I stood by that stone a long time. For there, on that very spot, is sacred ground. There, six hundred years ago, a human soul dared death in its most terrible aspect, for—the sake of an Idea. There are very few to-day, men or women, who would dare so much for the sake of an idea: even when that idea is backed by faith, as hers was. And yet there is nothing greater, nothing more powerful, if one could see it in its true light, than an idea of the kind that was hers.
A little side street leading out of the Place de Vieux Marché brings one into the quiet little Place de la Pucelle. Here, there is a statue (not in the least inspiring, however) to St. Jeanne d'Arc, hung round with the inevitable artificial wreaths, so dear to the French, in honour of her memory. The statue itself is blackened and covered with a soft mantle of green from much wreath-bearing. There is also a Latin inscription. The square itself is diamond-shaped, and only one black-timbered house remains to it of all that graced it in Joan's days. There is, it is true, standing back in its own courtyard, that wonderful Hotel Bourgtheroulde, (which was begun in the sixteenth century,) but this is not easily seen if you enter the square from the further end.
FONTAINE DE ST. CROIX, ROUEN.
[Page 137.
I saw it at dusk. The quiet figure rising dark against the twilight sky; some white-capped peasants crossing the street quietly; the distant cries and laughter of children playing about the fountain in the midst; the windows of the houses gleaming redly against the cobbled pavement; steep roofs rising all round, standing out in the half light distinct and sharp, made an impression on one's memory not easily to be wiped out.
Rouen is the happy hunting-ground of the antiquary: the old houses are almost inexhaustible. Streets upon streets of them, untouched in all their splendid picturesqueness. One strikes up some narrow, cobbled passage between timbered houses, rising high on either side, a narrow strip of blue sky shewing far above, and one comes suddenly upon lovely old corbels, exquisite bits of old sculpture, by some corner across which strikes the soft shine from the blue lilac slate of some steep roof immediately above it. At one's foot is the inevitable little border to almost every old street—the trickling stream gleaming where the sun slants down on it.
The only sound that breaks on one's ear in these old streets is the clatter of sabots, and the sedate, slow-paced carillon from the cathedral bells close by. Sometimes in one's wanderings one comes upon one or other of the numerous old carved stone fountains which stand here and there at street corners in Rouen—sculptured, but generally much discoloured and defaced.
Quite unexpectedly, again, one chances on flagged courtyards, the houses round having magnificent, old black oak staircases giving on to them. One street was especially full of characteristic corners. I remember once passing down it when the whole place seemed asleep: and the only sounds that struck on one's ear were the plaintive, soft lament of an unseen dove, and the distant wail of a violin from some projecting upper story of a gabled house.