The Story of Rouen

Chapter of Churches with the Cathedral that is mother of them all: St. Eloi, St. Vivien, and the Abbaye de St. Amand. As you walk northwards from the river into the town up the Rue St. Eloi, the church from which it takes its name shows a fine south door that closes the perspective of the street. The design of the west entrance is bold and good, but the queerly mathematical plan of the Rose window above it, with its three triangles crossing in the circle, has not a very happy effect. The church now is little but the ruins of what was once a magnificent building and is used as the "Protestant Temple." The whole of the Place St. Eloi is worthy of a closer inspection than can be gained by merely walking through it, which you will be tempted to do at much too fast a pace on learning that the Rue du Panneret at its north-east angle leads directly to the Maison Bourgtheroulde in the Place de la Pucelle. Another characteristic little square is the Place St. Vivien which cuts the Rue Eau de Robec in two portions. If you are lucky enough to be there on a twenty-ninth of August you will see the famous Fete St. Vivien in full blast, with booths and merry-go-rounds, and travelling theatres, even a "Theatre Garric a 8 heures, Nouveau Spectacle!" But do not go on into the further recesses of the Eau de Robec without looking at the church, and give your keenest glances to the fine square tower with its octagonal spire that is cla.s.sed among the Monuments Historiques. Of the ancient Abbaye de St. Amand there is perhaps less left than of any of the ecclesiastical buildings in this chapter. Its origin has been described already (see p. 71), and the gable with its b.u.t.tressed wall that you can see best in the Rue St. Amand from the Place des Carmes are almost the only stones remaining of an inst.i.tution that once took a very prominent part in the ecclesiastical ceremonies of Rouen.

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Though the filling up of the moat makes it look shorter than it really is, a great deal of the old masonry remains intact, and so carefully has the restoring work been done that in the embrasures and recesses on both first and second floors you may still see the scratches and inscriptions of prisoners or sentinels, much as they are preserved in our own Tower of London. On Wednesday, the 18th of February 1874, the work of reconstruction was finished by the placing of the iron vane with its great fleur-de-lys upon the summit of the conical roof. It is the fourth floor, just beneath this vane, that is the most interesting of all the new work, as it presents a complete and accurate picture of mediaeval defences, showing both the wooden h.o.a.rding which projected beyond the walls in order to give s.p.a.ce to hurl down stones and boiling lead, and the guard"s chemin-de-ronde cut in the solid wall with its openings that communicate with each side. Its walls conjure up a flood of memories of the men and women who saw those solid cliffs of masonry before they fell into ruin and restoration:-- "Berthe au grand pied, Bietris, Allys Harembourges, qui tint le Mayne, Et Jehanne la bonne Lorraine Qu"Anglois bruslerent a Rouen: Ou sont-ilz, Vierge Souveraine? Mais ou sont les neiges d"antan?"

On the 10th of November 1449 Charles the Seventh of France was riding through his own good town of Rouen; by his side were Jacques Coeur, Rene d"Anjou, King of Sicily, and Pierre de Breze. The English had surrendered Rouen, and all of them were on their way home again who had not left their bones in France.

CHAPTER X.

A City of Churches.

Et concupiscet Rex decorem tuum quoniam ipse est Dominus Deus et adorabunt eum. Et filiae Tyri in muneribus vultum tuum deprecabuntur; omnes divites plebis. Omnis gloria ejus filiae regis ab intus, in fimbreis aureis, circ.u.mamicta varietatibus.

A walk from Rouen to St. Sever will leave you with the impression that Rouen has so many churches that she has to turn many of them into shops, while St. Sever has so many shops that several of them have had to masquerade as churches. But the many "sacred buildings" you may see to-day are not much more than half of the churches and chapels of the sixteenth century which rose after the English garrison had disappeared. With the few exceptions I have already noted, Rouen has been almost entirely reconstructed since 1450, and in nothing can this be realised so well as in its churches. When Charles VII. first rode into Rouen, of the greater churches only the Cathedral was within a little of completion. St. Ouen hardly suggested yet the building that appears to-day.

As I have said, it was during the English occupation that the nave was begun. The beautiful central tower was only finished by Antoine Bohier, who did much to make perfect the building that we see to-day as the fifth church on the same site. It received its name from St. Ouen, who was buried in the second church in 689. The monastery which was added to the third church was under the rule of Nicolas de Normandie, son of the second Duke Richard, in 1042. This was destroyed by the usual fire, and the rebuilding was a.s.sisted by the Empress Matilda and Richard Coeur de Lion. The little remnant of beautiful Romanesque called the Tour aux Clercs, probably formed the northern apse of its transept. When this church in turn was burnt in the same fire that destroyed the original churches of St. G.o.dard and St. Laurent, the monks fled to Bih.o.r.el with what could be rescued of their archives and their "treasure." At last, Abbe Jean Roussel, called Marc d"Argent, started the n.o.ble fabric that, mutilated as it is, is still one of the finest monuments of later "Gothic" in existence. His first meeting of architects and master-masons was called in 1321, and then was in all likelihood decided the outlines of that mighty plan which took a century and a half to approach completion--and well-nigh half a hundred architects.

From the ancient refuge of his monks, the land on which their feudal justice was administered, from the slopes above Bih.o.r.el, Marc d"Argent looked down and watched the first walls and b.u.t.tresses of his Abbey rise from the soil. In that valley the quarries from which he drew his stone could still be seen scarce twenty years ago, with huge blocks of stone, rough-hewn nearly five centuries before, still resting upon mouldering rollers. He gathered funds from the Abbey Forests (which gave their timbers too) and from the generous donations of the pious. After twenty-one years of work, in which all his monks a.s.sisted the masons, he had spent about five million francs (in modern values), and by 1339 had finished the choir and chapels, the huge pillars beneath the central tower, and part of the transept. Of the first real "Maitre d"oeuvre," as so often happens in the tale of the Cathedrals, nothing is known. But the monks carved the clear keen features of his face upon the funeral stone, 7-1/2 feet high and 4 feet broad, that is in the Chapelle St. Cecile, and beside it is a detailed drawing of one of the arches of the choir. Jean de Bayeux went on with the work from 1378 to 1398, and his son Jean was Master Architect from 1411 to 1421. How intensely enthusiastic the monks were to complete their Abbey may be seen from their quarrel with the Town Authorities in 1412 and 1415, when every workman and every penny in the town was gathered to help strengthen the fortifications against the English. But the monks of St. Ouen refused a.s.sistance in money or in kind, lest by so doing they should cripple their beloved building. And their confidence was perhaps justified in that Alexandre de Berneval, who was the architect from 1422 to 1441, worked under the deliberate encouragement of the English garrison. His tomb is near that of the first unknown Master, and the plan of his famous Rose window for the south transept is carved as his most fitting epitaph.

