Copyright by Underwood & Underwood
The Seine at Rouen Page 210
For nearly twenty miles the road cut a white swath through the treeless plain of St. André to the cathedral town of Evreux. The wheat fields and cathedrals of Normandy should be mentioned in the same sentence. France, so full of the picturesque, has few finer sights than the view of these airy cathedral spires while one is still miles away from any town. We zigzagged into the valley of Iton, climbed, swooped downward, and crossing that hurrying stream, ran beside the river Eure into the main street of Louviers. The warning, "Allure modère," was unnecessary. The cobble stones were sufficient to make us slacken speed. The beauty of the church of Nôtre Dame served to stop us completely. The church, with its profuse embroidery of rich, delicate carving, shone like a jewel amid the motley and jumbled houses. It was like finding a rosebush blooming in the gutter of some neglected street. Through the forest of Pont de l'Arche to the town of the same name, where we crossed the Seine, past bright little Norman cottages, our route shot ahead to Rouen, the center of cotton manufacturing for France, the most interesting mediæval city in Normandy, and renowned the world over for splendid Gothic churches. After inspecting the rooms of two or three hotels, we chose the Hôtel d'Angleterre, close by the crowded traffic of the Seine.
Sight-seeing in Rouen is more convenient by carriage than by motor car. We moved from the abbey church of St. Ouen to the church of St. Maclou. If Europe had no other remains of Gothic art, Rouen would be enough to describe all the splendor of that style of architecture. The cathedral is a whole library of description in itself. Curious is the legend of the Tour de Beurre, built by money received from indulgences sold, and permitting the people to eat butter in Lent.
"At the base of the Tour St. Romain, there still stands the lodge of the porter whose duties from very early times right up to 1760, included the care of the fierce watchdogs who were at night let loose in the cathedral to guard its many precious treasures from robbers. How much would we give for a glimpse of one of those porters walking through the cavernous gloom of these echoing aisles, with his lamp throwing strange shadows from the great slouching dogs!"[8]
The central tower rises into a great spire of open iron work, more than one and a half times as high as the steeple of Trinity Church in New York. One seldom sees anything so quaintly picturesque as the little wooden cloister, Aître Saint-Maclou. From its courtyard, the burial ground for so many victims of the Black Death of 1348, one sees mediæval spires which rise in all directions. Another vivid reminder of the past is the archway of the Grosse Horloge, with its huge clock in colors of blue and gold and dating from the sixteenth century.
But the impressions of Rouen that thrilled us most related to the sad closing days of Jeanne d'Arc. At Orléans we saw her in the hour of victory, a young girl dictating to experienced generals, cutting her way through the English army around the city and bringing provisions and succor to the beleaguered inhabitants. Our cocher escorted us to the tower where, with instruments of torture around her, she faced and baffled her brutal inquisitors. In the old market place, the scene of her martyrdom, one is shown a simple slab which reads, "Jeanne d'Arc, 30 Mai, 1431." This marks the spot where she was burned at the stake.
The last lap of the trip, the ride to Dieppe on the English Channel, was past many large Norman farms. Neat haystacks dotted the rolling acres. Nowhere else had we seen so many horses,—big, powerful creatures. Normandy breeds and exports them. Apple orchards were in constant view. Coasting down a long hill into the city, we left the car in the garage of the Grand Hôtel, and joined an enthusiastic crowd which was watching a football game between Dieppe and Rouen.
The new France is keenly interested in sports and games. In 1912 there was held in Paris the International Congress for Physical Culture, the idea being to impress upon the young the need for physical development. The extent to which the idea of physical culture has captured France will be evident from the following figures: in 1896 the various athletic societies had less than fifty thousand members; to-day, they have more than three hundred thousand members. France has indeed entered upon a new era. The chief characteristic of it is not literary but practical, self-assertive, and everywhere for action. The young Frenchman of to-day is more interested in sports than in art or literature. A French professor recently said: "I have lived my life in my library. There I have passed through my intellectual crises. There I have experienced my most fervent emotions. In the lives of my sons I notice that books play a very little part, or if they read, it is biography, and especially the biography of men of action like Napoleon."