Désile was bidden to Le Tellier's house, and met there, somewhat to his embarrassment, the entire regiment of the worthy merchant's relatives, including the girl's great uncle, Abbé Viote, one of the Cathedral dignitaries, who eyed him with a sanctimonious calm that gave him his first tremor of uncertainty. Demoiselle Alice was formally summoned into the family gathering, and announced her intention of remaining single with all the innocent and unaffected purity of a novice at a convent. After which, Madame presented the disappointed suitor with a letter for the King, wherein was duly set forth how that "she had received the royal letter asking for the hand of her daughter in marriage for the King's squire; that as for herself and her family, both themselves and their goods were at the service of His Majesty; that unfortunately her husband had not yet returned from market, and therefore other answer was as yet impossible save that her daughter in presence of the family had declared her unwillingness to marry; that she prayed God to bless His Majesty with long and happy life, and was his humble and obedient servant, Estiennotte, wife of Jehan le Tellier."
The wrath of King Louis, the sarcasms of Tristan l'Hermite, the laughter of Olivier le Daim; these things you must imagine for yourself, when that letter was read before His Majesty. But the fact remains that other and more pressing business called Désile away to foreign wars, and Demoiselle Alice consoled herself for her royally appointed suitor by giving distinct encouragement to the merchant opposite who had laid such stress upon the inviolable privileges of the "Charte aux Normands." The story went the round of Rouen, from the Rue du Hallage to the Hôtellerie des Bons Enfants and back again, and you can almost hear its echoes still in that old Rouen
"des vieux pignons aigus
comme des épines dorsales
Bombant les angles contigues
Sur les solives tranversales.—
Les logis causent de tout près,
Et l'ombre leur est coutumière,
On jurerait qu'ils font exprès
De manquer d'air et lumière."
And you will pardon me that for a moment I have listened to that muttered gossip, to the scandal that one old roof-tree whispered to another whilst it leant across the narrow street, as some old woman mumbles secrets to her neighbour with bleared eyes winking beneath her shaggy brows. There was far more talking in the streets then than there is now, especially in such crowded little passage-ways as this old Rue du Hallage, a corruption from the Maison du Haulage where taxes on the corporations and on goods sold in the market-halls were levied. For in the fourteenth century for the 228,000 inhabitants of Paris there were only twenty-four "hotels" and eighty-six "taverns," and the similar disproportion in Rouen was only made up for, in the case of the "genuine traveller," by the unstinted hospitality of such monasteries and hospitals as those at St. Catherine, St. Vivien, or St. Martin.
But the taverns or wine-shops did a roaring trade. On their benches the burgesses sat every afternoon discussing business matters with their lawyers over the light "vin du pays," or bought a few bottles of the "vin de choix," which was the recognised offering to preachers, judges, councillors, and kings alike.[35] It was, in fact, no bad thing to be the advocate in a case when a rich monastery was concerned, for the Abbey of St. Gervais records about this time that it gave its judges and lawyers in one very critical lawsuit, a dinner at their favourite hotel, comprising fish and pears and meat and hypocras (no less!) and ginger and sugar and a hundred oysters. Not in that order let us hope, though the bowels of men of law are traditionally tough, and the hospitality of the intention is undoubted.
Till the end of the fifteenth century mine host was called the "Seigneur" of his sign, as the "Seigneur de l'Ours, Seigneur de la Fleur de Lys;" and though by the close of the sixteenth century we still find a "Dame de la Croix Rouge" for the hostess, her husband had become (I quote from the accounts in the Archevêché) "maître du Pilier vert," or "maître de l'Écrevisse." But even earlier than the fifteenth century it was already possible to get good lodging for the night at an hotel in Rouen, for a contract of 1395 has been preserved, made between Guillaume Blanc-baston and Guillaume Marc to furnish forth a hostelry, much as we may imagine the Hôtel des Bons Enfants was furnished in its youth. "Four casks of good wine at ten livres," says this document; "twelve good beds with twenty-four pairs of sheets; eight cups and a goblet with a silver foot; a dozen 'hanaps' of pewter," with pots and pans and pewter dishes innumerable.[36]
A COBBLER OF ROUEN,
FROM THE STALLS
OF THE CATHEDRAL In such an old courtyard as this of the "Bons Enfants," with its overhanging balcony, and queerly managed stables, or in other old inns like No. 19 Rue des Matelas, or No. 4 Rue Étoupée with its charming "signboard," men sat and talked of their various trades, the cobbler, for instance, who is carved on the Cathedral stalls, with the clog-maker, and the wool-comber, and the carpenter, all met and gossiped of their latest piece of profitable business, while the lawyers discussed the never-ending question of the Privilège de St. Romain with some learned clerk over their "vin blanc d'Anjou." By the fourteenth century the list of the prisoners released by the Cathedral Chapter begins to be very full and detailed, and we can quite imagine what was talked about in every tavern of the town as Ascension-tide drew near.
In 1360, for example, the King's Mint was already established in the Rue St. Eloi, and you may still see it at No. 30 in that street as you go up on the right hand from the river to the Place St. Eloi. The "Hôtel des Monnaies" has been all whitewashed over, but there is a strong and ancient look about the windows on the street façade that warns you to go through the little passage-way, to find the soldiers of the Douane lounging about the courtyard inside. On the back of the houses that look out upon the street you will see the arms and cipher of François Premier, which show that in his days the Mint still remained in a house that was far older. And in 1360 the "Officer of the Mint of the parish of St. Eloi," who quarrelled about the price of his chicken in the Parvis, "voulait avoir de la poulaille à son pris." He must have done his bargaining in very strong language, for one of the three brothers Sautel who kept the shop, smote him that he died, and it was to these brothers that the privilege of raising the Fierte St. Romain with pardon for this crime, was in that year granted.