These, or similar ceremonies, call them if you please absurdities, or call them impieties, (you will in neither case be far from their proper name,) were in the early ages of Christianity tolerated in almost every place. Mr. Douce has furnished us with some curious remarks upon them in the eleventh volume of the Archaeologia, and Mr. Ellis in his new edition of Brand's Popular Antiquities. I am indebted to the first of these gentlemen for the knowledge that the inclosed etching, copied some time ago from a drawing by Mr. Joseph Harding, is allusive to the ceremony of the feast of fools, and does not represent a group of morris-dancers, as I had erroneously supposed. Indeed, Mr. Douce believes that many of the strange carvings on the misereres in our cathedrals have references to these practices. And yet, to the honor of England, they never appear to have been equally common with us as in France.—According to Du Cange[[108]], the confraternity of the Conards or Cornards was confined to Rouen and Evreux. I have not been able to ascertain when they were suppressed; but they certainly existed in the time of Taillepied, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, about fifty years previously to which they dropped their original name of Coqueluchers. At this time too they had evidently degenerated from the primary object of their institution, "ridendo castigare mores atque in omne quod turpitèr factum fuerat ridiculum immittere." Taillepied was an eye-witness of their practices; and he prudently contents himself with saying; "le fait est plus clair à le voir que je ne pourrois icy l'escrire."
At a short distance from the palace is a small square, called the Place de la Pucelle, a name which it has but recently acquired, in lieu of the more familiar appellation of le Marché aux Veaux. The present title records one of the most interesting events in the history of Rouen, the execution of the unfortunate Joan of Arc, which is said to have taken place on the very spot now covered by the monument that commemorates her fate. Three different ones have in succession occupied this place. The first was a cross, erected in 1454, only twenty-four years after her death; for even at this early period, the King of France had obtained from Pope Calixtus IIIrd, a bull directing the revision of her sentence, and he had caused her innocence to be acknowledged. The second was a fountain of delicate workmanship, consisting of three tiers of columns placed one above the other, on a triangular plan, the whole decorated with arabesques and statues of saints, while the Maid herself crowned the summit, and the water flowed through pipes that terminated in horses' heads. The present monument is inferior to the second, equally in design and in workmanship: it is a plain triangular pedestal, ornamented with dolphins at the base, and surmounted by the heroine in military costume. Of the two last, figures are given by Millin[[109]], who could not be expected to suffer a subject to escape him, so calculated for the gratification of national pride. In a preceding volume of the same work[[110]], he has represented the monument erected to her memory by Charles VIIth, upon the bridge at Orleans: the latter is commemorative of her triumphs; that at Rouen, only of her capture and death. But the King testified his gratitude by more substantial tokens: he ennobled her three brothers and their descendants; and even allowed the females of the family to confer their rank upon the persons whom they married, a privilege which they continued to enjoy till the time of Louis XIIIth, who abolished it in 1634.
In the square is a house within a court, now occupied as a school for girls, of the same æra as the Palais de Justice, and in the same Burgundian style, but far richer in its sculptures. The entire front is divided into compartments by slender and lengthened buttresses and pilasters. The intervening spaces are filled with basso-relievos, evidently executed at one period, though by different masters. A banquet beneath a window in the first floor, is in a good cinque-cento style. Others of the basso-relievos, represent the labors of the field and the vineyard; rich and fanciful in their costume, but rather wooden in their design: the Salamander, the emblem of Francis Ist, appears several times amongst the ornaments, and very conspicuously. I believe there is not a single square foot of this extraordinary building, which has not been sculptured.—On the north side extends a spacious gallery. Here the architecture is rather in Holbein's manner: foliaged and swelling pilasters, like antique candelabra, bound the arched windows. Beneath, is the well-known series of bas-reliefs, executed on marble tablets, representing the interview between Francis Ist of France, and Henry VIIIth of England, in the Champ du Drap d'or, between Guisnes and Ardres. They were first discovered by the venerable father Montfaucon, who engraved them in his Monumens de la Monarchie Française[[111]]; but to the greater part of our antiquaries at home, they are, perhaps, more commonly known by the miserable copies inserted in Ducarel's work, who has borrowed most of his plates from the Benedictine.—These sculptures are much mutilated, and so obscured by smoke and dirt, that the details cannot be understood without great difficulty. The corresponding tablets above the windows, are even in a worse condition; and they appear to have been almost unintelligible in the time of Montfaucon, who conjectures that they were allegorical, and probably intended to represent the triumph of religion. Each tablet contains a triumphal car, drawn by different animals, one by elephants, another by lions, and so on, and crowded with mythological figures and attributes.—A friend of mine, who examined them this summer, tells me, that he thinks the subjects are either taken from the triumphs of Petrarch, or imitated from the triumphs introduced in the Polifilo. Graphic representations of allegories are susceptible of so many variations, that an artist, embodying the ideas of the poet, might produce a representation bearing a close resemblance to the mythological processions of the mystic dream.—Of one of the most perfect of the historical subjects, I send you a drawing: it is the first in order in Montfaucon's work, and exhibits the suite of the King of England, on their way from the town of Guisnes, to meet the French monarch. Two of the figures might be mistaken for Henry himself and Wolsey, riding familiarly side by side; but these dignified personages have more important parts allotted them in the second and third compartments, where they appear in the full-blown honors of their respective characters.