The two Bayeux had done the interior of the south door of the transept, but it was Berneval who did the chapel of SS. Peter and Paul, and his son who, after 1441, worked at the central tower, the gem of the exterior. This younger Berneval lies buried near his father, and the plan of his octagonal "drum" is set above his grave. To that first magnificent conception the crown was not added until Antoine Bohier"s days, between 1490 and 1515, for whom Jacques Theroulde worked chiefly. The same Abbot completed the Sacristy, but the rest of his additions were not so fortunate in their execution, for the style of the end of the fifteenth century did not mate happily with the earlier work. The carvings and general style of the south portal, called "des Marmousets," is for instance a striking deterioration from the bold conceptions and brilliant handiwork upon the great transept gateways of the Cathedral. He added four more bays to the nave, using simple instead of double b.u.t.tresses, flamboyant work instead of rose windows, longer arches, and a lower line of capitals. Under Cibo, his successor, the last four bays of the nave were finished, and a splendid beginning made to the west front that has perished utterly, and been replaced by the miserable monstrosity of a frigid and ill-proportioned "restoration." Seldom has that much-abused word so richly deserved all the invective that could be heaped upon it. By Lelieur"s plan we know that in 1525 the western front of Cibo scarcely can be said to have existed. But it cannot have been long after the reign of Francis I. that Cibo"s architect carried his west front between 40 and 50 metres high, because the crest and devices of that monarch were preserved in the old work. In 1846 it will hardly be credited that so much of that old work still remained as may be seen in the drawing, copied from the sketch of a contemporary architect, which I have reproduced on page 236. From this it will be observed that one of the most ingenious and original devices of the Middle Ages at their close had been developed for the entrance to St. Ouen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ORIGINAL WEST FRONT OF ST. OUEN WHICH WAS PULLED DOWN TO ERECT THE MODERN FAcADE]

A glance at the western facades of the Cathedral and of St. Maclou will make clearer what I have to say. For the Cathedral is in almost a straight line along its west front, though the two towers at each end give almost a suggestion of a retreating curve. St. Maclou, on the other hand, shaped like the eastern apse of most churches, has a bold curve forwards from north and south, meeting in the central door which projects some way beyond the side doors on its own facade, as may be seen from Miss James"s particularly instructive drawing in the frontispiece. St. Ouen presented the only remaining third possibility, a curve inwards, in which the central door was pushed back, and at an angle on each side of it the arched portals of the aisles curved forwards, and above them rose two towers, each a reduced copy of that larger exquisite central tower which crowns the Abbey. Though the old masonry remained, and though a complete working drawing of the whole facade was discovered in the archives of the town, the job of pulling everything down and building the new and horrible spires was given to an architect who had already destroyed an old tower in the angle of the courtyard of the Palais de Justice, and had made a "grille" for its facade filled with inconsequent anachronisms and errors.

After this, your only consolation will be to pa.s.s through the western gates as swiftly as may be to the interior. Its whole length is 416 feet 8 inches, and the vault is 100 feet high; the nave is 34 feet broad, and the aisles 22 feet. This magnificent fabric has had hard usage. After being sacked when it was scarce completed, by the Protestants in 1562, it was turned into a museum by the Revolution, and in 1793 was used as a blacksmith"s shop for making arms. Yet nothing can efface that first breathless sense of soaring height and beauty which impresses you on your first entrance as you look up to the great windows of the clerestory, with the saints upon their silvery gla.s.s, set between the long slender shafts of columns that spring straight from the ground, and leap upwards like a fountain clear and undivided to the keystone of the roof. Though I was unwillingly bound to confess that even the old Rose windows disappointed me, the bunch of glaring cauliflowers which is the new western Rose is worse than anything in any building of this size and general beauty. But the other windows are an abiding joy, made of that exquisite moonlit gla.s.s, in which the colours shine like jewels, and are set as rarely.

Nor is the Church without its claim to right of place in history as well as art. For the old Abbey of St. Ouen was one of the most considerable in Normandy. It held fiefs not only in the city, but in the Foret Verte outside, and lands all over the province, with the right of nomination to very many livings. From the Pope himself the Abbot held, since 1256, certain valuable privileges in conferring minor dignities, and in the list of those who held that splendid post after the uncle of the Conqueror, are the names of d"Estouteville, de Lorraine, de Bourbon, de Vendome, de la Tour d"Auvergne, and lastly etienne Charles de Lomenie de Brienne, who was found dead in his bed when the warrant had gone out for his arrest in 1794. In 1602 only was the ceremony of the "Oison bride" given up, which commemorated the old privileges of the Abbot"s Mills. Even longer lasted the ancient ceremony by which the monks received every archbishop on his entrance into Rouen, and on his death watched for the first night by his bier in their own abbey. In their cemetery you have already seen Jeanne d"Arc go through her mockery of "abjuration." Within it, too, her memory was "rehabilitated." In this church young Talbot was laid to rest, who fell in the English wars. In its cemetery was received James II. of Gt. Britain, who was escorted, on his flight from England, by armed citizens of Rouen from the Chartreuse of St. Julien to the Abbey.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NAVE OF ST. OUEN]

And it may be that the old Sacristan, for your good fortune, will be living still to tell you of the greatest Englishman he has ever heard of, John Ruskin, who often looked into that quaint mirror of Holy Water, and watched the strange reflection of the arches soaring upwards in the nave.

It was in the Abbey of St. Ouen that on a May Day of 1485, Charles VIII. held a great a.s.sembly to deliberate over the concessions to the town after his famous entry into Rouen. To welcome him, poets, machinists, actors, tableaux vivants, marionettes, songs, comedies, and "mysteries," were gathered together regardless of expense. The Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon had arrived before him, and on the twelfth of April they were presented by the Chapterhouse with six gallons of wine of two sorts, and with loaves of the famous bread,[57] in return for which each gave a golden crown to the Cathedral Offertory. Two days afterwards arrived the King himself from Pont de l"Arche with a large and brilliant suite, including the second Louis de la Tremouille, who fought on every battlefield from St. Aubin du Cormier to Pavia, Philippe de Commines the historian, the "Comte de Richemont," soon to be King of England, and many others.

[Footnote 57: Perhaps it was in honour of these legendary loaves that the acrostic of SAC BLe was composed from the six dioceses dependent on the archbishopric of Rouen; Seez, Alencon, Coutances, Bayeux, Lisieux, Evreux.]

