From the scite of the projected bridge, the view eastward is particularly charming. The bold hill of St. Catherine presents its steep side of bare chalk, spotted only in a few places with vegetation or cottages, and seems to oppose an impassable barrier; the mixture of country-houses with trees at its base, makes a most pleasing variety; and, still nearer, the noble elms of the boulevards add a character of magnificence possessed by few other cities. The boulevards of Rouen are rather deficient in the Parisian accompaniments of dancing-dogs and music-grinders, but the sober pedestrian will, perhaps, prefer them to their namesakes in the capital. Here they are not, as at Paris, in the centre of the town, but they surround it, except upon the quay, with which they unite at each end, and unite most pleasingly; so that, immediately on leaving this brilliant bustling scene, you enter into the gloom of a lofty embowered arcade, resembling in appearance, as well as in effect, the public walks at Cambridge, except that the addition of females in the fanciful Norman costume, and of the Seine, and the fine prospect beyond, and Mont St. Catherine above, give it a new interest. On the opposite side of the Seine, the inhabitants of Rouen have another excellent promenade in the grand cours, which, for a considerable space, occupies the bank of the river, turning eastward from the bridge. Four rows of trees divide it into three separate walks, of which the central one is by far the widest, and serves for horses and carriages; the other two are appropriated exclusively to foot passengers. In these, on a summer's evening, are to be seen all classes of the inhabitants of Rouen, from the highest to the lowest; and the following sketch, which you will easily perceive to be from a pencil more delicate than mine, gives a most lively and faithful picture of them. It may indeed be in some measure in the nature of a treatise de re vestiaria, yet such details of gowns and petticoats never fail to interest, at least to interest me, when proceeding from a wearer.



"Our carriage had scarcely stopped when we were surrounded with beggars, principally women with children in their arms. The poor babes presented a most pitiable appearance, meagre, dirty to the utmost degree, ragged and flea-bitten, so that round the throat there was not the least portion of "carnation" appearing to be free from the insect plague. Their hair, too, is seldom cut; and I have seen girls of eight or ten years of age, bearing a growing crop which had evidently remained unshorn, and I may add, uncombed, from the time of their birth. It is impossible not to dread coming into contact with these imps, who, when old, are among the ugliest conceivable specimens of the human race. The women, even those who inhabit the towns, live much in the open air: besides being employed in many slavish offices, they sit at their doors or windows pursuing their business, or lounge about, watching passengers to obtain charity. Thus their faces and necks are always of a copper color, and, at an advanced age, more dusky still; so that, for the anatomy and coloring of witches, a painter needs look no further. Their wretchedness is strongly contrasted by the gaiety of the higher classes. The military, who, I suppose, as usual in France, hold the first place, appear in all possible variety of keeping and costume, with their well-proportioned figures, clean apparel, decided gait, martial air, and whiskered faces. Here and there we see gliding along the well-dressed lady (not well dressed, indeed, as far as becomingness goes, but fashionably), with a gown of triple flounces, whose skirt intrudes even upon the shoulders, obliterating the waist entirely, while her throat is lost in an immense frill of four or more ranks; and sometimes a large shawl over all completes the disguise of the shape. The head of the dame or damsel is usually enveloped in a gauze or silk bonnet, sufficiently large to spread, were it laid upon a table, two feet in diameter, and trimmed with various-colored ribbons and artificial flowers: in the hand is seen the ridicule, a never-failing accompaniment. The lower orders of women at Rouen usually wear the Cauchoise cap, or an approach to it, rising high to a narrowish point at top, and furnished with immense ears or wings that drop on the shoulder, then opening in front so as to allow to be seen on the forehead a small portion of hair, which divides and falls in two or three spiral ringlets on each side of the face. The remainder of the dress is generally composed of a colored petticoat, probably striped, an apron of a different color, a bodice still differing in tint from the rest, and a shawl, uniting all the various hues of all the other parts of the dress. Some of the peasants from the country look still more picturesque, when mounted on horseback bringing vegetables: they keep their situation without saddle or stirrup, and seem perfectly at ease. But the best figures on horseback are the young men who take out their masters' horses to give them exercise, and who are frequently seen on the grand cours. They ride without hat, coat, saddle, or saddle-cloth, and with the shirt sleeves rolled up above the elbow. Their negligent equipment, added to their short, curling hair, and the ease and elasticity they display in the management of their horses, gives them, on the whole, a great resemblance to the Grecian warriors of the Elgin marbles. Men, as well as women, are frequently seen without hats in the streets, and continually uncravatted; and when their heads are covered, these coverings are of every shape and hue; from the black beaver, with or without a rim, through all gradations of cap, to the simple white cotton nightcap. A painter would delight in this display of forms and these sparkling touches of color, especially when contrasted with the grey of the city, and the tender tints of the sky, water, and distance, and the broad coloring of the landscape."

Footnotes:

[22] "He was son of Osborne de Bolebec and Aveline his wife, sister to Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy, great-grandmother to the Conqueror, and was one of the principal persons who composed the general survey of the realm, especially for the county of Worcester. In 1089 he adhered to William Rufus, against his brother Robert Courthose, and forfeited his Norman possessions on the king's behalf, of whose army there he was a principal commander, and behaved himself very honorably. Yet, in the time of Henry Ist, he took the part of the said Courthose against that king, but died the year following,"—Banks' Extinct Baronage, III. p. 108.

[23] Duchesne, Scriptores Normanni, p. 809.

[24] P. 668.



LETTER V.

JOURNEY TO HAVRE—PAYS DE CAUX—ST. VALLERY—FECAMP—THE PRECIOUS BLOOD—THE ABBEY—TOMBS IN IT—MONTIVILLIERS—HARFLEUR.

(Rouen, June, 1818.)

Lest I should deserve to be visited with the censure which I have taken the liberty of passing upon Ducarel's tour, I shall begin by premising that my account of the present state of the tract, intended for the subject of this and the following letter, is wholly derived from the journals of my companions. Their road by Fecamp, Havre, Bolbec, and Yvetot, has led them through the greater part of the Pays de Caux, a district which, in the time of Caesar, was peopled by the Caletes or Caleti. Antiquaries suppose, that in the name of this tribe, they discover the traces of its Celtic origin, and that its radical is no other than the word Kalt or Celt itself. As a proof of the correctness of this etymology, Bourgueville[25] tells us that but little more than two hundred years have passed since its inhabitants, now universally called Cauchois, were not less commonly called Caillots or Caillettes; a name which still remains attached to several families, as well as to the village Gonfreville la Caillotte, and, probably, to some others. I shall, however, waive all Celtic theory, "for that way madness lies," and enter upon more sober chorography.

The author of the Description of Upper Normandy states, that the territory known by that appellation was limited to the Pays de Caux and the Vexin: the former occupying the line of sea-coast from the Brele to the Seine, together with the governments of Eu and Havre and the Pays de Brai; the latter comprising the Roumois, and the French as well as the Norman Vexin. All these territorial divisions have, indeed, been obliterated by the state-geographers of the revolution; and Normandy, time-honored Normandy herself, has disappeared from the map of the dominions of the French king. The ancient duchy is severed into the five departments of the Seine Inferieure, the Eure, the Orne, Calvados, and the Manche. These are the only denominations known to the government or to the law, yet they are scarcely received in common parlance. The people still speak of Normandy, and they still take a pleasure in considering themselves as Normans: and, I too, can share in their attachment to a name, which transmits the remembrance of actual sovereignty and departed glory.

Until the re-union of feudal Normandy to the crown of its liege lord, the duke was one of the twelve peers of the kingdom; and to his hands that kingdom entrusted the sacred Oriflamme, as often as it was expedient to unfurl it in war. Normandy also contained several titular duchies, ancient fiefs held of the King as Duke of Normandy, but which, out of favour to their owners, were "erected," as the French lawyers say, into duchies, after the province had reverted to the crown. This erection, however, gave but a title to the noble owner, without increasing his territorial privileges; nor could any of our Richards, or our Henries, have allowed a liege man to write himself duke, like his proud feudal suzerein. The recent duchies were Alencon, Aumale, Harcourt, Damville, Elbeuf, Etouteville, and Longueville, and three of them were included in the Pays de Gaux, the inhabitants of which, from the titles connected with it, were accustomed to dignify it with the epithet of noble. Their claim to the epithet is thus given by an ancient Norman poet of the fifteenth century; and if, according to the old tradition, which Voltaire has bantered with his usually incredulity, we could admit that Yvetot was ever really a kingdom, it must be allowed that few provinces could produce such a titled terrier:

"Au noble Pays de Caux Y a quatre Abbayes royaux, Six Prieures conventionaux, Et six Barons de grand arroi, Quatre Comtes, trois Ducs, un Roi."

The soil of the district is generally rich; but the farmers frequently suffer from drought, especially in its western part, where they are obliged almost constantly to have recourse to artifical irrigation. The houses and villages are all surrounded with hedges, thickly planted, and each village is also belted in the same manner. These inclosures, which are peculiar to the Pays de Caux, give a monotonous appearance to the landscape, but they are highly beneficial, for they break the force of the winds, and furnish the inhabitants with fuel. If my memory does not deceive me, the towns either of the ancient Gauls or Teutons, are described as being thus encompassed in primitive times; but I cannot name my authorities for the assertion.

St. Vallery, the first stage beyond Dieppe, is situated in a valley; and there is an obscure tradition that this valley was once watered by a river, which disappeared some centuries ago. It is conjectured, from the name of the town, that it claims an origin as high as the seventh century, when the disciples of St. Vallery were obliged to quit their original monastery and take refuge elsewhere. Yet, according to other authorities[26], it did not receive its present appellation till 1197, when Richard Coeur de Lion, after having destroyed the town and abbey of St. Vallery sur Somme, carried off the relics of the patron saint, and deposited them in this town. My reporters tell me that it has an air of antiquity and gloom, but that it contains nothing worthy of notice except a crucifix in the churchyard, of stone, richly wrought, dated 1575, and a benitier of such simple form and rude workmanship, as to appear of considerable antiquity. The place itself is only a wretched residence for four or five thousand fishermen; but still it has a name[27] in history. Hence William sailed for the conquest of England; and its harbor, all poor and small as it is, has always been considered of importance to the country; there being no other between Havre and Dieppe capable of affording shelter to vessels of even a moderate size.

