire, surrounded by a laughing crowd of the children and young men of St. G.o.dard. Vengeance was plotted on that very evening, and a smart skirmish took place up and down the streets of the aristocratic quarter, in which the victory of the velvet doublets only roused redoubled ardour in the men of smocks and leather ap.r.o.ns. The Palais de Justice and the majesty of the Law was obliged to intervene. The Duc de Longueville, Governor of the Province, tried to smooth over the crisis with the gift of a new and most enormous log; but nothing could replace the relic that was gone. At last the good priests of each parish set to work to heal the breach, and soundly d.a.m.ned each hardened sinner who attempted to break the good peace of the town with further quarrels. Messire Francois de Harlai, Archbishop of Rouen, aided their efforts, and at last the feud died down; but the event was never forgotten: "Donc qu'o mette o calendrier Qu'o dix huitiesme de Janvier Fut pris et ravy notte BOISE Boise dont j'etions pu jaloux Et pu glorieux entre nous Que Rouen n'est de Georg d'Amboise."

David Ferrand's "patois" has preserved a good deal of the life and humour--racy of the soil--that gave Rouen her character, even after the sixteenth century was over. Something of the old life and its bravery lingered a little longer, and in the more pretentious Latin poems of Hercule Grisel you see how all these fetes and jollities lasted on till well into the seventeenth century. The Fete St. Anne, when boys dressed as angels and girls as virgins ran about the streets; the St. Vivien, which was a great popular fair in Bois Guillaume and in the city; the Festin du Cochon, when Parliament was dined; the Pentecost, when birds and leaves and flowers were rained upon the congregation from the roof of the Cathedral; the Feast of the Farmers, in November, when the princ.i.p.al dish of roast goose was provided by a crowd of boys who had to kill the wretched bird by throwing sticks at it, as it fluttered helplessly at the end of a high pole; the Papegault, when the Cinquantaine, or Company of Arquebusiers, went a-shooting to settle who should be the Roi d'Oiseau, very much as it is described in Germany in the pages of Jean Paul Richter; the Jeu d'Anguille in May, when there was a jousting match upon the river like the water tournaments of Provence; the jollities of Easter Eve, when bands of children went about the streets shouting derision at the now dishonoured herring, and pitching barrels and fish-barrows into the river; the greatest and most impressive ceremony of all, the Levee de la Fierte, upon Ascension Day--all these festivities made up a large part of the life of the real Rouennais of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which was so narrowed and restricted in itself that it took every opportunity of expanding into a common gaiety sha