[33] See Mr Gilbert Parker's novel, "The Battle of the Strong," in which Jersey is carefully described, on p. 189, "A Norman dead a thousand years cries Haro! Haro! if you tread upon his grave," and p. 360.
[34] It had always been a bitter grievance that St. Ouen held a monopoly of the public mills for their bakers, and the grotesque procession of the "oison bridé," in which two monks carried a goose by a rope every year to the Town Mill in the Rue Coquerel, had not sufficed to win their pardon from the lower classes.
[35] The Town Accounts are filled with such cheerful business entries as the following: "Avec Mons. Jehan Delammarre qui fu clerc de la ville, à l'Escu de France auprès la Madeleine le darrenier jour de septembre, 28."
"Pour boire au matin avec les advocas chiez Jehan le Bucher, 4s. 6d."
"Pour boire avec le lieutenant du Maire," and so forth. The fifteen taverns mentioned in the accounts of the jovial town clerk from 1377 to 1381 are all to be found going very strong in the sixteenth century. M. de Beaurepaire has preserved their fascinating names:—L'Asne Roye, Les Petits souliers, Le Fleur de Lys près St. Maclou, Le Cygne devant St. Martin, Le Singe près de la Madeleine, and many more.
[36] No. 41 Rue des Bons Enfants is a capital example of the Fifteenth Century Timbered inn. To the right of the inner yard a gallery juts out on crooked pillars, the "avant-soliers" so common in mediæval streets, and shown in Lelieur's drawings. Queer gables rise into the air at odd corners, and if you are sufficiently hardened to mediæval atmospheres you may discover other stables than the big shed at the entrance, and you will understand the reason for the Notice "On ne répond pas des accidents qui peuvent arriver aux chevaux." Through a dark narrow slit the phantom of a cobwebbed stable-boy will lead you into the blackened aged stables, and the spire of the abandoned church of St. Croix des Pelletiers rises above them. Lunch here upon omelettes and sound wine; but sleep were possibly unwise, though "Room Number Ten" is almost too fascinating an apartment to resist.
[37] Her exact words were carefully recorded by the horrified confrèrie: "Ha! faux traître, meurdrier, tu as pris le fait sus toy, pour délivrer autruy; tu t'en repentiras. Je pri à dieu et à Monseigneur Saint Romain que tu faches encore le fait de quoy tu saies trainné et pendu."
[38] The "Cronica" begins as follows:—"Este libro ha nombre el Victorial, é fabla en él de los quatros Principes que fueron mayores en el mundo...." It was published in Madrid in 1880, 236 pp. 4to, and was translated from the original Spanish by MM. Circourt and Puymaigre. (Paris, Victor Palmé, 1867, 590 pp. 8vo).
[39] M. de Bellengues lived in Michel Leconte's house, called the Manoir de la Fontaine, which was disputed by the parishes of St. Lô and St. Herbland. In it was a little chapel very fashionable for private weddings, and a mysterious apartment which could be hired for honeymoons. The Manor was bought in 1429, for the convenience of monks visiting Rouen, by the Abbaye du Bec, from which the street took its name.