The road to Fecamp passes through the little town of Cany, situated in a beautiful valley; and there my family met the Archbishop of Rouen, who, at this moment, is in progress through his diocese, for the purpose of confirmation. The approach of his eminence gave the appearance of a fair to every village: young and old of both sexes were collected in the highways to welcome the prelate. He travelled in considerable state, attended by a military escort of twenty men; and arrayed in the scarlet robe of a Roman Cardinal, with the brilliant "decoration" of the Legion of Honor conspicuous upon his breast. For the archbishop is a grand officer of that brotherhood of bastard chivalry; and this ornament, conjoined to his train of whiskered warriors, seemed to render him a very type of the church militant. His eminence is extremely bulky; and my pilgrims were wicked enough to be much amused by the oddity of his pomp and pride. Nor did the postillion spare his facetiousness on the occasion; for you are aware that in France, as in most other parts of the continent, the servile classes use a degree of familiarity in their intercourse with their betters, to which we are little accustomed in England, and which has given rise to the Italian proverb, that "Il Francese e fedele, l'Italiano rispettoso, l'Inglese schiavo[28]."

Throughout this part of France, large flocks of sheep are commonly seen in the vicinity of the sea, and, as the pastures are uninclosed, they are all regularly guarded by a shepherd and his black dog, whose activity cannot fail to be a subject of admiration. He is always on the alert and attentive to his business, skirting his flock to keep them from straggling, and that, apparently, without any directions from his master. In the night they are folded upon the ploughed land; and the shepherd lodges, like a Tartar in his kibitka, in a small cart roofed and fitted up with doors.

Fecamp, like other towns in the neighborhood, is imbedded in a deep valley; and the road, on approaching it, threads through an opening between hills "stern and wild," a tract of "brown heath and shaggy wood," resembling many parts of Scotland. The town is long and straggling, the streets steep and crooked; its inhabitants, according to the official account of the population of France, amount to seven thousand, and the number of its houses is estimated at thirteen hundred, besides above a third of that quantity which are deserted, and more or less in ruins[29].

Fecamp appeared desolate and decaying to its visitors, but they recollected that its very desolation was a voucher of the antiquity from which it derives its interest. It claims an origin as high as the days of Caesar, when it was called Fisci Campus, being the station where the tribute was collected.

It is in vain, however, to expect concord amongst etymologists; and, of course, there are other right learned wights who protest against this derivation. They shake their heads and say, "no; you must trace the name, Fecamp, to Fici Campus;" and they strengthen their assertion by a sort of argumentum ad ecclesiam, maintaining that the precious blood, for which Fecamp was long celebrated, corroborates and confirms their tale. A chapel in the abbey church attests the sanctity of this relic. The legend states that Nicodemus, at the time of the entombment of our Saviour, collected in a phial the blood from his wounds, and bequeathed it to his nephew, Isaac; who afterwards, making a tour through Gaul, stopped in the Pays de Caux, and buried the phial at the root of a fig-tree[30].

Nor is this the only miracle connected with the church. The monkish historians descant with florid eloquence upon the white stag, which pointed out to Duke Ansegirus the spot where the edifice was to be erected; the mystic knife, inscribed "in nomine sanctae et individuae trinitatis," thus declaring to whom the building should be dedicated; and the roof, which, though prepared for a distant edifice, felt that it would be best at Fecamp, and actually, of its own accord, undertook a voyage by sea, and landed, without the displacing of a single nail, upon the sea-coast near the town. All these contes devots, and many others, you will find recorded in the Neustria Pia[31]. I will only detain you with a few words more upon the subject of the precious blood, a matter too important to be thus hastily dismissed. It was placed here by Duke Richard I.; but was lost in the course of a long and turbulent period, and was not found again till the year 1171, when it was discovered within the substance of a column built in the wall. Two little tubes of lead originally contained the treasure; but these were soon inclosed in two others of a more precious metal, and the whole was laid at the bottom of a box of gilt silver, placed in a beautiful pyramidical shrine. Thus protected, it was, before the revolution, fastened to one of the pillars of the choir, behind a trellis-work of copper, and was an object of general adoration. I know not what has since become of it; but, as they are now managing these matters better in France, we may safely calculate upon the speedy reappearance of the relic. Nor must you refer this legend to the many which protestant incredulity is too apt to class with the idle tales of all ages, the

"... quicquid Graecia mendax Audet in historia;"

for no less grave an authority than the faculty of theology at Paris determined, by a formal decree of the 28th of May, 1448, that this worship was very proper; for that, to use their words, "Non repugnat pietati fidelium credere quod aliquid de sanguine Christi effuso tempore passionis remanserit in terris."

The abbey, to which Fecamp was indebted for all its greatness and celebrity, was founded in 664[32] for a community of nuns, by Waning, the count or governor of the Pays de Caux, a nobleman who had already contributed to the endowment of the Monastery of St. Wandrille. St. Ouen, Bishop of Rouen, dedicated the church in the presence of King Clotaire; and, so rapidly did the fame of the sanctity of the abbey extend, that the number of its inmates amounted in a very short period to three hundred or more. The arrival, however, of the Normans, under Hastings, in 841, caused the dispersion of the nuns; and the same story is related of the few who remained at Fecamp, as of many others under similar circumstances, that they voluntarily cut off their noses and their lips, rather than be an object of attraction to the lust of their conquerors. The abbey, in return for their heroism, was levelled with the ground, and it did not rise from its ashes till the year 988, when the piety of Duke Richard I. built the church anew, under the auspices of his son, Robert, Archbishop of Rouen; but, departing from the original foundation, he established therein a chapter of regular canons, who, however, were so irregular in their conduct, that within ten years they were doomed to give way to a body of Benedictine Monks, headed by an Abbot, named William, from a convent at Dijon. From his time the monastery continued to increase in splendor. Three suffragan abbies, that of Notre Dame at Bernay, of St. Taurin at Evreux, and of Ste. Berthe de Blangi, in the diocese of Boullogne, owned the superior power of the abbot of Fecamp, and supplied the three mitres which he proudly bore on his abbatial shield. Kings and princes in former ages frequently paid the abbey the homage of their worship and their gifts; and, in a period nearer to our own, Casimir of Poland, after his voluntary abdication of the throne, selected it as the spot in which he sought for repose, when wearied with the cares of royalty. The English possessions of Fecamp (for like most of the great Norman abbeys, it held lands in our island) do not appear to have been large; but, according to an author of our own country[33] the abbot presented to one hundred and thirty benefices, some in the diocese of Rouen, others in those of Bayeux, Lisieux, Coutances, Chartres, and Beauvais; and it enjoyed so many estates, that its income was said to be forty thousand crowns per annum. Fecamp moreover could boast of a noble library, well stored with manuscripts[34], and containing among its archives many original charters, deeds, &c. of William the Conqueror, and several of his successors.

This magnificent church is three hundred and seventy feet long and seventy high; the transept, including the Chapel of the Precious Blood, one hundred and twenty feet long; the tower two hundred feet high. A portion of it was burned in 1460, but soon repaired. William de Ros, third abbot, rebuilt all the upper part in a better taste, and enlarged the nave, which was not finished till 1200. A successor of his at the beginning of the next century completed the chapels round the choir. The screen was begun by one of the monks about 1500, who erected the chapel dedicated to the death of the Virgin, a master-piece of architecture and adorned with historical carving. The cloister was built so late as 1712. Cathedral service was performed in the church, in which were the tombs of the first and second of the Richards of Normandy; of Richard, infant son of the former, and of William, third son of the latter; of Margaret, betrothed to Robert, son of William the Conqueror, who died 1060; of Alard, third Earl of Bretagne, 1040; of Archbishop Osmond, and of a Lady Judith, whose jingling epitaph has given rise to a variety of conjectures, whether she was the wife of Duke Richard IInd, or his daughter, or some other person.—

"Illa solo sociata, mariti at jure soluta, Judita judicio justificata jacet; Et quae, dante Deo, sed judice justificante, Primo jus subiit sed modo jura regit."

As to Duke Richard Ist, he caused a sarcophagus of stone to be made and placed within this church; and so long as he lived, it was filled with wheat on every Friday, and the grain, together with five shillings, distributed weekly among the poor. And when his death approached, he expressly charged his successor, "Bury not my body within the church, but deposit it on the outside, immediately under the eaves, that the dripping of the rain from the holy roof may wash my bones as I lie, and may cleanse them of the spots of impurity contracted during a negligent and neglected life."

Our party could not ascertain whether any of the historical monuments were yet in existence. The church, at the time they were there, was wholly occupied with preparations for the approaching confirmation. Young girls in their best dresses, all in white, and holding tapers in their hands, filled the nave, while the chapels were crowded with individuals at prayer, or still more with females waiting for an opportunity of confessing themselves, previously to receiving the expected absolution from the archbishop. Under such circumstances nothing could be examined; but there appeared to be in the chapels five or six fine, though mutilated, altar tombs: to whom, however, they belonged, or what was their actual state, it was impossible to tell. Accompanying them are also some curious pieces of sculpture. For the same reason no farther remark could be made upon the interior of the building, except that its architecture is imposing, and its roof, supported by tall clustered pillars, has much the general effect of the nave of our cathedral at Norwich, one of the purest specimens of Norman architecture in England. Externally the tower is handsome, and of nearly the earliest pointed style; not altogether so, as its arches, though narrow, contain each a double arch within. The rest of the building seems to have suffered much from alterations and dilapidation; and whatever tracery there may have been originally has disappeared from the windows; nor are there saints or even niches remaining above the doors.