On his way from the Faubourg St. Sever to his lodgings in the Chateau de Bouvreuil, five stages greeted his progress with loyal allegories. Each bore its t.i.tle written above in letters of gold or blue or rose upon tin plates. The first was labelled "Repos Pacificque," and represented by means of seven personages an acrostic on the royal name of Charles. The second was "Ordre Politique," and was of a most amazing ingenuity, for no less than forty-four persons were shown on three stages one above the other which all turned round slowly on one piece of timber. On the lowest appeared John the Evangelist with a little angel by his side pointing him upwards to the splendours of the Apocalypse; in the middle twenty-four aged harpers sat and harped, with "lutes and rebecqs" in their hands; at the top shone the "Agnus Dei," the lamb of Rouen from the civic arms, amidst a cloud of evangelists and rainbows. On the third stage, labelled "Uncion des Rois," was figured, with divers changes of scene, the coronation and anointing of David, all arranged by Master David Pinel in token of the joy of Rouen that Charles VIII. had been anointed with the holy oil at Reims which had given strength to Charles VII. to turn out the hated English. "Espoir en la croix" was represented on the fourth by the victory of Constantine over Maxentius, with several "tirements de courtines" or changes of scene. The fifth, styled "Nouvelle Eau Celique," showed the blessings of the new reign after the sufferings of the old one by a fountain which watered the Tree of the People, so that leaves by a marvellous device appeared to flourish naturally upon it, while wine was poured out from beneath for every pa.s.ser-by to drink, and five fair damsels sang harmoniously. That evening all the shepherds and shepherdesses and other characters in these moving "histories" came down and played a "mystery" before the King. But perhaps the thing that pleased the young Charles most of all, was that gay procession of young gentlemen of Rouen which caracoled before him on horseback, under the leadership of no less a personage than his majesty the King of Yvetot, the captain of the City Bridge. (See footnote on page 36.) In the next days he promised to confirm the charters of the town, a.s.sured the canons in the exercise of the Privilege St. Romain, and asked that the procession of the prisoner might pa.s.s by his chateau, which was the more appropriate as the man released had been condemned to death for killing a groom attached to one of the royal suite, who had given wanton and continued provocation. Not till the seventeenth of May were the requests both of the ecclesiastical and the civic authorities fully granted at St. Ouen; the spokesman for each had been Maitre Michel Pet.i.t, the "chantre" of the Chapterhouse, and by that one fact, if by no other, King Charles must have been properly impressed with the importance of the Church in Rouen.

Before he left the city, he could have seen the exquisite little shrine of St. Maclou in all the fresh untainted delicacy of its first achievement. "The eldest daughter of the Archbishop of Rouen," this marvellous church was the result of one perfect and harmonious plan, and inasmuch as the design of its originator has been faithfully completed, it is far more of an architectural unity than its larger rivals, the Cathedral or St. Ouen. Of these three either one would make the reputation of an English town alone, and the jewelled chiselling and admirable proportions of the smallest of them make a fitting complement to the heavy splendour of the Cathedral on the one hand, and to the dizzy alt.i.tudes of the Abbey on the other.

The first Maclou, as may be imagined, was a Scotchman. He fled to Brittany, became Bishop of Aleth, and died in the Saintonge in 561. Ever since the tenth century a shrine had been erected to his memory outside the earliest walls of Rouen, in that mora.s.s which gives its name to the Rue Malpalu in front of the present church. Twice burnt and twice rebuilt, it became a parish church within the walls by 1250. A larger building was soon necessary; even during the miseries of the English Occupation it was determined to make the new church worthy of the town that already held the Cathedral and part of St. Ouen; and before 1500 indulgences had been granted by Hugues, the Archbishop, by Cardinal d"Estouteville, and by twenty Cardinals of Rome, to raise sufficient sums of money. In 1437 Pierre Robin, one of the royal architects from Paris, was paid 43 livres 10 sols for a plan and work that must have been begun some eighteen months previously with stone quarried in Val des Leux and Vernon. In 1470 Ambroise Harel was "Maitre de l"oeuvre," and in 1480 the same Jacques le Roux finished it who worked in the Cathedral. Of individual bequests that of Jean de Grenouville, who was buried in the Chapelle de la St. Vierge in 1466, gave most help. From 1432, when the irreparable ruin of the old church was first recognised, until 1514, the accounts for only seven years have been preserved. In 1520 the spire of wood and lead above Gringoire"s lantern was placed on Martin Duperrois" platform, to which a man might ascend without the help of any ladder. In 1735 this was removed, and in 1795 the lead was melted into bullets, and the six bells of 1529 were recast into cannon. In 1868 M. Barthelemy erected the stone Pyramid 83 metres high to hold the fine new bells.[58]

[Footnote 58: M. de Beaurepaire has collected a few other names connected with the building. It was first dedicated when Arthur Fillon was the vicar, who was a friend of Cardinal d"Amboise and afterwards Bishop of Senlis. After the disappearance of Pierre Robin, the first architect mentioned, another stranger called Oudin de Mantes is given control, with lodgings provided for him in the Rue du Bac. In 1446 Simon Lenoir of Rouen (who took Berneval"s place under the English) worked at this church.]

The famous carved doors have been attributed to Jean Goujon, though there is only one figure (the "Caritas" on the left panel of the central porch) that I can believe to be his own workmanship. In all the idea of plan is much the same. There are two divisions, of which the lower contains the "practicable entrance," and is guarded by a caryatid on each side supporting two male figures. Along the lintel runs a line of brackets alternating with cherubs" heads supporting seven figures, four males in high relief with three females in low relief behind them. These figures in turn carry a square panel, carved in high relief above them, representing different scenes on each door, chiefly suggested by the story of the Good Shepherd which is so appropriate to the staple industry of the town. They were begun by 1527 and finished before 1560. Jean Goujon was born in 1520, and was killed during the Ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew while carving on the Louvre. In 1540 he is known to have been at Rouen, and in the next year he worked both here and in the Cathedral. So that he may well have given the design for what he did not personally execute, though no doc.u.ments exist to prove either.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHURCH OF ST. MACLOU STAIRCASE TO THE ORGAN LOFT]

But if the doors are a trifle disappointing, though only so because of their great reputation, they certainly did not deserve to be mutilated by the Huguenots in 1562; and in 1793 when a barrelmaker"s child was slashing the heads of the statues with an axe, the crowd could think of no better comment than "Celui-la sera un fameux patriote!" Of the facade they were intended to adorn, which was probably the work of Ambroise Harel, I have already spoken in describing the exactly reverse plan of the original west front of St. Ouen. It is one of the most delightful tours de force I know in architecture, and when Miss James was drawing for me the frontispiece which adorns this volume, she pointed out that the idea of the curve had been deliberately emphasised to the spectator"s eye by building the side porches narrower, and crowning them with lower crests than is the case in the central entrance. The central tympanum represents the Last Judgment, with the Pelican above it that typifies the Resurrection. You may appreciate at once the delicate tracery of lacework in stone which covers this exterior and also the affection felt for its beauties by their guardians, if you will examine the model laboriously built up in wood and paper by an old vicar in the sixteenth century. His ten years of loving toil have been preserved in the Musee des Antiquites, and few better proofs exist of contemporary appreciation of the fine arts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHURCH OF ST. MACLOU. CARVED OAK PANEL FROM THE CENTRAL DOORS]

The interior is scarcely less interesting, though it has suffered very much from modern religiosity. Only forty-seven and a half metres long, by scarcely twenty-five in width, its height is nearly twenty-three metres in the three bays of the nave, rising to thirty-nine at the lantern. Its greatest treasure now is the exquisite Escalier des Orgues, from which the staircase to the organ loft at Ely was imitated. This was built in 1519 for two hundred and five livres by Pierre Gringoire, "Maistre Machon de Rouen." In examining more closely that fragment of it, of which a plaster cast has been made for the Musee du Trocadero in Paris, I could not help being struck with the general resemblance of its plan to the more famous staircase which adorns the exterior of the wing of Francis I. at the great chateau of Blois in Touraine, which was built almost at the same time, from the designs (as I have attempted to prove elsewhere) of Leonardo da Vinci, and was decorated later on with statues by Jean Goujon. This sculptor was only born the year after St. Maclou"s staircase was finished, but the main lines of the structure are so suggestive of the earlier work that I cannot but imagine this fine piece of French Renaissance to be a deliberate copy, by a master strong enough to retain his own originality of treatment, of the main design that appears in the courtyard of Blois.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOUR ST. ANDRe]

