"So I will, Jean, and first you bring me that big roll which you will find on the side-table in the dining-room."
Jean was back with it directly, and Uncle Daboll unrolled a big poster, advertising the fêtes. It showed a fine, strong man in ancient armour, seated on a prancing horse, carrying on his arm a shield, emblazoned with two red lions, and holding aloft a spear. Below him on the river were to be seen three small boats, each with one sail, and also arranged so that it could be rowed by hand.
"This represents Rollo," went on M. Daboll, as the children clustered around him, "the leader of a great race of people whose home was in the cold, far-away North. Tall people they were, with golden hair, and great sailors, who sailed in tiny ships, like those you see in the picture, over the bleak, stormy sea which lies between their land and France, until they came to the river Seine, where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean.
"They rowed up the river and camped where the fine city of Rouen now stands, and from these fair-haired Northmen are descended the present-day Normans. It has been many centuries since all this happened, so the good people of Rouen thought this a suitable time to celebrate the founding of their city, and of the great Norman race, at one time the most powerful in France."
"And at Rouen we shall also see the spot where poor Jeanne d'Arc was burned," said Marie. "We have just been reading her history at the school."
"Tell us her story again," said Jean.
"She will on the barge. You will have plenty of time then," said M. Lafond; "but we must be getting home now. It is quite a walk, and our little Marie must be tired after her long day."
It was about six o'clock in the morning of the next day when the gay little party found themselves on the barge bound for Rouen.
"Now here comes our tow that we must tie up to," said the bargeman, as a tug with five barges in tow came puffing down the river; and taking a long pole with a hook in the end of it, he began pushing the barge away from the shore until it moved toward the middle of the river. Then the tugboat slowed down until the long line of barges was just creeping along; one could hardly see that they moved at all. Just as the last one passed that which carried our party, the man in the stern of it threw them a rope which was quickly caught and fastened to the forward end, and as it grew taut, the barge began to move and soon took its place at the tail-end of the long procession.