The exterior of the church of St. Etienne, one of the ten parochial churches of Fecamp, before the revolution, is considerably more imposing; but upon this I will not detain you, as you will see it engraved in Mr. Cotman's Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, from a sketch taken by him last year.

Henry IInd, of England, made a donation of the town to the abbey, whose seignorial jurisdiction also extended over many other parishes, as well in this as in the adjoining dioceses. Its exclusive privileges were likewise ample. Under the first and second race, Fecamp was the seat of government of the Pays de Caux, and the residence of the counts of the district: it was also a residence of the Norman Dukes. Their castle was rebuilt by William Longue-Epee, with a degree of magnificence which is said to have been extraordinary. This duke took particular pleasure in the place, and he and his immediate successors frequently lived here. But the palace has long since disappeared[35]: the continual increase of the monastic buildings gradually occupied its place; and they, in their turn, are now experiencing the revolutions of fortune, the inhabitants being at this very time actively employed in their demolition.

The town is at present wholly supported by the fisheries, in which are employed about fourteen hundred sailors[36]. The herrings of Fecamp have always had the same high character in France, as those of Lowestoft and Yarmouth in England. The armorial lion of our own town ends, as you know, with the tail of a herring; and I really have been often inclined to affix the same appendage to the rump of the lion of Normandy. You are not much of an epicure, nor are you very likely to search in the Almanach des Gourmands for dainties; if you did, you would probably find there the following proverb, which has existed since the thirteenth century,—

"Aloses de Bourdeaux; Esturgeons de Blaye; Congres de la Rochelle; Harengs de Fecamp; Saumons de Loire; Seches de Coutances."

The fortifications of Fecamp are destroyed; but, upon the cliffs which command the town, there still remain some slight vestiges of a fort, erected in the time of Henry IVth, when the inhabitants espoused the party of the league. The capture of this fort was one of those gallant exploits which the historian delights in recording; and it is detailed at great length in Sully's Memoirs[37].

From Fecamp to Havre the country is well wooded, and much applied to the cultivation of flax, which flourishes in this neighborhood, and has given rise to considerable linen manufactories. The trees look well in masses, but individually they are trimmed into ugliness. Near Havre the road goes through Montivilliers, and, still nearer, through Harfleur.

The first of these is, like Fecamp, a place of antiquity, and derived its name[38] and importance from a monastery which was founded at the end of the seventh century. Its history is headed by the chapter which begins the records of most of the ecclesiastical foundations of the duchy: when the invading heathen Normans reached Montivilliers, it shared the common fate of destruction, and when they withdrew, the common piety recalled it to existence. Richard IInd bestowed it upon Fecamp, but the same sovereign restored it to its independence, at the request of his aunt, Beatrice, who retired hither as abbess, at the head of a community of nuns. A convent, over which an abbess of royal blood had presided, could not fail to enjoy considerable privileges; and it retained them to the period of the revolution. The tower of the church still remains, a noble specimen of the Norman architecture of the eleventh century, at which period the building is known to have been erected. The rest of the edifice, though handsome as a whole, is the work of different aeras. The archives of the monastery furnish an account of large sums expended in additions and alterations in the years 1370 and 1513. The interior contains some elegant stone fillagree-work in the form of a small gallery or pulpit, attached to the west end near the roof, and probably intended to receive a band of singers on high festivals. A gallery of a similar nature, but of wood, and to which the foregoing purpose was assigned by the learned wight, John Carter, is yet remaining at the north-west corner of Westminster Abbey. You and I, who are sadly inclined to admire ugliness and antiquity, would have been better pleased with the capitals of the pillars, which are evidently coeval with the tower. Drawings were made of some of these capitals, and I have selected two which appeared to be the most singular.



In this you observe an angel weighing the good works of the deceased against his evil deeds; and, as the former are far exceeding the avoirdupois upon which Satan is to found his claim, he is endeavoring most unfairly to depress the scale with his two-pronged fork.

This allegory is of frequent occurrence in the monkish legends.—The saint, who was aware of the frauds of the fiend, resolved to hold the balance himself.—He began by throwing in a pilgrimage to a miraculous virgin.—The devil pulled out an assignation with some fair mortal Madonna, who had ceased to be immaculate.—The saint laid in the scale the sackcloth and ashes of the penitent of Lenten-time.—Satan answered the deposit by the vizard and leafy-robe of the masker of the carnival.—Thus did they still continue equally interchanging the sorrows of godliness with the sweets of sin, and still the saint was distressed beyond compare, by observing that the scale of the wicked thing (wise men call him the correcting principle,) always seemed the heaviest. Almost did he despair of his client's salvation, when he luckily saw eight little jetty black claws just hooking and clenching over the rim of the golden basin. The claws at once betrayed the craft of the cloven foot. Old Nick had put a little cunning young devil under the balance, who, following the dictates of his senior, kept clinging to the scale, and swaying it down with all his might and main. The saint sent the imp to his proper place in a moment, and instantly the burthen of transgression was seen to kick the beam.

Painters and sculptors also often introduced this ancient allegory of the balance of good and evil, in their representations of the last judgment: it was even employed by Lucas Kranach.

The other capital which I send to you is ornamented with groups of Centaurs or Sagittaries. Astronomical sculptures are frequently found upon the monuments of the middle ages. Two capitals, forming part of a series of zodiacal sculptures, are preserved in the Musee des Monumens Francais; and, speaking from memory, I think they bear a near resemblance in style to that which is here represented.



Montivilliers itself is a neat little town, beautifully situated in a valley, with a stream of clear water running through it. At this time its trade is trifling; but the case was otherwise in former days, when its cloths were considered to rival those of Flanders, and the preservation of the manufacture was regarded of so much consequence, that sundry regulations respecting it are to be found in the royal ordinances. One of them in particular, of the fourteenth century, notices the frauds committed by other towns in imitating the mark of the cloth of Montivilliers.

The general appearance of Harfleur is much like that of Montivilliers; but numerous remains of walls and gates denote that it was once of still greater comparative importance. The ancient trade of the place is now transferred to Havre de Grace, the situation of the latter town being far more elegible.

The Seine no longer rolls its waves under Harfleur; and the desiccated harbor is now seen as a verdant meadow. Without the aid of history, therefore, you would in vain inquire into the derivation of the name, in connection with which, the learned Huet, Bishop of Avranches[39], calls upon us to remark, that the names of many places in Normandy end in fleur, as Barfleur, Harfleur, Honfleur, Fiefleur, Vitefleur, &c.; and that, if, as it is commonly supposed, this termination comes from fluctus, it must have passed through the Saxon, in which language fleoten signifies to flow. Hence we have flot, and from flot, fleut and fleur, the last alteration being warranted by the genius of the French language. The bishop further states, that there are two facts, affording a decisive proof of this origin: the one, that the names now terminating in fleur, ended anciently flot, Barfleur being Barbeflot, Harfleur Hareflot, and Honfleur Huneflot; the other, that all places so called are situated where they are washed by the tide. Such is also the position of the towns in Holland, whose names terminate in vliet, and of those in England, ending in fleet, as Purfleet, Byfleet, &c. The Latin word flevus is of the same kind, and is derived from the same source; for, instead of Hareflot and Huneflot, some old records have Hareflou and Huneflou, and some others Barfleu, terms approaching flevus, which is also called by Ptolemy, fleus, and by Mela, fletio. It is highly improbable, that these two last terms should have been coined subsequently to the time of the Romans becoming masters of Gaul, and it is equally unlikely that the Saxon fleoten should be derived from the Latin. Thus far, therefore, the languages appear to have had a common origin, and they are insomuch allied to the Celtic, that those towns in Britanny, in whose names are found the syllables pleu and plou, are also invariably placed in similar situations.

If, however, I am fairly embarked in the sea of etymological conjecture, I know not where I shall be carried; and therefore, instead of urging the probability that the root of the Celtic pleu is apparently to be found in the Pelasgic [Greek in original] sail or float, I shall return to Harfleur and its history. Whilst Harfleur was in its glory, it was considered the key of the Seine and of this part of France. In 1415 it opposed a vigorous resistance to our Henry Vth, who had no sooner made himself master of it, than, with a degree of contradiction, which teaches man to regard the performance of his duty to God as no reason for his performing it to his fellow-creatures, "the King uncovered his feet and legs, and walked barefoot from the gate to the parish church of St. Martin, where he very devoutly offered up his prayers and thanksgivings for his success. But, immediately afterwards he made all the nobles and the men at arms that were in the town his captives, and shortly after sent the greater part out of the place, clothed in their jerkins only, taking down their names and surnames in writing, and obliging them to swear by their faith that they would surrender themselves prisoners at Calais on Martinmas-day next ensuing. In like manner were the townsmen made prisoners, and obliged to ransom themselves for large sums of money. Afterwards did the King banish them out of the town, with numbers of women and children, to each of whom were given five sols and a portion of their garments." Monstrelet[40], from whom I have transcribed this detail, adds, that "it was pitiful to hear and see the sorrow of these poor people, thus driven away from their homes; the priests and clergy were likewise dismissed; and, in regard to the wealth found there, it was not to be told, and appertained even to the King, who distributed it as he pleased." Other writers tell us that the number of those thus expelled was eight thousand, and that the conqueror, not satisfied with this act of vengeance, publicly burned the charters and archives of the town and the title-deeds of individuals, re-peopled Harfleur with English, and forbad the few inhabitants that remained to possess or inherit any landed property. After a lapse, however, of twenty years, the peasants of the neighboring country, aided by one hundred and four of the inhabitants, retook the place by assault. The exploit was gallant; and a custom continued to prevail in Harfleur, for above two centuries subsequently, intended to commemorate it; a bell was tolled one hundred and four times every morning at day-break, being the time when the attack was made. In 1440, the citizens, undismayed by the sufferings of their predecessors, withstood a second siege from our countrymen, whom the town resisted four months, and in whose possession it remained ten years, when Charles VIIIth permanently united it to the crown of France. Notwithstanding these calamities, it rose again to a state of prosperity, till the revocation of the edict of Nantes gave the death-blow to its commerce; and intolerance completed the desolation which war had begun. At present, it is only remarkable for the elegant tower and spire of its church, connected by flying buttresses of great beauty, the whole of rich and elaborate workmanship.