Not all the churches of which Rouen is so full can boast even that measure of preservation which storm and time and the more devastating hands of man have spared to the three n.o.blest of her religious monuments. Of St. Andre, for instance, only the tower remains, that stands alone above the Rue Jeanne d"Arc, like the Tour St. Jacques in Paris, as an admirable specimen of the later Gothic architecture. A still finer relic of an older past is that old church of St. Pierre du Chastel, which is now turned into a stable and coach-house at No. 41 Rue Nationale. Unless you look for it, you will miss altogether the great statue of David and his harp, which is the one ma.s.sive decoration of its strong and simple tower, and the carvings which may still be traced through the neglect and mutilation of centuries upon its western door. More degraded still, to even baser uses, is the Church of St. Cande le Jeune, which has become some kind of an electric manufactory, and may now be chiefly traced by the huge chimney which obstructs the sky as you look up the Impa.s.se Pet.i.t Salut towards the Tour de Beurre of the Cathedral. Just opposite the entrance to the public library is another instance of barbarous neglect: the Church of St. Laurent. Once used as a magazine of shops of every kind, sometimes a lost home for decrepit carriages, sometimes a drying-house for laundry-women, these exquisite ruins of Renaissance architecture have at last been rescued by the civic authorities, if not from evident decay, at any rate from further mutilation. The tower alone--but one among so many in Rouen--would be the proudest possession of many a larger English town. The bal.u.s.trade is decorated by a pattern of letters, which pathetically express their hope of better treatment in the battered legend: "Post Tenebras Spero Lucem."

Close to these eloquent ruins is a church that has had a somewhat better fate, for if St. G.o.dard has been rather roughly treated, the beauty of its stained-gla.s.s windows has saved it from absolute destruction. In the chapel of St. Peter, due east at the end of the north aisle, is the great window that was made in 1555 to represent St. Romain, who is shown at the top, on the left hand, dragging the Gargouille of Rouen to destruction with his sacred stole (see p. 39). Lower down, on the right, you must look at the King seated in his royal chair, and the hounds at play before him on the carpet. In the south aisle the corresponding window to the east has a tree of Jesse in its upper part, and beneath is one of the finest examples of sixteenth century painting in Rouen, work that reminds you of the work of Rembrandt. Of these five figures of old men, the last two on the right are especially worthy of attentive study. They were done in 1535. To the right of this window in the same chapel, looking southwards, is another fine window of about the same date, said to be copied from a design by Raphael and his school, of the life and genealogy of the Blessed Virgin; but it is not so strong or original in treatment as the last. Beneath it are two kneeling figures carved upon the tomb of the family of Bec de Lievre.

[Ill.u.s.tration: eGLISE ST. LAURENT]

In the Rue Jeanne d"Arc is another church, St. Vincent, that must be visited. I have spoken already of the little labourer in tunic and breeches, with a sack of salt upon his back, who stands upon the outside of the b.u.t.tress to the south of the choir, and looks towards the river. It commemorates the fact that, by letters patent delivered by Charles VI. in 1409, the church (which was then much nearer to the river) was allowed to take toll of every cargo of salt which came into the port, a privilege which was exchanged in 1649 for an annual payment of 140 livres. Begun in 1511--or, as some say, 1480--after the plans of Guillaume Touchet, St. Vincent certainly comes after St. Maclou in order of merit. Its choir alone is a magnificent specimen of the architectural possibilities of the smaller churches, and must have been finished before 1530, when Touchet"s supervision ended. The splendid flamboyant western porch is not shown in Lelieur"s plan of 1525, and was probably a later addition. The name of Ambroise Harel has also been connected with the work, but I have been unable to satisfy myself of the exact portions for which he may have been responsible.

It is chiefly admired, and wrongly so to my mind, for the treasures of its interior. These consist not merely in the wonderful series of sixteenth century tapestries, of which M. Paul Lafond has published a detailed description, but in the stained-gla.s.s windows, of which the most celebrated represents the a.s.s of St. Anthony of Padua kneeling before the Holy Sacrament. The design is taken, it is said, from a drawing of Durer, to whom also is ascribed the original suggestion for the window at the west end of the first aisle, of the Virgin and Apostles. North of the choir is an interesting gla.s.s-painting of the buildings of Rouen.

But slightly west of the northern end of the same street you will find windows in the Church of St. Patrice which I think infinitely preferable, of their kind, to those which are the especial pride of St. Vincent. They are very justly placed in the first cla.s.s of the "monuments historiques" de France. As you enter the transept, turn due south, and the first window on your right is the "Woman taken in Adultery," which was moved here from the old church of St. G.o.dard. The inscription on it is "Honorable homme maitre Nicole Leroux licentie es loix advocant et Marie Bunel sa feme ont donne ceste vitreau moys de may lan de grace 1549 priez dieu pour eulx." In the right hand corner you may see the good William praying with his son behind him, and his wife in black is further off to the left with her six daughters behind her, two of them in "cramoisy taffetas, trimmed with northern peltry." In the Chapel of the Virgin in the north transept, the left hand window of the three over the altar depicts the life of St. Fiacre and St. Firmin, and was put up in 1540 in the days when Pierre Deforestier was in office, and Francois Baudoin was prevot. Of the three you see when looking due north, the farthest to the right in the transept was placed there in 1583, "a l"honneur du grand roy des roys de St. Louis roy de France;" the middle window shows St. Eustace suffering martyrdom in the brazen bull which is being heated red hot, while above St. Hubert meets his miraculous stag. The farthest window to the left is dated 1538; it is the best, and Jean Cousin has been suggested as its designer. The donor prays in the right hand corner, and his wife with a daughter behind her is in the left. A well-drawn figure of an angel announces his message to the Blessed Virgin who is reading, and in the middle of the composition, near the bottom, lies a corpse in a winding-sheet.

The large window at the extreme end of the north aisle is also very fine. At the top is a woman in a car triumphing. Below, on the left, are Adam and Eve. Next to them is the Devil, and Death, whose swarthy skin is wrapped in a winding-sheet that seems to belly in the blasts of h.e.l.l. The story of Job that is painted in the first window on the left in the north aisle, also came from old St. G.o.dard. And all this wealth of stained gla.s.s is shown off wonderfully well in a church that is not too large to lose its full effect, and is planned with only a few light columns in the interior to impede the view of all of them from the centre of the nave.