The interior has been modernized; so that a beam covered with small carvings is the only remaining object of curiosity. On the top, a bunch of leaden thistles has been a sad puzzle to antiquaries, who would fain find some connection between the building and Scotland; but neither record nor tradition throw any light upon their researches. Montfaucon, copying from a manuscript written by the Abbé Noel, says, "I have more than once been told that Francis Ist, on his way through Rouen, lodged at this house; and it is most probable, that the bas-reliefs in question were made upon some of these occasions, to gratify the king by the representation of a festival, in which he particularly delighted." The gallery sculptures are very fine, and the upper tier is much in the style of Jean Goujon. It is not generally known that Goujon re-drew the embellishments of Beroald de Verville's translation of the Polifilo; and that these, beautiful as they are in the Aldine edition, acquired new graces from the French artist.—I have remarked that the allegorical tablets appear to coincide with the designs of the Polifilo: a more accurate examination might, perhaps, prove the fact; and then little doubt would remain. The building is much dilapidated; and, unless speedily repaired, these basso-relievos, which would adorn any museum, will utterly perish. In spite of neglect and degradations, the aspect of the mansion is still such that, as my friend observed, one would expect to see a fair and stately matron standing in the porch, attired in velvet, waiting to receive her lord.—In the adjoining house, once, probably, a part of the same, but now an inn, bearing the sign of la Pucelle, is shewn a circular room, much ornamented, with a handsome oriel conspicuous on the outside. In this apartment, the Maid is said to have been tried; but it is quite certain that not a stone of the building was then put of the quarry.
Hence I must take you, and still under the auspices of Millin[[112]], to the great town-clock, or, as it is here called, la Tour de la Grosse Horloge; and I cannot help wishing on the occasion, that I had half the powers of instructing and amusing which he possessed. Like the writers in our most popular Reviews, he uses the subjects which he places at the head of his articles as little more than a peg, whereon to hang whatever he knows connected with the matter; and the result is, that he is never read without pleasure or information. Such is peculiarly the case in the present instance, in which he takes an opportunity of giving the history of the origin of clocks, tracing them from the simple dial, and particularising the most curious and intricate contrivances of modern ingenuity. Another name of the tower which contains this clock, is la Tour du Beffroi, or, as we should say in English, the Belfry; for the two words have the same meaning, and it is not to be doubted but that they originated from the same root, the Anglo-Saxon bell, whence barbarous Latinists have formed Belfredus and Berfredus, terms for moveable towers used in sieges, and so denominated from their resemblance in form to bell-towers. I mention this etymology, because the French have misled themselves strangely on the subject; and one of them has wandered so widely in his conjectures, as to derive beffroi from bis effroi, supposing it to be the cause of double alarm! Happily, in the most alarming of all times for France, that of the revolution, this bell, though appointed the tocsin, had scarcely ever occasion to sound. There is, however, another purpose, alarming at all periods, and especially in a town built of wood, to which it is appropriated, and to which we only yesterday heard it applied, the ringing to announce a fire. The precautions taken against similar accidents in Rouen, are excellent, and they had need be so; for insurance-companies of any kind are unknown, I believe, in France[[113]], or exist only upon a most limited scale, at the foot of the Pyrenees, where the farmers mutually insure each other against the effects of the hail. The daily office of this bell is to sound the curfew, a practice which, under different names, is still kept up through Normandy. Here it rings nightly at nine. In other towns it rings at nine in winter only, but not till ten in summer. In some places it is called la retraite.
Adjoining the bell-tower is a fountain, ornamented with statues of Alpheus and Arethusa, united by Cupid; a specimen of the taste of the far-famed siècles de Louis XIV et de Louis XV, and a worthy companion of the water-works at Versailles. There are in Rouen more than thirty public fountains, all supplied by five different springs, among which, those of Yonville and of Darnétal are accounted to afford the purest water.—The Robec and the Aubette also flow through Rouen in artificial channels. St. Louis granted them both to the city in 1262; but it was the great benefactor of the place, the Cardinal d'Amboise, who brought them within the walls, by means of a canal, which he caused to be dug at his own expence. For a space of two leagues their banks are uninterruptedly lined with mills and manufactories of various descriptions; and it is this circumstance which has given rise to the saying, that Rouen is a wonderful place, for "that it has a river with three hundred bridges, and whose waters change their color ten times a day."
As a building, the fountain of Lisieux, decorated with a bas-relief representing Parnassus, with Apollo, the Muses, and Pegasus, is most frequently pointed out to strangers; a wretched specimen of wretched taste. Infinitely more interesting to us are the Gothic fountains or conduits, which are now wholly wanting in England. Such is the fountain de la Croix de Pierre, which, in shape, style, and ornaments, resembles the monumental crosses erected by; our King Edward Ist, for his Queen Eleanor. The water flows from pipes in the basement. The stone statues, which filled the tabernacles, were destroyed during the revolution: they have been replaced by others in wood.—The fountain de la Crosse is of inferior size, and more recent date. It is a polygon, with sides of pannelled work, each compartment occupied by a pointed arch, with tracery in the spandrils. It ends in a short truncated pyramid, which, in Millin's time, was surmounted by a royal crown[[114]]. Its name is taken from a house, at whose corner it stands, and on whose roof was originally a crozier.