At a short distance from Harfleur, the Seine comes in view, flowing into the sea through a fine rich valley; but the wide expanse of water has no picturesque beauty. The hills around Havre are plentifully spotted with gentlemen's houses, few only of which have been seen in other parts in the ride. The town itself is strongly fortified; and, having conducted you hither, I shall leave you for the present, reserving for another letter any particulars respecting Havre, and the rest of the road to Rouen.

Footnotes:

[25] Antiquites de Normandie, p. 53.

[26] Dumoulin, Geographie de la France, II p. 80.

[27] Description de la Haute Normandie, I. p. 109.

[28] Heylin notices the familiarity of the approach of the French servants, in his delineation of a Norman inn. An extract may amuse those who are not familiar with the works of this quaint yet sensible writer. "There stood in the chamber three beds, if at the least it be lawful so to call them; the foundation of them was straw, so infinitely thronged together, that the wool-packs which our judges sit on in the Parliament, were melted butter to them; upon this lay a medley of flocks and feathers sewed up together in a large bag, (for I am confident it was not a tick) but so ill ordered that the knobs stuck out on each side like a crab-tree cudgel. He had need to have flesh enough that lyeth on one of them, otherwise the second night would wear out his bones.—Let us now walk into the kitchen and observe their provision. And here we found a most terrible execution committed on the person of a pullet; my hostess, cruel woman, had cut the throat of it, and without plucking off the feathers, tore it into pieces with her hands, and afterwards took away skin and feathers together: this done, it was clapped into a pan and fried for supper.—But the principal ornaments of these inns are the men-servants, the raggedest regiment that ever I yet looked upon; such a thing as a chamberlain was never heard of amongst them, and good clothes are as little known as he. By the habits of his attendants a man would think himself in a gaol, their clothes are either full of patches or open to the skin. Bid one of them make clean your boots, and presently he hath recourse to the curtains.—They wait always with their hats on, and so do all servants attending on their masters.—Time and use reconciled me to many other things, which, at the first were offensive; to this most irreverent custom I returned an enemy; neither can I see how it can choose but stomach the most patient to see the worthiest sign of liberty usurped and profaned by the basest of slaves."—Peter then has a learned excursus de jure pileorum, wherein Tertullian de Spectaculis, Erasmus his Chiliades, and many other reverent authorities are adduced; also, giving an account of his successful exertions, as to "the licence of putting on our caps at our public meetings, which privilege, time, and the tyranny of the vice-chancellor, had taken from." After which, he still resumes in ire,—"this French sauciness hath drawn me out of the way; an impudent familiarity, which, I confess, did much offend me; and to which I still profess myself an open enemy. Though Jacke speak French, I cannot endure Jacke should be a gentleman."

[29] Geographie de la France, II. p. 115.

[30] Description de la Haute Normandie, I. p. 94.

[31] P. 196, 203, 204.

[32] Description de la Haute Normandie, I. p. 90.—Some other writers date the foundation A.D. 666.

[33] Gough's Alien Priories, I. p. 9.

[34] This important part of its treasures, we may hope, from the following passage in Noel, has been in a measure preserved. "On m'a assure que cette derniere partie des richesses litteraires de notre pays etoit heureusement conservee: puisse aujourd'hui ce depot, honorant les mains qui le possedent, parvenir integre jusqu'aux tems properes ou le genie de l'histoire pourra utiliser sa possession."—Essais sur la Seine Inferieure, II. p. 21.

[35] I do not know if it be wholly destroyed; for the author of the Description of Upper Normandy and Goube both speak of the existence of a square tower within the precincts of the abbey, part of the old palace, and known by the name of the Tower of Babel.

[36] Noel, Essais sur la Seine Inferieure, II. p. 11.

[37] Vol. I. p. 389.

[38] This name, in Latin, is Monasterium Villare; in old French records it is called Monstier Vieil.

[39] Origines de Caen, 2nd edit. p. 300.

[40] Vol. II. p. 78.



LETTER VI.

HAVRE—TRADE AND HISTORY OF THE TOWN—EMINENT MEN—BOLBEC—YVETOT—RIDE TO ROUEN—FRENCH BEGGARS.

(Rouen, June, 1818.)

To Fecamp and the other places noticed in my last letter, a more striking contrast could not easily be found than Havre. It equally wants the interest derived from ancient history, and the appearance of misery inseparable from present decay. And yet even Havre is now suffering and depressed. A town which depends altogether upon foreign commerce, could not fail to feel the effects of a long maritime war; and we accordingly find the number of its inhabitants, which twenty years ago was estimated at twenty-five thousand, now reduced to little more than sixteen thousand.

The blow, which Havre will with most difficulty recover is the loss of St. Domingo; for, before the revolution, it almost enjoyed a monopoly of the trade of this important colony, in which upwards of eighty ships, each of above three hundred tons burthen, were constantly employed. With Martinique and Guadaloupe it had a similar, though less extensive, intercourse. As the natural outlet for the manufactures of Rouen and Paris, it supplied the French islands in the West Indies with the principal part of their plantation stores; and the situation of the port was equally advantageous for the importation of their produce. Guinea and the coast of Africa afforded a second and important branch of commerce; and this also is little likely entirely to recover. We may add that, happily it is not so; for it depended principally upon the slave-trade, the profits of which were such, that it was calculated a vessel might clear upon an average nearly eight thousand pounds by each voyage[41]. Its whale-fishery has, for more than a century, ceased to exist. This pursuit began with spirit and at as early a period as the year 1632, when the merchants of this port, in conjunction with those of Biscay, fitted out the expedition commanded by Vrolicq, seized upon a station near Spitzbergen, where they would have obtained a permanent establishment, had they not been violently expelled by the Danes and Dutch. But the coasting-trade with the various ports of France, and the communication with the other countries of Europe, is now again in full vigor; and it is to these sources that Havre is chiefly indebted for the life and spirit visible in its quays and public places.

The appearance of bustle and activity is a striking, at the same time that it is a most pleasing, character, of every great and commercial sea-port, in every part of the world: it is especially so in a climate which is milder than our own, and where not only the loading and unloading of the ships, with the consequent transport of merchandize, is continually taking place before the spectator; but the sides of the shops are commonly set open, sail-makers are pursuing their business in rows in the streets, and almost every handicraft and occupation is carried on in the open air. An acute traveller might also conjecture that the mildness of the atmosphere is comfortable and congenial to the parrots, perroquets, and monkeys, which are brought over as pets and companions by the sailors. Great numbers of these exotic birds and brutes are to be seen at the windows, and they almost give to the town of Havre the appearance of a tropical settlement.

The quays are strongly edged and faced with granite: the streets, of which there are forty, are all built in straight lines, and chiefly at right angles with each other. In them are several fountains, round which picturesque groups of women are continually collected, employed with Homeric industry in the task of washing linen. The churches are ugly, their style is a miserable caricature of Roman architecture, the interiors are incumbered by dirty and dark chapels, filled up with wood carvings. The principal church has figures of saints, of wretched execution, but of the size of life, ranged round the interior. The harbor is calculated to contain three hundred vessels. The houses are oddly constructed: they are very narrow, and very lofty, being commonly seven stories high, and they are mostly fronted with stripes of tiled slate, and intermediate ones of mortar, so fantastically disposed, that two are rarely seen alike.

Notwithstanding what is alledged by the author of the Memoires sur Havre, in his endeavors to give consequence to his native place, by maintaining its antiquity, it appears certain that no mention is made of the town previously to the fifteenth century. Even so late as 1509, its scite was occupied by a few hovels, clustered round a thatched chapel, under the protection of Notre Dame de Grace, from whom the place derived the name of Havre de Grace. Francis Ist, who was the real founder[42] of Havre, was desirous of changing this name to Francoisville or Franciscopole. But the will of a sovereign, as Goube very justly observes, most commonly dies with him: in our days, the National Convention, aided by the full force of popular enthusiasm, has equally failed in a similar attempt. The jacobins tried in vain to banish the recollections of good St. Denis, by unchristening his vill under the appellation of Franciade. Disobedience to the edict, exposed, indeed, the contravener to the chance of experiencing the martyrdom of the bishop; yet the mandate still produced no effect. Nor was Napoleon more successful; and history affords abundant proof, that it is more easy to build a city, or even to conquer a kingdom, than to alter an established name.

Viewed in its present condition, no town in France unites more advantages than Havre: it is one of the keys of the kingdom; it commands the mouth of the river that leads direct to the metropolis; and it is at once a great commercial town and a naval station. Possessing such claims to commercial and military pre-eminence, it may appear matter of surprise that it should be of so recent an origin; but the cause is to be sought for in the changes which succeeding centuries have induced in the face of the country—

"Vidi ego quae fuerat quondam durissima tellus Esse fretum; vidi factas ex aequore terras."

The sea continually loses here, and, without great efforts on the part of man to retard the operation of the elements, Havre may, in process of time, become what Harfleur is. At its origin it stood immediately on the shore; the consequence of which was, that, within a very few years, a high tide buried two-thirds of the houses and nearly all the inhabitants. The remembrance of this dreadful calamity is still annually renewed by a solemn procession on the fifteenth of January.

