Writing to a friend may be regarded, if we extend to writing the happy comparison which Lord Bacon has applied to conversation, not as walking in a high-road which leads direct to a house, but rather as strolling through a country intersected with a variety of paths, in which the traveller wanders as fancy or accident directs. Hence I shall scarcely apologize for my abrupt transition to another very different subject, the hospitals.—There are at Rouen two such establishments, situated at opposite extremes of the town, the Hospice Général and the Hôtel Dieu, more commonly called la Madeleine. The latter is appropriated only to the sick; the former is also open to the aged, to foundlings, to paupers, and to lunatics. For the poor, I have been able to hear of no other provision; and poor-laws, as you know, have no existence in France; yet, even here, in a manufacturing town, and at a season of distress, beggary is far from extreme. These institutions, like all the rest at Rouen, are said to be under excellent management.
The annual expences of la Madeleine are estimated at two hundred and forty thousand-francs[[115]]; out of which sum, no less than forty-seven thousand francs are expended in bread. The number of individuals admitted here, during the first nine months of 1805, the last authentic statement I have been able to procure, was two thousand seven hundred and seventeen: during the same period, two thousand one hundred and fifty-eight were discharged, and two hundred and seventy died. The building is modern and handsome, and situated at the end of a fine avenue. The church, a Corinthian edifice, and indisputably the handsomest building of that description at Rouen, is generally admired. The Hospice Général, destitute as it is of architectural magnificence, cannot be visited without satisfaction. When I was at this hospital, the old men who are housed there were seated at their dinner, and I have seldom witnessed a more pleasing sight. They exhibited an appearance of cleanliness, propriety, good order, and comfort, equally creditable to themselves and to the institution. The number of inmates usually resident in this building is about two thousand; and they consisted, in 1805, of one hundred and sixty aged men, one hundred and eighty aged women, six hundred children, and eight hundred and twenty-five invalids. Among the latter were forty lunatics. The food here allowed to the helpless poor is of good quality; and, as far as I could learn, is afforded in sufficient quantity: there are also two work-shops; in one of which, articles are manufactured for the use of the house; in the other, for sale.
The principal towns of France, as was anciently the case in England, have each its mint. The numismatic antiquities of this kingdom are yet involved in considerable obscurity; but it is said that the monetary privileges of the towns were first settled by Charles the Bald[[116]], who, about the year 835, enacted, that money, which had previously only been coined in the royal palace itself, or in places where the sovereign was present, should be struck in future at Paris, Rouen, Rheims, Sens, Chalons sur Saone, Mesle in Poitou, and Narbonne. At present, the money struck at Rouen is impressed with the letter B, indicating that the mint is second only to that of Paris; for the city has remained in possession of the right of coinage throughout all its various changes of masters: it now holds it in common with ten other, cities in the kingdom. Ducarel[[117]] has figured two very scarce silver pennies, coined here by William the Conqueror, before the invasion of England; and Snelling and Ruding[[118]] detail ordinances for the regulation of the mintage of Rouen, during the reign of Henry Vth. I have not been able, however, to procure in the city any specimens of these, or of other Norman coins; and in fact the native spot of articles of virtu is seldom the place where they can be procured either genuine or in abundance. Greek medals, I am told, are regularly exported from Birmingham to Athens, for the supply of our travelled gentlemen; and, if groats and pennies should ever rise in the market, I doubt not but that they will find their way in plenty into the old towns of Normandy. There is not, at Rouen, any public collection of the productions of the mint. Since the annexation of the duchy to the crown of France, no coins have been struck here, except the common silver currency of the kingdom: the manufacture of medals and of gold coins is exclusively the privilege of the Parisian mint. The establishment is under the care of a commissary and assay-master, appointed by the crown, but not salaried. Their pay depends upon the amount of money coined, on which they are allowed one and a half per cent., and are left to find silver where they can; so that, in effect, it is little more than a private concern. The work is performed by four die-presses, moved by levers, each of which requires ten men; and about twenty thousand pieces can be produced daily from each press. But this method of working is attended with unequal pressure, and causes both trouble and uncertainty: it is even necessary that each coin should be separately weighed. The extreme superiority of the machinery of our own mint, where the whole operation is performed by steam, with a rapidity and accuracy altogether astonishing, affords Just reason for exultation to an Englishman.—It is true, that the execution of our bank paper rather counterbalances such feelings of complacency.
Footnotes:
[105] This appears from the following inscription now upon a silver tablet placed near it.—"Ce tableau est celui qui fut donné par Louis XII, en 1499, à l'Exchiquier, lorsqu'il le rendit permanent. C'est le seul de tous les ornemens de ce palais qui ait échappé aux ravages de la révolution: il a été conservé par les soins de M. Gouel, graveur, et par lui remis à la cour royale de Rouen qui l'a fait placer ici, comme un monument de la piété d'un roi, à qui sa bonté mérita le surnom de père du peuple, et dont les vertus se reproduisent aujourd'hui dans la personne non moins chérie que sacrée de sa majesté très chrétienne, Louis XVIII, 15 Janvier, 1816."
[106] Du Cange, (I. p. 24.) quoting from a book printed at Rouen, in 1587, under the title of Les Triomphes de l'Abbaye des Conards, &c. gives the following curious mock patent from the abbot of this confraternity, addressed to somebody of the name of De Montalinos.—
"Provisio Cardinalatus Rothomagensis Julianensis, &c.
"Paticherptissime Pater, &c.
"Abbas Conardorum et inconardorum ex quacumque Natione, vel genitatione sint aut fuerint: Dilecto nostro filio naturali et illegitimo Jacobo à Montalinasio salutem et sinistram benedictionem. Tua talis qualis vita et sancta reputatio cum bonis servitiis ... et quod diffidimus quòd postea facies secundùm indolem adolescentiæ ac sapientiæ tuæ in Conardicis actibus, induxenunt nos, &c. Quocirca mandamus ad amicos, inimicos et benefactores nostros qui ex hoc sæculo transierunt vel transituri sunt ... quatenus habeant te ponere, statuere, instalare et investire tàm in choro, chordis et organo, quàm in cymbalis bene sonantibus, faciantque te jocundari et ludere de libertatibus franchisiis, &c.... Voenundatum in tentorio nostro prope sanctum Julianum sub annulo peccatoris anno pontificatus nostri, 6. Kalend. fabacearum, hora verò noctis 17. more Conardorum computando, &c."