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.

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.

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 Coeur 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.

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.

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.