With regard to historical events connected with Havre, there is little to be said. It was the spot whence our Henry VIIth embarked, in 1485, aided by four thousand men from Charles VIIIth, of France, to enforce his claim to the English crown. The town was seized by the Huguenots, and delivered to our Queen Elizabeth, in 1562. But it was held by her only till the following year, when Charles IXth, with Catherine of Medicis, commanded the siege in person, and pressed it so vigorously, that the Earl of Warwick was obliged to evacuate the place, after having sacrificed the greater part of his troops. At the end of the following century, after the bombardment and destruction of Dieppe, an attack was made upon Havre, but without success, owing to the strength of the fortifications, and particularly of the citadel. For this, the town was indebted to Cardinal Richelieu, who was its governor for a considerable time, and who also erected some of its public buildings, improved the basin, and gave a fresh impulse to trade, by ordering several large ships of war to be built here. As ship-builders, the inhabitants of Havre have always had a high character: they stand conspicuous in the annals of the art, for the construction of the vessel called la Grande Francoise, and justly termed la grande, as having been of two thousand tons burthen. Her cables are said to have been above the thickness of a man's leg; and, besides what is usually found in a ship, she contained a wind-mill and a tennis-court[43]. Her destination was, according to some authors, the East Indies; according to others, the Isle of Rhodes, then attacked by Soliman IInd; but we need not now inquire whither she was bound; for, after advantage had been taken of two of the highest tides, the utmost which could be done was to tow her to the end of the pier, where she stuck fast, and was finally obliged to be cut to pieces. Her history and catastrophe are immortalized by Rabelais, under the appellation of la Grande Nau Francoise.

It were unpardonable to take leave of Havre without one word upon the celebrated individuals to whom it has given birth; and you must allow me also, from our common taste for natural history, to point it out to your notice as a spot peculiarly favorable for the collecting of fossil shells, which are found about the town and neighborhood in great numbers and variety. The Abbe Dicquemare, a naturalist of considerable eminence, who resided here, may possibly be known to you by his observations on this subject, or still more probably by those upon the Aetiniae; the latter having been translated into English, and honored with a place in the Transactions of our Royal Society. Of more extensive, but not more justly merited, fame, are George Scudery and his sister Magdalen: the one a voluminous writer in his day, though now little known, except for his Critical Observations upon the Cid; the other, a still more prolific author of novels, and alternately styled by her contemporaries the Sappho of her age, and "un boutique de verbiage;" but unquestionably a writer of merit, notwithstanding the many unmanly sneers of Boileau, whose bitter pen, like that of our own illustrious satirist, could not even consent to spare a female that had been so unfortunate as to provoke his resentment. She died in 1701, at the advanced age of ninety-four. The last upon my list is one of whom death has very recently deprived the world, the excellent Bernardin de Saint Pierre; a man whose writings are not less calculated to improve the heart than to enlarge the mind. It is impossible to read his works without feeling love and respect for the author. His exquisite little tale of Paul and Virginia is in the hands of every body; and his larger work, the Studies of Nature, deserves to be no less generally read, as full of the most original observations, joined to theories always ingenious, though occasionally fanciful: the whole conveyed in a singularly captivating style, and its merits still farther enhanced by a constant flow of unaffected piety.

The road from Havre to Rouen is of a different character, and altogether unlike that from Dieppe; but what it gains in beauty of landscape it loses in interest. And yet, perhaps, it is even wrong to say that it gains much in point of beauty; for, though: trees are more generally dispersed, though cultivation is universal, and the soil good, and produce luxuriant, and though the mind and the eye cannot but be pleased by the abundance and verdure of the country, yet in picturesque effect it is extremely deficient. Monotony, even of excellence, displeases. I am speaking of the road which passes through Bolbec and Yvetot: there is another which lies nearer to the banks of the Seine, through Lillebonne and Caudebec, and this, I do not doubt, would, in every point of view, have been preferable.

At but a short distance from Havre, to the left, lies the church, formerly part of the priory, of Graville, a picturesque and interesting object. Of the date of its erection we have no certain knowledge, and it is much to be regretted that we have not, for it is clearly of Norman architecture; the tower a very pure specimen of that style, and the end of the north transept one of the most curious any where to be seen, and apparently; also one of the most ancient[44]. I should therefore feel no scruple in referring the building to a more early period than the beginning of the thirteenth century, where our records of the establishment commence; for it was then that William Malet, Lord of Graville, placed here a number of regular canons from Ste. Barbe en Auge, and endowed them with all the tythes and patronage he possessed in France and England. The act by which Walter, Archbishop of Rouen, confirmed this foundation, is dated in 1203. Stachys Germanica, a plant of extreme rarity in England, grows abundantly here by the road-side; and apple-trees are very numerous, not only edging the road, but planted in rows across the fields.

The valley by which you enter Bolbec is pretty and varied; full of trees and houses, which stand at different heights upon the hills on either side. The town itself is long, straggling, and uneven. Through it runs a rapid little stream, which serves many purposes of extensive business, connected with the cotton manufactory, the preparation of leather, cutlery, &c. This stream, of the same name with the town, afterwards falls into the Seine, near Lillebonne, one of the most ancient places in Normandy, and formerly the metropolis of the Caletes, but now only a wretched village. Tradition refers its ruin to the period of the invasion of Gaul by the Romans; but it revived under the Norman Dukes, who resided here a portion of the year, and it was a favorite seat of William the Conqueror. To him, or to one of his immediate predecessors or successors, it is most probable that the castle owes its existence. Mr. Cotman found the ruins of it extensive and remarkable. The importance of the place, at a far more early date, is proved by the medals of the Upper and Lower Empire, which are frequently dug up here, and not less decisively by the many Roman roads which originate from the town. Bolbec can lay claim to no similar distinction; but it is full of industrious manufacturers. Twice in the last century it was burned to the ground; and, after each conflagration, it has arisen more flourishing from its ashes. At the last, which happened in 1765, Louis XVth made a donation to the town of eighty thousand livres, and the parliament of Normandy added a gratuity of half as much more, to assist the inhabitants in repairing their losses.

Yvetot, the next stage, possesses no visible interest, and furnishes no employment for the pencil. The town is, like Bolbec, a residence for manufacturers; and the curious stranger would seek in vain for any traces of decayed magnificence, any vestiges or records of a royal residence. And yet, it is held that Yvetot was the capital of a kingdom, which, if it really did exist, had certainly the distinction of being the smallest that ever was ruled on its own account. The subject has much exercised the talents and ingenuity of historians. It has been maintained by the affirmants, that an actual monarchy existed here at a period as remote as the sixth century; others argue that, though the Lords of Yvetot may have been stiled Kings, the distinction was merely titular, and was not conferred till about the year 1400; whilst a third, and, perhaps, most numerous, body, treat the whole as apocryphal.

Robert Gaguin[45], a French historian of the fifteenth century, prefaces the anecdote by observing, that he is the first French writer by whom it is recorded; and, as if sensible that such a remark could not fail to excite suspicion, he proceeds to say, that it is wonderful that his predecessors should have been silent. Yet he certainly was not the first who stated the story in print; for it appears in the Chronicles of Nicholas Gilles, which were printed in 1492, whilst the earliest edition of Gaugin was published in 1497.—According to these monkish historians, Clotharius, of France, son of Clovis, had threatened the life of his chamberlain, Gaultier, Lord of Yvetot, who thereupon fled the kingdom, and for ten years remained in voluntary exile, fighting against the infidels. At the end of this period, Gaultier hoped that the anger of his sovereign might be appeased, and he accordingly went to Rome, and implored the aid of the Supreme Pontiff. Pope Agapetus pitied the wanderer; and he gave unto him a letter addressed to the King of the Franks, in which he interceded for the supplicant. Clotharius was then residing at Soissons, his capital, and thither Gaultier repaired on Good-Friday, in the year 536, and, availing himself of the moment when the King was kneeling before the altar, threw himself at the feet of the royal votary, beseeching pardon in the name of the common Savior of mankind, who on that day shed his blood for the redemption of the human race. But his prayers and appeal were in vain: he found no pardon; Clothair drew his sword, and slew him on the spot. The Pope threatened the monarch with apostolical vengeance, and Clothair attempted to atone for the murder, by raising the town and territory of Yvetot into a kingdom, and granting it in perpetuity to the heirs of Gaultier.

Such is the tradition. There is a very able dissertation upon the subject, by the Abbe de Vertot[46], who endeavors to disprove the whole story: first by the silence of all contemporary authors; then by the fact, that Yvetot was not at that time under the dominion of Clothair; then by an anachronism, which the story involves as to Pope Agapetus; and finally by sundry other arguments of minor importance. Even he, however, admits, that in a royal decree, dated 1392, and preserved among the records of the Exchequer of Normandy, the title of King is given to the Lord of Yvetot; and he is obliged to cut the knot, which he is unable to untie, by stating it as his opinion, that at or about this period Yvetot was really raised into a sovereignty, though, on what occasion, for what purpose, and with what privileges, no document remains to prove. As a parallel case, he instances the Peers of France, an order with whose existence every body is acquainted, while of the date of the establishment nothing is known. It is surprising, that so clear-sighted a writer did not perceive that he was doing nothing more than illustrating, as the logicians say, obscurum per obscurius, or, rather, making darkness more dark; as if it were not considerably more probable, that so strange a circumstance should have taken place in the sixth century, and have been left unrecorded, when society was unformed, anomalies frequent, and historians few, than that it should have happened in the fourteenth, a period when the government of France was completely settled in a regular form, under one monarch, when literature was generally diffused, and when every remarkable event was chronicled. Besides which, the inhabitants of the little kingdom continued, in some measure, independent of his Most Christian Majesty, even until the revolution. At least, they paid not a sou of taxes, neither aides, nor tenth-penny, nor gabelle. It was a sanctuary into which no farmer of the revenue dared to enter. And it is hardly to be doubted, but that there must have been some very singular cause for so singular and enviable a privilege. In our own days, M. Duputel[47], a member of the academy of Rouen, has entered the lists against the Abbe; and between them the matter is still undecided, and is likely so to continue. For myself, I have no means of throwing light upon it; but the impression left upon my mind, after reading both sides of the question, is, that the arguments are altogether in favor of Vertot, while the greater weight of probabilities is in the opposite scale. I shall leave you, however, to poise the balance, and I shall not attempt to cause either end of the beam to preponderate, by acting the part of Old Nick as before exhibited to you; though I decidedly believe that Gaguin had some authority for his tale, but, by neglecting to quote it, he has left the minds of his readers to uncertainty, and his own veracity to suspicion.