To three other of the many ecclesiastical buildings of Rouen can I direct you before closing this Chapter of Churches with the Cathedral that is mother of them all: St. Eloi, St. Vivien, and the Abbaye de St. Amand. As you walk northwards from the river into the town up the Rue St. Eloi, the church from which it takes its name shows a fine south door that closes the perspective of the street. The design of the west entrance is bold and good, but the queerly mathematical plan of the Rose window above it, with its three triangles crossing in the circle, has not a very happy effect. The church now is little but the ruins of what was once a magnificent building and is used as the "Protestant Temple." The whole of the Place St. Eloi is worthy of a closer inspection than can be gained by merely walking through it, which you will be tempted to do at much too fast a pace on learning that the Rue du Panneret at its north-east angle leads directly to the Maison Bourgtheroulde in the Place de la Pucelle. Another characteristic little square is the Place St. Vivien which cuts the Rue Eau de Robec in two portions. If you are lucky enough to be there on a twenty-ninth of August you will see the famous Fete St. Vivien in full blast, with booths and merry-go-rounds, and travelling theatres, even a "Theatre Garric a 8 heures, Nouveau Spectacle!" But do not go on into the further recesses of the Eau de Robec without looking at the church, and give your keenest glances to the fine square tower with its octagonal spire that is cla.s.sed among the Monuments Historiques. Of the ancient Abbaye de St. Amand there is perhaps less left than of any of the ecclesiastical buildings in this chapter. Its origin has been described already (see p. 71), and the gable with its b.u.t.tressed wall that you can see best in the Rue St. Amand from the Place des Carmes are almost the only stones remaining of an inst.i.tution that once took a very prominent part in the ecclesiastical ceremonies of Rouen.

For when an Archbishop died, the Abbess of St. Amand took from his dead finger, as the funeral procession pa.s.sed her gates, the ring that she had placed upon it at his installation. On the 19th of July 1493, that ring still shone upon the hand of Robert de Croixmare, whose corpse had just been brought into the Cathedral choir, arrayed in state, with mitre on head, and crosier in hand, with all his robes of office on him. That night the bier rested in the Abbey of St. Ouen, and as it pa.s.sed the Abbey of St. Amand on its way back to burial, the Abbess must have wondered, as she claimed her ring, on whom she would bestow it next. The canons of the Cathedral were even more hasty in their eagerness to settle the important question, and the body of their late superior had been scarcely laid in state within their choir before they were deliberating in the Chapterhouse about his probable successor. As a mere matter of form--and we know how tenacious were these canons of their rights and usages--they had sent word to the King that the election of the next Archbishop was proceeding; and their dismayed astonishment may be imagined when a message came from Charles VIII. that he "neither admitted nor denied their privilege to re-elect."

The King was not long in enlightening his faithful subjects as to his wishes in the matter. Georges d"Amboise, Archbishop of Narbonne, and lieutenant to his friend Louis of Orleans in the Governorship of Normandy, was clearly pointed out as the royal candidate, without any room for misunderstanding. The Duke of Orleans himself joined in the "request" that savoured far too much of a command for ecclesiastical independence. As if this were not enough, messengers from the Court arrived post-haste; Baudricourt, a Marshal of France, no less; Jean du Vergier, a financial officer of the town; and M. de Clerieu, the royal chamberlain; all these actually arrived to "negotiate" (presumptuous word!) with the free and independent Chapterhouse. In great perplexity were both the canons and the town officials, upon whom commands, no less imperative, had also been laid; for the Chapterhouse would naturally not hear one single word from the civic officials on the subject of their election, and even to the royal messengers they would only reply that, at the election-day, some three weeks hence, "His Majesty should have no just cause for complaint."

Three weeks, however, gave them time for profitable reflections. When next the royal messengers appeared in the Chapterhouse, in the persons of the President of the Parliament of Paris, and the Grand Seneschal de Breze, their reception was not so chilling as before. Every preacher in the town had exhorted his congregation to pray that G.o.d would direct their proper choice. The revered shrine of St. Romain, that Fierte which represented the proudest token of ecclesiastical liberty, had been borne in solemn procession round the town. Public sentiment had been intensely agitated by the unwonted course events had taken. On the fateful 21st of August the Cathedral was packed with hundreds of the faithful, eager to be first to hear the decision of the canons. By three o"clock the ten bells of the Cathedral had summoned the canons to the matins which preceded the election that was to release the Church from widowhood, and give to Rouen a new archbishop. At last the Chapter a.s.sembled, the doors were shut, and every avenue to the Chapterhouse was strictly guarded. At the last moment an aged canon, rising from his death-bed to exercise his most cherished privilege, tottered into the a.s.sembly to select a friend to vote for him, and went back to die.

Suddenly the door of the Chapterhouse opened again, and etienne Tuvache the Chancellor uttered in a loud voice his last summons to all those who had the right to vote that they should forthwith enter. When it had closed again--for there was no reply--the solemn oath was administered to every canon that he would rightly and reverently choose the candidate he honestly thought best. Any excommunicated person was warned to retire, and Ma.s.selin the Dean began his exhortation on the importance of their choice. When he had finished, all save the electors themselves withdrew, and on the flagged floor of the Chapterhouse the canons knelt to the singing of the "Veni Creator," and prayed for inspiration. Suddenly all leapt to their feet at once with one united shout of "Georges d"Amboise shall be Archbishop!"

At once the great bells rang out to the town that the election had been made, while within the Cathedral every wall re-echoed with the shouts of "Noel, Noel!" as the people heard that Georges d"Amboise had been elected. A few days afterwards a still larger throng a.s.sembled in the Parvis to watch the great ecclesiastic of their choice advance on bare feet from the Church of St. Herbland and receive the episcopal ring from the Abbess of St. Amand, with the words, "Messire, je le donne a vous vivant, vous me le rendrez mort." As he came nearer to the western gates, Ma.s.selin, the "Grand Doyen," formally presented to him the Cathedral, and received his promise of loyalty and honest government, sworn on the books of the evangelists, and not till then did Georges d"Amboise mount his episcopal chair and give his first blessing to the people of Rouen as their Archbishop.

How well he fulfilled his vow, there are many things in Rouen to this day to tell, and the blessing that he gave his congregation was not limited to things spiritual and unseen. His splendid public benefactions in regulating the water-supply of the town have been already noticed, and may be better realised in Lelieur"s careful drawings. His Cathedral remembers him by her western facade, by the rich bal.u.s.trades around the choir, now vanished, by numerous costly shrines and jewels in the Tresor, by that Tour de Beurre[59] which held "Georges d"Amboise" the greatest bell outside of Russia, that every outlying parish could hear, by the magnificent building which future archbishops justly called their palace. And the Province of which he became governor when Louis d"Orleans rose to be Louis XII., "avec le t.i.tre effrayant de reformateur-general," owed him the blessings of peace from brigandage and prosperity in commerce; owed him, better than all, the firm and permanent establishment of the Courts of Justice. By all these, and more, he worthily has won the right to be considered by far the strongest and ablest Archbishop Rouen ever had. After his election, his nephew, the second Georges d"Amboise, was the only other primate the Chapterhouse was ever permitted to elect. The tomb of both is in the Chapelle de la Vierge of the Cathedral.

