This remnant barricaded themselves in the Tour Carrée, which Henry the Fifth had built to the north-west of the old fort, after the siege of Rouen. Ricarville hastily retired for help to Marshal de Boussac, and during his absence his companions, attacked by reinforcements of the English, were obliged to take refuge in the donjon, where they were hotly besieged by artillery which seriously damaged the second storey of the tower. Forced to surrender after three weeks of heroic resistance, the whole hundred were beheaded in the Vieux Marché. For fifty days this handful of men had held the entire English garrison in check, and yet not a man had thought of rescuing Jeanne d'Arc scarcely a year ago.
Jacques Lelieur's map shows that by 1525 a new roof had been put on the donjon, in the shape of a platform with embrasures. By 1591 Valdory, whose account of the siege by Henri Quatre I shall mention later, records that it was almost ruined. In 1610 its remnants were spared, when the rest of the castle was demolished to make a practice-ground for the arquebusiers of the town. After passing into private hands, the tower became the property of a convent in the eighteenth century. In 1796 it was sold to another private owner, who was warned to be careful of the well within the walls that was supplied by the spring Gaalor. By 1809 some nuns bought it again, and for long the old donjon decorated incongruously a portion of the garden in the Ursuline Convent. In 1842 M. Deville, Inspecteur des Monuments Historiques, drew public attention to its value, and was supported by M. Barthélemy the municipal architect. The publication of M. Quicherat's five volumes of the "Trials," in 1849, renewed the interest in all that had to do with Jeanne d'Arc. After a long and most creditable agitation, a committee, on which M. F. Bouquet served as secretary, was formed under the presidency of the mayor, M. Verdrel. The ground was bought from the Ursuline nuns, the trained advice of M. Viollet le Duc was solicited, and by the active assistance of MM. Desmarest and Durand the tower was finally restored as you may see it now.
Though the filling up of the moat makes it look shorter than it really is, a great deal of the old masonry remains intact, and so carefully has the restoring work been done that in the embrasures and recesses on both first and second floors you may still see the scratches and inscriptions of prisoners or sentinels, much as they are preserved in our own Tower of London. On Wednesday, the 18th of February 1874, the work of reconstruction was finished by the placing of the iron vane with its great fleur-de-lys upon the summit of the conical roof. It is the fourth floor, just beneath this vane, that is the most interesting of all the new work, as it presents a complete and accurate picture of mediæval defences, showing both the wooden hoarding which projected beyond the walls in order to give space to hurl down stones and boiling lead, and the guard's chemin-de-ronde cut in the solid wall with its openings that communicate with each side. Its walls conjure up a flood of memories of the men and women who saw those solid cliffs of masonry before they fell into ruin and restoration:—
"Berthe au grand pied, Bietris, Allys
Harembourges, qui tint le Mayne,
Et Jehanne la bonne Lorraine
Qu'Anglois bruslèrent à Rouen:
Où sont-ilz, Vierge Souveraine?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?"
On the 10th of November 1449 Charles the Seventh of France was riding through his own good town of Rouen; by his side were Jacques Cœur, René d'Anjou, King of Sicily, and Pierre de Brézé. The English had surrendered Rouen, and all of them were on their way home again who had not left their bones in France.
CHAPTER X
A City of Churches
Et concupiscet Rex decorem tuum quoniam ipse est Dominus Deus et adorabunt eum. Et filiae Tyri in muneribus vultum tuum deprecabuntur; omnes divites plebis. Omnis gloria ejus filiae regis ab intus, in fimbreis aureis, circumamicta varietatibus.