With this digression I bid farewell to Yvetot, and its Lilliputian kingdom; nor will I detain you much longer on the way to Rouen, the road passing through nothing likely to afford interest in point of historical recollection or antiquities; though within a very short distance of the ancient Abbey of Pavilly on the one side, and at no great distance from the still more celebrated Monastery of Jumieges on the other. The houses in this neighborhood are in general composed of a framework of wood, with the interstices filled with clay, in which are imbedded small pieces of glass, disposed in rows, for windows. The wooden studs are preserved from the weather by slates, laid one over the other, like the scales of a fish, along their whole surface, or occasionally by wood over wood in the same manner. I am told that there are some very ancient timber churches in Norway, erected immediately after the conversion of the Northmen, which are covered with wood-scales: the coincidence is probably accidental, yet it is not altogether unworthy of notice. At one end the roof projects beyond the gable four or five feet, in order to protect a door-way and ladder or staircase that leads to it; and this elevation has a very picturesque effect. A series of villages, composed of cottages of this description, mixed with large manufactories and extensive bleaching grounds, comprise all that is to be remarked in the remainder of the ride; a journey that would be as interesting to a traveller in quest of statistical information, as it would be the contrary to you or to me.

Poverty, the inseparable companion of a manufacturing population, shews itself in the number of beggars that infest this road as well as that from Calais to Paris. They station themselves by the side of every hill, as regularly as the mendicants of Rome were wont to do upon the bridges. Sometimes a small nosegay thrown into your carriage announces the petition in language, which, though mute, is more likely to prove efficacious than the loudest prayer. Most commonly, however, there is no lack of words; and, after a plaintive voice has repeatedly assailed you with "une petite charite, s'il vous plait, Messieurs et Dames," an appeal is generally made to your devotion, by their gabbling over the Lord's Prayer and the Creed with the greatest possible velocity. At the conclusion, I have often been told that they have repeated them once, and will do so a second time if I desire it! Should all this prove ineffectual, you will not fail to hear "allons, Messieurs et Dames, pour l'amour de Dieu, qu'il vous donne un bon voyage," or probably a song or two; the whole interlarded with scraps of prayers, and ave-marias, and promises to secure you "sante et salut." They go through it with an earnestness and pertinacity almost inconceivable, whatever rebuffs they may receive. Their good temper, too, is undisturbed, and their face is generally as piteous as their language and tone; though every now and then a laugh will out, and probably at the very moment when they are telling you they are "pauvres petits miserables," or "petits malheureux, qui n'ont ni pere ni mere." With all this they are excellent flatterers. An Englishman is sure to be "milord," and a lady to be "ma belle duchesse," or "ma belle princesse." They will try too to please you by "vivent les Anglais, vive Louis dix-huit." In 1814 and 1815, I remember the cry used commonly to be "vive Napoleon," but they have now learned better; and, in truth, they had no reason to bear attachment to the ex-emperor, an early maxim of whose policy it was to rid the face of the country of this description of persons, for which purpose he established workhouses, or depots de mendicite, in each department, and his gendarmes were directed to proceed in the most summary manner, by conveying every mendicant and vagrant to these receptacles, without listening to any excuse, or granting any delay. He had no clear idea of the necessity of the gentle formalities of a summons, and a pass under his worship's hand and seal. And, without entering into the elaborate researches respecting the original habitat of a mumper, which are required by the English law, he thought that pauperism could be sufficiently protected by consigning the specimen to the nearest cabinet. The simple and rigorous plan of Napoleon was conformable to the nature of his government, and it effectually answered the purpose. The day, therefore, of his exile to Elba was a Beggar's Opera throughout France; and they have kept up the jubilee to the present hour, and seem likely to persist in maintaining it.

Footnotes:

[41] Goube, Histoire de la Normandie, III. p. 127.

[42] "Francois premier, revenant vainqueur de la bataille de Marignan en 1515, crut devoir profiter de la situation avantageuse de la Crique; il concut le dessin de l'agrandir et d'en faire une place de guerre importante. Ce prince avoit pris les interets du jeune Roi d'Ecosse, Jacques V, et ce fut pour se fortifier contre les Anglais qu'il forma la resolution de leur opposer cette barriere. Pour conduire l'entreprise il jetta les yeux sur un Gentilhomme nomme Guion le Roi, Seigneur de Chillon, Vice-Amiral, et Capitaine de Honfleur, et la premiere pierre fut posee en 1516."—Description de la Haute Normandie, I. p. 195.

[43] Description de la Haute Normandie, I. p. 200.

[44] See Cotman's Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, t. 12.—There is also a general view of the church, and of some of the monastic buildings from the lithographic press of the Comte de Lasteyrie.

[45] "Sed priusquam a Clotario discedo, illud non praetermittendum reor, quod, cum maxime cognitu dignum est, mirari licet a nullo Franco Scriptore litteris fuisse commendatum. Fuit inter familiarissimos Clotarii aulicos, Galterus Yvetotus, Caletus agri Rothomagensis, apprime nobilis et qui regii cubiculi primarius cultor esset. Huic pro sua integritate, de Clotario cum melius meliusque in dies promereretur, reliqui aulici invident, depravantes quodlibet ab eo gestum, nec desistunt donec irritatum illi Clotarium pessimis susurris efficiunt; quamobrem jurat Rex se hominem necaturum. Percepta Clotarii indignatione, Galterus pugnator illustris cedere Regi irato constituit. Igitur derelicta Francia in militiam adversus religionis catholicae inimicos pergit, ubi decem annos multis prospere gestis rebus, ratus Clotarium simul cum tempore mitiorem effectum, Romam in primis ad Agapitum Pontificem se contulit: a quo ad Clotarium impetratis litteris, ad eum Suessione agentem se protinus confert, Veneris die, quae parasceve dicitur, cogitans religiosam Christianis diem ad pietatem sibi profuturam. Verum litteris Pontificis exceptis cum Galterum Clotarius agnovit, vetere ira tanquam recenti livore percitus, rapto a proximo sibi equite gladio, hominem statim interemit. Tam indignam insignis atque innocentis hominis necem, religioso loco et die ad Christi passionem recolendam celebri, pontifex inaequanimiter ferens, confestim Clotarium reprehendit, monetque iniquissimi facinoris rationem habere, se alioquin excommunicationis sententiam subiturum. Agapiti monita reveritus Rex, capto cum prudentibus consilio, Galteri haeredes, et qui Yvetotum deinceps possiderent, ab omni Francorum Regum ditione atque fide liberavit, liberosque prorsus fore suo syngrapho et regiis scriptis confirmat. Ex quo factum est ut ejus pagi et terrae possessor Regem se Yvetoti hactenus sine controversia nominaverit. Id autem anno christianae gratiae quingentesimo trigesimo sexto gestum esse indubia fide invenio. Nam dominantibus longo post tempore in Normannia. Anglis, ortaque inter Joannem Hollandum, Auglum, et Yvetoti dominum quaestione, quasi proventuum ejus terrae pars fisco Regis Anglorum quotannis obnoxia esset, Caleti Propraetor anno salutis 1428, de ratione litis judiciario ordine se instruens, id, sicut annotatum a me est, comperisse judicavit."—Robert Gaguin, lib. II. fol. 17.

[46] Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, IV. p. 728.—The question is also discussed in the Traite de la Noblesse, by M. de la Roque; in the Mercure de France, for January, 1726; and in a Latin treatise by Charles Malingre, entitled "De falsa regni Yvetoti narratione, ex majoribus commentariis fragmentum."

[47] Precis Analytique des Travaux de l'Academie de Rouen, 1811, p. 181.



LETTER VII.

ON THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.

(Rouen, June, 1818.)

Abandoning, for the present, all discussion of the themes of the elder day, I shall occupy myself with matters relating to the living world. The fatigued and hungry traveller, whose flesh is weaker than his spirit, is often too apt to think that his bed and his supper are of more immediate consequence than churches or castles. And to those who are in this predicament, there is a material improvement at Rouen, since I was last here: nothing could be worse than the inns of the year 1815; but four years of peace have effected a wonderful alteration, and nothing can now be better than the Hotel de Normandie, where we have fixed our quarters. Objection may, indeed, be made to its situation, as to that of every other hotel in the city; but this is of little moment in a town, where every house, whatever street or place it may front, opens into a court-yard, so that its views are confined to what passes within its own quadrangle; and, for excellence of accommodations, elegance of furniture, skill in cookery, civility of attendance, nay, even for what is more rare, neatness, our host, M. Trimolet, may challenge competition with almost any establishment in Europe. For the rent of the house, which is one of the most spacious in Rouen, he pays three thousand francs a year; and, as house-rent is one of the main standards of the value of the circulating medium, I will add, that our friend, M. Rondeau, for his, which is not only among the largest but among the most elegant and the best placed for business, pays but five hundred francs more. This, then, may be considered as the maximum at Rouen. Yet Rouen is far from being the place which should be selected by an Englishman, who retires to France for the purpose of economizing: living in general is scarcely one-fourth cheaper than in our own country. At Caen it is considerably more reasonable; on the banks of the Loire the expences of a family do not amount to one-half of the English cost; and still farther south a yet more sensible reduction takes place, the necessaries of life being cheaper by half than they are in Normandy, and house-rent by full four-fifths.