[Footnote 59: The name is said to have arisen from the fact that it was chiefly built by the fines paid by those of the faithful who ate b.u.t.ter during Lent.]

I have but too short s.p.a.ce or time wherein to tell you more of the interior of that great edifice, whose building I described when Philip Augustus made Normandy a part of France. But out of the mult.i.tude of interests that will stay your every step beneath its arches, there are a few things I must point out now, and leave the most famous of its tombs till later.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WESTERN PORCH OF ST. VINCENT]

As you enter by the western door, turn southwards into the Chapelle St. etienne beneath the Tour de Beurre. The second monumental stone on the right is in memory of Nicole Gibouin, and it is one of the most exquisitely drawn faces that you will see in all Rouen. This face and both hands are incised in white marble, the rest of the body and dress is indicated by red lines cut lightly in the stone. At his feet lies a dog holding a bone. After this, there is scarcely a monument worth looking at that can elude your notice; but as my business is to omit the obvious and point out the beauties which might escape unwarned attention, I shall direct you straightway to the choir, and more particularly to the carved oak stalls. The seats, as is usually the case, turn up to form an additional rest for priests who had to stand through long and numerous services, and upon these under surfaces (called misericordes) is an extraordinary series of carvings which you must look at, every one.

They were made between the years of 1457 and 1469, and are in part owing to the munificence of Cardinal Guillaume d"Estouteville. The stalls as a whole are much deteriorated from their originally perfect beauty. The work at Amiens will suggest how much of the stalls of Rouen has been lost or wantonly mutilated. Without the Archbishop"s throne, which has been replaced by a heavy modern structure, the whole eighty-eight, of which two have disappeared, cost 6961 livres to make, and the greater part of the figures were done by Pol Mosselmen (whose Flemish name was a terrible puzzle to mediaeval scribes) and Francois Trubert. Two other Flemish carvers, Laurens Hisbre and Gillet Duchastel, occur in the complete list of eleven sculptors who were paid by the piece as recorded in the Chapterhouse accounts. The designs were made by Philippot Viart, "maistre huchier" de Rouen, who received 5 sous 10 deniers a day for his work, and employed workmen so nearly his equals in skill that they got from 4s. 6d. to 5s. for their time. The names of the sixteen "carpenters" he had with him are all preserved with the weekly account of their payments; and though most of the work of the Flemish "sculptors" on the larger statues has entirely disappeared, the more modest position of the little carvings beneath the seats has probably saved them; and these are the work, as I believe to be most probable, of the Rouen "carpenters" whom Philippot Viart collected.

Their names are very ordinary ones; such as Eustache, Baudichon, Lefevre, Fontaine, Lemarie, and the like; and their work is nearly all dedicated to perpetuating either those arts and crafts of Rouen with which they would be most familiar, or subjects similar to the medallions on the north and south portals which I have already shown to be the stock-in-trade of the mediaeval workman. Many of the misericordes indeed are no doubt taken from the stone-work outside. As you turn one seat after another to the light, the life and habits and costume of four hundred years ago stand clear before you. There are the musicians with their cymbals, drums, and stringed instruments; the wool-combers with their teasels; the sheep-shearers and cloth-makers; the cobblers and leather-sellers and patten-makers; the barbers and surgeons; the schoolmaster with his pupils; the carver at work upon a stall; the mason chiselling a Gothic arch or modelling a statue; the blacksmith, the carpenter, the shepherd, the fisherman, the gardener in his vineyard, the midwife, the chemist at work among his test-tubes and alembics, the chambermaid cleaning up her rooms.

Besides these records of the different trades, in one of the confreries of which every workman on these stalls must have been a member,[60] there are many subjects more fanciful or grotesque which urged the sculptor"s chisel to its work. Harpies and sirens and lions with human faces; Melusina"s gracious body ending in a serpent"s tail; all the characters of the famous "Fete des Fous" to the very "Abbe des Cornards" himself; all the strange beasts of travellers" tales, and many a dream from vanishing mythologies. Ever since pagan times, the custom of disguising the dancing worshipper in a more or less hideous mask, had steadily persisted in certain of the more licentious festivals, and the riotous horseplay of the Middle Ages was the direct descendant of the Saturnalia of Rome. Too often, as I have pointed out before, the churches themselves were the scene of these abuses, which took the form not merely of b.e.s.t.i.a.l travesties, but of diabolical disguises in which Satan and his imps were represented with all the vigour of an intensely imaginative age. These were some of the sources of the grotesque carvings. For they were not symbolical. When they did not represent a concrete fact seen by the sculptor, they essayed to represent a composite thought by clapping together two forms suggesting opposite qualities, and leaving the gap in their union to be supplied by the spectator. That gap in continuity is very noticeable in every real "grotesque."

[Footnote 60: For the beginning of these confreries, see chapter v. p. 85.]

The "Lai d"Aristote," which occurred in the exterior carvings, is repeated here on the misericorde which is the ninth of the top row on the southern side. The gay young lady seated upon Aristotle"s back wears the high two-horned headdress of the fifteenth century, and a long closely-fitting gown, with the open bodice that was the mark of the oldest profession in the world. She is controlling the philosopher with a bridle and a most murderous-looking bit between his teeth. I have already explained that Socrates and Xantippe are by no means intended here, and that the tale is represented of the downfall of Aristotle in his attempts to prove to Alexander the Great how easily the charms of woman might be resisted. The subject seems to have tickled the Middle Ages immensely, and was especially likely to be popular in Normandy, where Henry d"Andelys, the author of the poem called "Lai d"Aristote," was born. A very similar tale of the gallant adventures of the poet Virgil occupied one of the lost stalls of this Cathedral, and in St. Pierre de Caen both were represented among the carvings of the church.

There is one more tomb that you must see--among the things that may most easily be omitted--before you end a visit to the Cathedral, that is meant to remind you of what is usually forgotten. It is the small monument in the Chapelle de la Vierge, opposite the great tomb of the d"Amboises, and next to the magnificent sepulchre on which Diane de Poitiers mourns for her lost husband. It is generally pa.s.sed over because its neighbour"s grandeur overshadows it, and it has very little left to show its value except the beautifully sculptured canopy and the exquisite carvings and initials on the columns at the side. This is the tomb of Pierre de Breze, Seneschal of Normandy, who married Jeanne de Bec Crespin, with a dowry of 90,000 crowns; and it is he who entered Rouen with the King of France in November 1449, when the English occupation ceased. He was a brave soldier and a bold adventurer, both then and afterwards. In 1457, filibustering on the English coast, he captured Sandwich and took a heavy ransom for the port. Six years afterwards Louis XI. sent him across the channel again to fight on the side of Margaret of Anjou. In the war of the League of Public Weal, he stayed loyal to his master, and was killed by the rebels at Montlhery in 1465. "Pierre de Breze tomba au premier rang," writes Commines, "de la mort des braves. Le premier homme qui y mourut ce fut luy." The friend of Dunois and Xaintrailles could have had no better end. But it is more with the official than the man that I have here to do.

