In the last half of the eighteenth century it was that Rouen lost most of her mediæval characteristics, under the levelling régime of Intendant de Crosne, whose one good work was the building of the boulevards. Hardly as much change was wrought when the great new streets of 1859 were cut that swept away the old infected quarters of the fifteenth century. The Revolution, that is responsible for the debasement of St. Laurent and St. Ouen, among many other atrocities, did most injury in abolishing those picturesque local bodies, like the "Cinquantaine" and the "Arquebusiers," and substituting for them a meaningless "Garde Nationale." Its efforts at "national" nomenclature were fortunately in most cases abortive.
The Rouen of to-day, though so much taken up with commerce, is not unworthy of her great traditions. A town that in art can show the names of Poussin, Jouvenet, and Géricault; and in letters, Gustave Flaubert, Maupassant, and Hector Malot, has not been left too far behind by older memories. But it is in the number of its citizens who have devoted themselves to the history and the archæology of their own town, their "Ville Musée," that Rouen has been especially blest. In Farin the historian, in M. de Caumont the archæologist, in Langlois, de la Quérière, Deville, Pottier, Bouquet, Périaux; above all, in Floquet, the town can point to a band of chroniclers of which any city might be proud. To all of them I have been indebted. And no less does this sketch of their city's story owe to those who are still living within its streets, and still ready to point the visitor to their greatest beauties: M. Charles de Beaurepaire, whose work in the Archives is of the highest value, and to whom I am indebted for nearly every reference to the records of the town; MM. Noël and Beaurain, who preside over the Library; M. Georges Dubosc, M. Jules Adeline, and many more.
Scarcely a year before these lines were written one more link between Rouen and the literature of the world was lost. In August 1896 died a "Professor of German" in the Lycée de Rouen, who had held her post since 1882. There had lived Camille Selden, in a quiet seclusion, from which she published the "Mémoires de la Mouche." Universally beloved for her sweetness, her simplicity, her gentle nobility of soul, she was the unobtrusive friend of all the best spirits of the day. Upon her there seemed to have fallen some few mild rays from the genius of Heine, whom she loved so well. Her last days were spent in studying the correspondence of two great citizens of the town which sheltered her, Bouilhet and Flaubert.
My task is over; and I can but leave you now to discover for yourself the many details, which, for lack of space and leisure, I have perforce omitted. Yet in this "Story of Rouen" you will find, if you read it where it should be read, all the typical occurrences which have made the city what she is, strong in commerce, strong in traditions, strong above all in the memories of her sons.
"Strength is not won by miracle or rape.
It is the offspring of the modest years,
The gift of sire to son, thro' these firm laws
Which we name Gods; which are the righteous cause,
The cause of man, and manhood's ministers."
APPENDIX
I
A few more interesting walks in Rouen
IT was in my mind at first to place here an itinerary I had planned by which it would be possible to visit everything of interest in Rouen in six days, starting from the Hôtel du Nord near the Grosse Horloge, and returning to the same spot. But it is perhaps better after all that you should visit the places mentioned in my chapters as the spirit moves you, and that I should merely set down in these last pages a few old streets or houses which you must not miss, merely because I have had no space to speak of them before.
Returning from the Chartreuse de la Rose, it will be good to take the Route de Lyons la Forêt past the château called Nid de chiens (a name which preserves the memory of the old Dukes' Kennels) where Henri IV. was entertained. You will see the seventeenth-century house on your left, between two railway bridges which cross the road, just before the Caserne Trupel. Continue by the same road, keeping the Aubette on your right, and turn round the wall of the great Hospital enclosure till you reach the Rue Edouard Adam, and pass the Rue Eau de Robec which is beautiful on each side of you. Pass the new Fontaine Croix de Pierre, and as you turn down the Rue Orbe look quickly at the backs of the houses on the Robec, and then swing to the right up the Rue des Champs. At the Rue Matelas you must stop. St. Vivien's Church closes the quaint vista of the street, and at No. 19 is an aged doorway to a dark courtyard, and beyond that, a charming turret staircase on the roadway with a gallery outside all wreathed in roses. The gables and the woodwork and the shadowed windows make up an exquisite little picture of mediæval domesticity. When you return again to the Rue Orbe, look down the Rue Pomme d'Or to your left, and then turn up the Rue Poisson and admire the beautiful choir of St. Nicaise, remembering the story of the famous "boise" I told you in the [last chapter]. Up the Rue St. Nicaise, past the Rue Floquet, the hideous slit of the Rue d'Enfer opens on the left, so you turn away to the Rue Roche opposite, and keep swinging to the left up the Rue de la Cage and so on to the Boulevard Beauvoisine. The Place du Boulingrin, where I have no doubt the English garrison of 1420 played at bowls, is still green and inviting a little to your right. But pushing on still westwards to the left you come to the Boulevard Jeanne d'Arc, and pass the road that leads northwards to a fascinating Cider-tavern in the Champs des Oiseaux. A little further on is the Rue Verte (leading northwards to the Railway Station and southwards to the Rue Jeanne d'Arc and the river) and at last you reach the Place Cauchoise and the Rue St. Gervais which mounts to the north-west. Look at No. 31 (the Menuiserie Brière) as you pass, for the sake of the charming old wooden gallery in its courtyard, and then at No. 71 with its pretty eighteenth-century panels like plaques of Wedgewood, an ornament which is closely imitated in the medallions on the wall at the corner of the Rue Chasselièvre. After visiting St. Gervais come back to the Place Cauchoise and take the Rue Cauchoise until you reach the Rue des Bons Enfants, where at No. 134 died Fontenelle. As you pass the Rue Étoupée stop to look at the sign of the house at No. 4, built in 1580. If you are wise you will lunch at the old inn at No. 41 Rue des Bons Enfants, admire the stables, and inspect Room No. 10. Refreshed and fortified, go straight on, across the Rue Jeanne d'Arc into the Rue Ganterie and so by way of the Rue de l'Hôpital to the crossing of the Rue de la République. Almost in front of you on the other side is the queer little alley called the Rue Petit Mouton, and as you pass down it you will see how much bigger the streets look on my [Maps] (for the sake of being clear) than they are in reality. This leads you across the Place des Ponts de Robec to the beginning of the Rue Eau de Robec where you will notice at once, on the left, the house at No. 186, with the sign which shows the faithful horse returning from the scene of his master's murder to bring the news into the town. No. 223 on the other side at the corner of the Rue de la Grande Mesme is fine, and so is No. 187 at the angle of the Rue du Ruissel. All the while the inky water is trickling under countless bridges on your left hand ("Ignoble little Venice" Flaubert calls it all in "Madame Bovary," which gives you, otherwise, the worst impression of Rouen in any book I know), and swarms of little children chatter and play about the cobblestones, while women throng the countless dens and cubbyholes, until you fly for shelter into one of the numerous curiosity shops and buy a fifteenth-century door-knocker manufactured expressly for your visit. Past the Place St. Vivien and the Church, the Eau de Robec still continues; and, as the Rue du Pont à Dame Renaude opens on your left, there is a good house at the corner of the opposite street. Further on to the left a great building with overhanging eaves stretches from 34 to 30. Then, over a broader bridge, the Rue des Célestins goes northwards, and this street of bridges ends in the green trees of the Boulevard, with a lovely view of that Maison des Célestins which the Duke of Bedford endowed, far to your right in the distant corner of the old wall of the Hospital.