A foreigner can glean but little useful information respecting the actual state of a country through which he journeys with as much rapidity as I have done. And still less is he able to secern the truth from the falsehood, or to weigh the probabilities of conflicting testimony. I therefore originally intended to be silent on this subject. There is a story told, I believe, of Voltaire, at least it may be as well told of Voltaire as of any other wit, that, being once in company with a very talkative empty Frenchman, and a very glum and silent Englishman, he afterwards characterized them by saying, "l'un ne dit que des riens, et l'autre ne dit rien." Fearing that my political and statistical observations, which in good truth are very slender, might be ranked but too truly in the former category, I had resolved to confine them to my own notebook. Yet we all take so much interest in the destinies of our ancient rival and enemy, (I wish I could add, our modern friend,) that, according to my usual habit, I changed my determination within a minute after I had formed it; for I yielded to the impression, that even my scanty contribution would not be wholly unacceptable to you.

France, I am assured on all sides, is rapidly improving, and the government is satisfactory to all liberal men, in which number I include persons of every opinion, except the emigrants and those attached exclusively to the ancien regime. Men of the latter description are commonly known by the name of Ultras; and, speaking with a degree of freedom, which is practised here, to at least as great an extent as in England, they do not hesitate to express their decided disapprobation of the present system of government, and to declare, not only that Napoleon was more of a royalist than Louis, but that the King is a jacobin. They persuade themselves also, and would fain persuade others, that he is generally hated; and their doctrine is, that the nation is divided into three parties, ready to tear each other in pieces: the Ministerialists, who are few, and in every respect contemptible; the Ultras, not numerous, but headed by the Princes, and thus far of weight; and the Revolutionists, who, in point of numbers, as well as of talents and of opulence, considerably exceed the other two, and will, probably, ultimately prevail; so that these conflicts of opinion will terminate by decomposing the constitutional monarchy into a republic. To listen to these men, you might almost fancy they were quoting from Clarendon's History of the Rebellion in our own country; so entirely do their feelings coincide with those of the courtiers who attended Charles in his exile. Similar too is the reward they receive; for it is difficult for a monarch to be just, however he may in some cases he generous.

Yet even the Ultras admit that the revolution has been beneficial to France, though they are willing to confine its benefits to the establishment of the trial by jury, and the correction of certain abuses connected with the old system of nobility. Among the advantages obtained, they include the abolition of the game laws; and, indeed, I am persuaded, from all I hear, that this much-contested question could not receive a better solution than by appealing to the present laws in France. Game is here altogether the property of the land-owner; it is freely exposed for sale, like other articles of food; and every one is himself at liberty to sport, or to authorize his friend to do so over his property, with no other restriction than that of taking out a licence, or port d'armes, which, for fifteen francs, is granted without difficulty to any man of respectability, whatever may be his condition in life. In this particular, I cannot but think that France has set us an example well worthy of our imitation; and she also shews that it may be followed without danger; for neither do the pleasures of the field lose their relish, nor is the game extirpated. The former are a subject of conversation in almost every company; and, as to the latter, whatever slaughter may have taken place in the woods and preserves, at the first burst of the revolution, I am assured that a good sportsman may, at the present time, between Dieppe and Rouen kill with ease, in a day, fifty head of game, consisting principally of hares, quails, and partridges.

But, while these men thus restrict the benefits derived from the revolution, the case is far different with individuals of the other parties, all of whom are loud and unanimous in its praises. The good resulting from the republic has been purchased at a dreadful price, but the good remains; and those, who now enjoy the boon, are not inclined to remember the blood which drenched the three-colored banner. Thirty years have elapsed, and a new generation has arisen, to whom the horrors of the revolution live only in the page of history. But its advantages are daily felt in the equal nature and equal administration of the laws; in the suppression of the monasteries with their concomitant evils; in the restriction of the powers of the clergy; in the liberty afforded to all modes of religious worship; and in the abolition of all the edicts and mandates and prejudices, which secured to a peculiar sect and caste a monopoly of all the honors and distinctions of the common-wealth; for now, every individual of talent and character feels that the path to preferment and power is not obstructed by his birth or his opinions.

The constitutional charter, in its present state, is a subject of pride to the French, and a sure bulwark to the throne. The representative system is beginning to be generally appreciated, and particularly in commercial towns. The deputies of this department are to be changed the approaching autumn, and the minds of men are already anxiously bent upon selecting such representatives as may best understand and promote their local interests. Few acts of the Bourbon government have contributed more powerfully to promote the popularity of the King, than the law enacted in the course of last year, which abolished the double election, and enabled the voters to give their suffrages directly for their favorite candidate, thus putting a stop at once to a variety of unfair influence, previously exerted upon such occasions. The same law has also created a general interest upon the subject, never before known; the strongest proof of which is, that, of the six or eight thousand electors contained in this department, nearly the whole are expected now to vote, whereas not a third ever did so before. The qualifications for an elector and a deputy are uniform throughout the kingdom, and depending upon few requisites; nothing more being required in the former case, than the payment of three hundred francs per annum, in direct taxes, and the having attained the age of thirty; while an addition of ten years to the age, and the payment of one thousand francs, instead of three hundred, renders every individual qualified to be of the number of the elected. The system, however, is subject to a restriction, which provides, that at least one half of the representatives of each department shall be chosen from among those who reside in it.

In the beginning of the revolution, a much wider door was open: all that was then necessary to entitle a man to vote, was, that he should be twenty-one years of age, a Frenchman, and one who had lived for a year in the country on his own revenue, or on the produce of his labor, and was not in a state of servitude. It was then also decreed, that the electors should have each three livres a day during their mission, and should be allowed at the rate of one livre a league, for the distance from their usual place of residence, to that in which the election of members for their department is held. Such were the only conditions requisite for eligibility, either as elector or deputy; except, indeed, that the citizens in the primary assemblies, and the electors in the electoral assembly, swore that they would maintain liberty and equality, or die rather than violate their oath[48].

The wisdom and prudence of the subsequent alterations, few will be disposed to question: the system, in its present state, appears to me admirably qualified to attain the object in view; and such seems the general character of the French Constitutional Charter, which unites two excellent qualities, great clearness and great brevity. The whole is comprised in seventy-four short articles; and, that no Frenchman may plead ignorance of his rights or his duties, it is usually found prefixed to the almanacks. Some persons might, indeed, be inclined to deem this station as ominous; for, since the revolution began, the frame of the French government has sustained so many alterations, that, considering that several of their constitutions never outlived the current quarter, they may be fairly said to have had a new constitution in each year. How far the Bourbon charter will answer the purpose of serving as the basis of a code of laws for the government of an extensive kingdom, time only can determine. At present, it has the charm of novelty to recommend it; and there are few among us with whom novelty is not a strong attraction. Our friends on this side of the water are greatly belied, if it be not so with them.

The finances of the French municipalities are administered with a degree of fairness and attention, which might put many a body corporate, in a certain island, to the blush. Little is known in England respecting the administration of the French towns: the following particulars relating to the revenue and expences of Rouen, may, therefore, in some measure, serve as a scale, by which you may give a guess at the balance-sheet of cities of greater or lesser magnitude.—The budget amounted for the last year to one million two hundred thousand francs. The proposed items of expenditure must be particularized, and submitted to the Prefect and the Minister of the Interior, before they can be paid. In this sum is comprised the charge for the hospitals, which contain above three thousand persons, including foundlings, and for all the other public institutions, the number and excellence of which has long been the pride of Rouen. You must consider too, that every thing of this kind is, in France, national: individuals do nothing, neither is it expected of them; and herein consists one of the most essential differences between France and England. To meet this great expenditure, the city is provided with the rents of public lands, with wharfage, with tolls from the markets and the halles; and, above all, with the octroi, a tax that prevails through France, upon every article of consumption brought into the towns, and is collected at the barriers. The octroi, like turnpike-tolls or the post-horse duty with us, is farmed; two-thirds are received by the government, and the remaining one-third by the town. In Rouen it produced the last year one million four hundred and fifty thousand francs.—If, now, this sum appears to you comparatively greater than that of our large cities in England, you must recollect that, with us, towns are not liable to similar charges: our corporations support no museums, no academies, no learned bodies; and our infirmaries, and dispensaries, and hospitals, are indebted, as well for their existence as their future maintenance, to the piety of the dead, or the liberality of the living. Nor must we forget that, even in this great kingdom, Rouen, at present, holds the fifth place among the towns; though it was far from being thus, when Buonaparte, uniting the imperial to the iron crown, overshadowed with his eagle-wings the continent from the Baltic to Apulia; and when the mural crowns of Rome and Amsterdam stood beneath the shield of the "good city" of Paris.

The population of Rouen is estimated at eighty-seven thousand persons, of whom the greater number are engaged in the manufactories, which consist principally of cotton, linen, and woollen cloths, and are among the largest in France. At present, however, "trade is dull;" and hence, and as the politics of a trader invariably sympathize with his cash account, neither the peace, nor the English, nor the princes of the Bourbon dynasty, are popular here; for the articles manufactured at Rouen, being designed generally for exportation, ranged almost unrivalled over the continent, during the war, but now in every town they meet with competitors in the goods from England, which are at once of superior workmanship and cheaper. The latter advantage is owing very much to the greater perfection of our machinery, and, perhaps, still more to the abundance of coals, which enables us, at so small an expence, to keep our steam-engines in action, and thus to counterbalance the disproportion in the charge of manual labor, as well as the many disadvantages arising from the pressure of our heavy taxation.—But I must cease. An English fit of growling is coming upon me; and I find that the Blue Devils, which haunt St. Stephen's chapel, are pursuing me over the channel.

Footnotes:

[48] Moore's Journal of a Residence in France, I. p. 82.



LETTER VIII.