The Seneschal of Normandy is an official who is found already at the Court of the Norman dukes when the province was independent. In the matter of justice and finance, he held supreme power next to his sovereign, and is called "La Justice de Normandie" by Wace. He also presided at meetings of the echiquier de Normandie in both his capacities, and it is known that such men as Odo of Bayeux and William Fitzosbern held this honourable office. With the arrival of Philip Augustus in Normandy, the office falls into abeyance until the English appeared in the fifteenth century with the Burgundian motto of freedom for the people, and restoration of the ancient liberties of government. The English officials were determined to carry out their projects thoroughly, and when once they were fixed firmly in Rouen they began to look through the old charters of Normandy to see what ancient liberties they could restore. The Grand Seneschal of the Norman dukes (who had also been English kings) was soon discovered, and his office was promptly revived, and given in turn to Richard Wideville, William Oldhall, and Thomas, Lord Scales. The t.i.tle these men had held as soldiers, with no idea of using it in its legal or financial sense, Charles VII. continued, on his return to power, as a suitable recompense for the services such favourites as de Breze had rendered him in his campaigns, and the sounding name of Grand Seneschal of Normandy henceforth entirely eclipsed the humbler t.i.tle of Captain of the Garrison of Rouen.

In 1457 de Breze was exercising the original functions of the office in the echiquier. Six years before, as the commissary of the King in place of Dunois, he had brought before the a.s.sembly of the Province the vital questions of the confirmation of the Charte aux Normands, of the installation of a special financial machinery for the Province, and other measures necessary at the resumption of authority by the French. Though he fell temporarily into disfavour with Louis XI., and was obliged to consent to the marriage of his son Jacques with Charlotte, daughter of Charles VII. and Agnes Sorel, he resumed his post of Grand Seneschal on returning from his wars in England, and died in office.

His son Jacques de Breze, Comte de Maulevrier, inherited the same distinction; but having killed his wife, whose birth had shown its unfortunate effects too soon in flagrant infidelity, he was in turn disgraced and fined, but in turn was also reinstated. His son Louis de Breze was given the apparently imperishable family heirloom of the office of Grand Seneschal in August 1490, and the great seal of the Senechaussee of Normandy was henceforth his coat of arms. More of a soldier and a courtier than a man of law or of finance, this de Breze left the duties of his office to a numerous staff, whose names have been preserved in the registers of Rouen. He married first Catherine de Dreux, "dame d"Esneval," and left his brother-in-law in charge of the duties of his office, when he left it. During this period it was that Cardinal d"Amboise organised the Supreme Court of the echiquier de Normandie (of which Antoine Bohier, Abbe of St. Ouen, was a member), in the last years of Charles VIII., which, when the Duc d"Orleans became Louis XII., was to blossom into the Perpetual echiquier in the new "Palais de Justice."

The organisation of this court did away with any practical necessity for a Grand Seneschal, but Louis de Breze was still allowed to keep the honour of the t.i.tle, and even to take a seat in the court, which was soon to be called the "Parlement de Normandie" by Francois Premier. Louis de Breze"s second wife was the famous Diane de Poitiers, who called herself "La Grande Seneschale" until she died, and who put up the magnificent tomb in alabaster and black marble which has preserved her husband"s memory ever since his death in 1531, long after the "Palais de Justice" had been built to carry on for ever those legal functions which had once been a portion of the duties of his office.

CHAPTER XI.

Justice.

"Or ca"--nous dit Grippeminaud, au milieu de ses Chats-fourrez--"par Stix, puisqu" autre chose ne veux dire, or ca, je te monstreray, or ca, que meilleur te seroit estre tombe entre les pattes de Lucifer, or ca, et de tous les Diables, or ca, qu"entre nos gryphes, or ca; les vois-tu bien? Or ca, malautru, nous allegues tu innocence, or ca, comme chose digne d"eschapper nos tortures? Or ca, nos Loix sont comme toile d"araignes; le grand Diable vous y chantera Messe, or ca".

To appreciate what was involved by the building of the famous "Palais de Justice," which is perhaps the greatest pride of Rouen, I must needs bring before you a little more of the social life which made a court of law and justice necessary; and I can make no better beginning than by quoting again, from the Record of the Fierte St. Romain, those instances after 1448 which throw the greatest light upon the manners and customs of the years when the echiquier de Rouen first became a permanent a.s.sembly in its own House.

In 1453 occurs an entry which suggests that the modern idiot who plays with a loaded revolver and shoots his friend "by accident" has been in existence ever since deadly weapons were invented. A carpenter named Guillaume le Bouvier drew his bow at a bird which was sitting on a tree-top. The arrow glanced off a bough, rebounded from a stone, and killed the son of the Sieur de Savary. Twenty-two years before, a woman had been killed by a bolt from a crossbow in almost the same way, and in 1457 a boy was shot by his brother in an exactly similar manner. In 1474 Bardin Lavalloys provided another particularly unfortunate example during a game which was in great favour at Christmas time, and consisted in throwing sticks at a goose which was tied by the leg to a tall pole. Jehan Baqueler missed his shot, and hit poor Lavalloys on the temple. A more serious weapon, the "couleuvrine," a long thin cannon, was responsible for an accidental death in 1476. Guillaume Bezet had made a bet that he could shoot at a gate better than his friends. His aim missed, and he killed a man sitting by a hedge not far off. A case that is still more instructive of the manners of the time occurred in 1475. Guillaume Morin, who was apparently making the best of his last chance of a good meal before Lent, had gone to feast with some neighbours on Shrove Tuesday, and when they had finished the beef, he threw the bone out of the window. It happened to be an especially large and heavy bone, and unluckily his little daughter of seven was just that moment returning from the tavern with more wine for the company. It fell upon her head from some distance and killed her. Another curious sidelight is thrown on fifteenth century society by the record of the next year. During a wedding-breakfast in Rouen Pierre Rogart upset the mustard-pot over M. Gossent"s clothes. They quarrelled, the other guests took sides, swords were drawn, and the prime offender"s nephew ran a man through; a crime for which the canons pardoned him.

But these are rather of the nature of the modern "manslaughter." The "crime pa.s.sionel" and the downright murder of malice aforethought, are even more frequent. In 1466 Catherine Leseigneur was scolded and even threatened with a beating while in bed by her mother-in-law. In a sudden pa.s.sion she s.n.a.t.c.hed up a large stone and killed the other woman with it. How a stone large and heavy enough for the purpose happened to be in a bedroom we are not told, but it is quite easily explained in the case of Jehan Vauquelin, who was annoyed while working in the fields by Lucas le Febure in 1471, and killed him with the weapon that is as old as the first murder in recorded history, and seems to have been rather favoured in the fifteenth century. The year 1473 is only notable because etienne Bandribosc was delivered by the Chapter contrary