MILITARY ANTIQUITIES—LE VIEUX CHATEAU—ORIGINAL PALACE OF THE NORMAN DUKES—HALLES OF ROUEN—MIRACLE AND PRIVILEGE OF ST. ROMAIN—CHATEAU DU VIEUX PALAIS—PETIT CHATEAU—FORT ON MONT STE. CATHERINE—PRIORY THERE—CHAPEL OF ST. MICHAEL—DEVOTEE.

(Rouen, June, 1818)

My researches in this city after the remains of architectural antiquity of the earlier Norman aera, have hitherto, I own, been attended with little success. I may even go so far as to say, that I have seen nothing in the circular style, for which it would not be easy to find a parallel in most of the large towns in England. On the other hand, the perfection and beauty of the specimens of the pointed style, have equally surprised and delighted me. I will endeavor, however, to take each object in its order, premising that I have been materially assisted in my investigations by M. Le Prevost and M. Rondeau, but especially by the former, one of the most learned antiquaries of Normandy.

Of the fortifications and castellated buildings in Rouen very little indeed is left[49], and that little is altogether insignificant; being confined to some fragments of the walls scattered here and there[50], and to three circular towers of the plainest construction, the remains of the old castle, built by Philip Augustus in 1204, near to the Porte Bouvreuil, and hence commonly known by the name of the Chateau de Bouvreuil or le Vieux Chateau.—It is to the leading part which this city has acted in the history of France, that we must attribute the repeated erection and demolition of its fortifications.

An important event was commemorated by the erection of the old castle, it having been built upon the final annexation of Normandy to the crown of France, in consequence of the weakness of our ill-starred monarch,—John Lackland. The French King seems to have suspected that the citizens retained their fealty to their former sovereign. He intended that his fortress should command and bridle the city, instead of defending it. The town-walls were razed, and the Vieille Tour, the ancient palace of the Norman Dukes, levelled with the ground.—But, as the poet says of language, so it is with castles,—

... "mortalia facta peribunt, Nec castellorum stet honos et gratia vivax;"

and, in 1590, the fortress raised by Philip Augustus experienced the fate of its predecessors; it was then ruined and dismantled, and the portion which was allowed to stand, was degraded into a jail. Now the three[51] towers just mentioned are alone remaining, and these would attract little notice, were it not that one of them bears the name of the Tour de la Pucelle, as having been, in 1430, the place of confinement of the unfortunate Joan of Arc, when she was captured before Compiegne and brought prisoner to Rouen.

It must be stated, however, that the first castle recorded to have existed at Rouen, was built by Rollo, shortly after he had made himself master of Neustria. Its very name is now lost; and all we know concerning it is, that it stood near the quay, at the northern extremity of the town, in the situation subsequently occupied by the Church of St. Pierre du Chatel, and the adjoining monastery of the Cordeliers.

After a lapse of less than fifty years, Rouen saw rising within her walls a second castle, the work of Duke Richard Ist, and long the residence of the Norman sovereigns. This, from a tower of great strength which formed a part of it, and which was not demolished till the year 1204, acquired the appellation of la Vieille Tour; and the name remains to this day, though the building has disappeared.

The space formerly occupied by the scite of it is now covered by the halles, considered the finest in France. The historians of Rouen, in the usual strain of hyperbole, hint that their halles are even the finest in the world[52], though they are very inferior to their prototypes at Bruges and Ypres. The hall, or exchange, allotted to the mercers, is two hundred and seventy-two feet in length, by fifty feet wide: those for the drapers and for wool are, each of them, two hundred feet long; and all these are surpassed in size by the corn-hall, whose length extends to three hundred feet. They are built round a large square, the centre of which is occupied by numberless dealers in pottery, old clothes, &c.; and, as the day on which we chanced to visit them was a Friday, when alone they are opened for public business, we found a most lively, curious, and interesting scene.

It was on the top of a stone staircase, the present entry to the halles, that the annual ceremony[53] of delivering and pardoning a criminal for the sake of St. Romain, the tutelary protector of Rouen, was performed on Ascension-day, according to a privilege exercised, from time immemorial, by the Chapter of the Cathedral.

The legend is romantic; and it acquires a species of historical importance, as it became the foundation of a right, asserted even in our own days. My account of it is taken from Dom Pommeraye's History of the Life of the Prelate[54].—He has been relating many miracles performed by him, and, among others, that of causing the Seine, at the time of a great inundation, to retire to its channel by his command, agreeably to the following beautiful stanza of Santeuil:—

"Tangit exundans aqua civitatem; Voce Romanus jubet efficaci; Audiunt fluctus, docilisque cedit Unda jubenti."

Our learned Benedictine thus proceeds:—"But the following miracle was deemed a far greater marvel, and it increased the veneration of the people towards St. Romain to such a degree, that they henceforth regarded him as an actual apostle, who, from the authority of his office, the excellence of his doctrine, his extreme sanctity, and the gift of miracles, deserved to be classed with the earliest preachers of our holy faith. In a marshy spot, near Rouen, was bred a dragon, the very counterpart of that destroyed by St. Nicaise. It committed frightful ravages; lay in wait for man and beast, whom it devoured without mercy; the air was poisoned by its pestilential breath, and it was alone the cause of greater mischief and alarm, than could have been occasioned by a whole army of enemies. The inhabitants, wearied out by many years of suffering, implored the aid of St. Romain; and the charitable and generous pastor, who dreaded nothing in behalf of his flock, comforted them with the assurance of a speedy deliverance. The design itself was noble; still more so was the manner by which he put it in force; for he would not be satisfied with merely killing the monster, but undertook also to bring it to public execution, by way of atonement for its cruelties. For this purpose, it was necessary that the dragon should be caught; but when the prelate required a companion in the attempt, the hearts of all men failed them. He applied, therefore, to a criminal condemned to death for murder; and, by the promise of a pardon, bought his assistance, which the certain prospect of a scaffold, had he refused to accompany the saint, caused him the more willingly to lend. Together they went, and had no sooner reached the marsh, the monster's haunt, than St. Romain, approaching courageously, made the sign of the cross, and at once put it out of the power of the dragon to attempt to do him injury. He then tied his stole around his neck, and, in that state, delivered him to the prisoner, who dragged him to the city, where he was burned in the presence of all the people, and his ashes thrown into the river.—The manuscript of the Abbey of Hautmont, from which this legend is extracted, adds, that such was the fame of this miracle throughout France, that Dagobert, the reigning sovereign, sent for St. Romain to court, to hear a true narrative of the fact from his own lips; and, impressed with reverent awe, bestowed the celebrated privilege upon him and his successors for ever."

The right has, in comparatively modern times, been more than once contested, but always maintained; and so great was the celebrity of the ceremony, that princes and potentates have repeatedly travelled to Rouen, for the purpose of witnessing it. There are not wanting, however, those[55] who treat the whole story as allegorical, and believe it to be nothing more than a symbolical representation of the subversion of idolatry, or of the confining of the Seine to its channel; the winding course of the river being typified by a serpent, and the word Gargouille corrupted from gurges. Other writers differ in minor points of the story, and alledge that the saint had two fellow adventurers, a thief as well as a murderer, and that the former ran away, while the latter stood firm. You will see it thus figured in a modern painting on St. Romain's altar, in the cathedral; and there are two persons also with him, in the only ancient representation of the subject I am acquainted with, a bas-relief which till lately existed at the Porte Bouvreuil, and of which, by the kindness of M. Riaux, I am enabled to send you a drawing.



To keep alive the tradition, in which Popish superstition has contrived to blend Judaic customs with heathen mythology, the practice was, that the prisoner selected for pardon should be brought to this place, called the chapel of St. Romain, and should here be received by the clergy in full robes, headed by the archbishop, and bearing all the relics of the church; among others, the shrine of St. Romain, which the criminal, after having been reprimanded and absolved, but still kneeling, thrice lifted, among the shouts of the populace, and then, with a garland upon his head and the shrine in his hands, accompanied the clergy in procession to the cathedral[56].—But the revolution happily consigned the relics to their kindred dust, and put an end to a privilege eminently liable to abuse, from the circumstance of the pardon being extended, not only to the criminal himself, but to all his accomplices; so that, an inferior culprit sometimes surrendered himself to justice, in confidence of interest being made to obtain him the shrine, and thus to shield under his protection more powerful and more guilty delinquents. The various modifications, however, of latter times, had so abridged its power, that it was at last only able to rescue a man guilty of involuntary homicide[57]. We may hope, therefore, it was not altogether deserving the hard terms bestowed upon it by Millin[58] who calls it the most absurd, most infamous, and most detestable of all privileges, and adduces a very flagrant instance of injustice committed under its plea.—D'Alegre, governor of Gisors, in consequence of a private pique against the Baron du Hallot, lord of the neighboring town of Vernon, treacherously assassinated him at his own house, while he was yet upon crutches, in consequence of the wounds received at the siege of Rouen. This happened during the civil wars; in the course of which, Hallot had signalized himself as a faithful servant, and useful assistant to the monarch. The murderer knew that there were no hopes for him of royal mercy; and, after having passed some time in concealment and as a soldier in the army of the league, he had recourse to the Chapter of the Cathedral of Rouen, from whom he obtained the promise of the shrine of St. Romain. To put full confidence, however, even in this, would, under such circumstances, have been imprudent. The clergy might break their word, or a mightier power might interpose. D'Alegre, therefore, persuaded a young mam, formerly a page of his, of the name of Pehu, to surrender himself as guilty of the crime; and to him the privilege was granted; under the sanction of which, the real culprit, and several of his accomplices in the assassination, obtained a free pardon. The widow and daughter of Hallot, in vain remonstrated: the utmost that could be done, after a tedious law-suit, was to procure a small fine to be imposed upon Pehu, and to cause him to be banished from Normandy and Picardy and the vicinity of Paris. But regulations were in consequence adopted with respect to the exercise of the privilege; and the pardons granted under favor of it were ever afterwards obliged to be ratified under the high seal of the kingdom.