to the expressed wish of Louis XI., after he had killed a man who had insulted him. But in 1483 the element of romance appears again. A priest called Robert Clerot, with a sword beneath his cloak, was accustomed to pester with his attentions a pretty seamstress in the parish of St. Eloi. Her legitimate lover interfered, and, when the priest drew his sword, called in help and killed him with his dagger. Twice more in this period is a "couturiere" the heroine of the Fierte. In the very next year Denise de Gouy, whose previous history is not pleasant reading, took service with a citizen of Rouen, and by means of false keys provided by her lover, robbed her employer of a considerable quant.i.ty of linen, using her special knowledge to pick and choose the best. She only escaped being hanged with her paramour by being about to give birth to a child, and was finally pardoned by the Chapterhouse. In 1492 a dressmaker was far less fortunate. She was unable to satisfy a lady as to the fit of her stays, and this angry customer, whose name was Marie Mansel, gave her so shrewd a blow with her fist that the poor little dressmaker died in a week. The canons apparently so sympathised with the annoyances of a badly fitting corset, that they gave Marie Mansel her freedom. But the episode has its value in showing that the modern muscular female is not so new an apparition as she fancies. Tradesmen did not always get the worst of it, however, in such disputes as these; for in 1525 a butcher complained bitterly that his hair had been cut too short, in a barber"s shop near St. Ouen. The mistake so preyed upon his mind that when he met the barber next day he smote him on the head and ran away into the cemetery of St. Ouen. But Nicolas Courtil pursued him valiantly, armed only with the instruments of his calling, and finally killed the butcher by stabbing him in the neck with a pair of scissors.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PALAIS DE JUSTICE TOURELLE IN THE RUE ST. Lo]

Priests are almost as interesting as the ladies in this extraordinary record. In 1520 a curate from Marcilly hired Germain Rou for two sovereigns to hide a baby in a chalk-pit, and then fled to Rome. The cries of the child were heard two days afterwards by some travellers, and Germain Rou, condemned to have his hand cut off and then be hanged, was pardoned. In 1535 an even more flagrant crime is registered against an ecclesiastic. Louis de Houdetot, a subdeacon, had been so successful in his courtship of Madame Tilleren, that the lady"s husband sent her out of the town to her father"s house. But this did not stop the priest from continuing to visit her, and while M. Tilleren was in Rouen news was brought him that Houdetot had actually beaten M. de Catheville"s servants in trying to get into the house. This was too much; so Tilleren "took a corselet of beaten iron (hallecrest) and a crossbow with a long bolt, and took a companion, named Justin, armed with a helmet and a long-handled axe, with five or six others." The gang, who evidently meant to make sure of their man, met Houdetot in a street in Rouen; Tilleren fired his crossbow on sight and shot him through the body; a piece of summary justice which evidently appealed to the Canons of the Cathedral, in spite of the fact that the sufferer was an ecclesiastic.

But in 1501 a gallant priest intervened in the most creditable manner, and without any bloodshed, in a love-affair that should set all our promising young historical novelists by the ears to tell it afresh. There was a certain Jean de Boissey who was much in love with Marie de Martainville. Her mother was not averse to a wedding, but the father refused entirely. Luckily for Jean he was on excellent terms with the lady"s cousins, Philippe and Thomas de Martainville; so the three friends with Pierre de Garsalle and other youthful sympathisers betook them to the Abbey of St. Pierre-sur-Dives to talk it over. Jean found an ally he could have hardly expected within the Abbey walls, for Nicolle de Garsalle, a relation of one of his comrades and a brother of the House, asked them all to stay to supper with him, and before the porter let them out again he had arranged a plan for carrying off the lady. The young men were delighted with this jovial monk"s suggestions, and the next morning the whole company met again with seven or eight more ardent blades, and entered straightway into the Manor where the lovely Marie dwelt. Cousin Philippe stayed outside and kept watch at the drawbridge. In a short time--after adventures which are discreetly concealed--Jean and his friends came out with the lady, and the whole party made off to Caulde, where the betrothal was solemnised. The next day they rode to Cambremer, and the happy pair were married, "le sieur de Boissey," says the ma.n.u.script, "espousa sa fiancee sans bans," and no doubt Brother Nicolle de Garsalle helped to tie the knot. No less than sixteen persons being implicated in the capital charge of abduction which followed, you may imagine how lively the Procession of the Fierte was that year, and the cheers of the populace as Jean de Boissey (begarlanded with roses, as all the prisoners were) moved along, no doubt with Marie on his arm, and the st.u.r.dy monk walked behind him from the Place de la Ba.s.se Vieille Tour to the Cathedral. The de Martainvilles gave the Chapter a large Turquoise set in gold, in token of their grat.i.tude, and the gem was at once placed upon the shrine to whose sanct.i.ty they owed deliverance.

Few stories have either so romantic a beginning or so fortunate an end, in this record of the Fierte; but the large number of prisoners then released has its parallel, is even surpa.s.sed indeed, on two occasions soon afterwards; for in 1522 the whole parish of the village of etrepagny received the Fierte as accomplices of a young ruffian called de Maistreville; though considering that his victim was one of their own women, their ardent support of the man against all the officers of justice is somewhat inexplicable. In 1560, when another whole village was pardoned, their sympathy with a fellow-labourer who killed a servant of the Overlord is more easily intelligible. But nearly all of the most prominent cases have a woman at the bottom of them. One that is especially instructive as to the morals and the manners of the public occurred in 1524.

Antoine de la Morissiere, Sieur de la Carbonnet, had, it seems, insulted Mademoiselle d"Ailly, and beaten her so badly that she died a short time afterwards with five of her ribs broken. So etienne le Monnier, her relation, resolved to avenge her, and took out a warrant against the ruffian who had killed her. Desiring to make quite sure that justice should not miscarry, he took some fifty gentlemen, all armed, and accompanied the police-sergeant to the man"s house. They found de la Morissiere[61] in a somewhat compromising position, and he did not reply to their request for admittance. Le Monnier, determined to get him out, set fire to the roof in four places. The fellow then cried out that he would surrender, and trusting to the presence of an officer of the law he came down. Le Monnier at once wounded him in the chest with a long pike, and two other relations of Mademoiselle d"Ailly hit him over the head with clubs, "so that he fell to the ground as one dead." But le Monnier, seeing that he still showed signs of life, drove his dagger into his throat and finished him off. Two accomplices were actually hanged for this crime, but de Monnier, after paying 1200 livres to the dead man"s family, and being unsuccessful in securing the royal pardon, was given the Fierte with the rest of his friends by the Chapterhouse of Rouen.

[Footnote 61: In the words of the ma.n.u.script the man "estoit couche avec une femme mariee, autre que la sienne."]

Of the morality of those days you must imagine something from these instances. There are many more with which I have neither s.p.a.ce nor inclination to shock susceptibilities more delicate than were those of a Cathedral Chapterhouse in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The tale of Jehanne Dantot, for instance, in 1489, is one of the most astonishing stories of the lengths to which desperation and wickedness can drive a woman that I have ever read. A queer glimpse of the economy of certain households is provided by the record of 1534. Pierre Letellier married the daughter of Maitre Houel, and by a clause in the marriage-settlement it was arranged that the father-in-law should board and lodge the young couple for three years. They had not lived in the house long before they were scandalised by the immoral behaviour of the old man, and Pierre naturally quarrelled with him about it. The ill-feeling between the two

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