[57] Farin tells us that you could go from the top of the lantern to the cross, or to the summit of the belfry, "outside, without a ladder; so admirable was the workmanship." "Strangers (adds he) took models of it for the purpose of getting them engraved, and they were sold publicly at Rome." Hist. de la Ville de Rouen, 1738, 4to. vol. ii. p. 154. There are thirteen chapels within this church; of which however the building cannot be traced lower than quite the beginning of the XVIth century. The extreme length and width of the interior is about 155 by 82 feet English. Even in Du Four's time the population of this parish was very great, and its cemetery (adds he) was the first and most regular in Rouen. He gives a brief, but glowing description of it--"on va tout autour par des galeries couvertes et pavées; et, deux de ces galeries sont decorées de deux autels," &c. p. 150.
Alas! time--or the revolution--has annihilated all this. Let me however add that M. COTMAN has published a view of the staircase in the church of which I am speaking.
[58] Ordericus Vitalis says, that the dying monarch requested to be conveyed thither, to avoid the noise and bustle of a populous town. Rouen is described to be, in his time, "populosa civitas." Consult Duchesne's Historiæ Normannor. Scrip. Antiq. p.656.
[59] A view of it is published by M. Cotman.
[60] St. Sever. This church is situated in the southern fauxbourgs, by the side of the Seine, and was once surrounded by gardens, &c. As you cross the bridge of boats, and go to the race-ground, you leave it to the right; but it is not so old as St. Paul--where, Farin says, the worship of ADONIS was once performed!
[61] [I apprehend this custom to be prevalent in fortified towns:--as Rouen formerly was--and as I found such custom to obtain at the present day, at Strasbourg. Mons. Licquet says that the allusion to the curfew--or couvre-feu--as appears in the previous edition--and which the reader well knows was established by the Conqueror with us--was no particular badge of the slavery of the English. It had been previously established by William in NORMANDY. Millot is referred to as the authority.]
[62] the famous JEANNE D'ARC.] Goube, in the second volume of his Histoire du Duché de Normandie, has devoted several spiritedly written pages to an account of the trial and execution of this heroine. Her history is pretty well known to the English--from earliest youth. Goube says that her mode of death had been completely prejudged; for that, previously to the sentence being passed, they began to erect "a scaffold of plaster, so raised, that the flames could not at first reach her--and she was in consequence consumed by a slow fire: her tortures being long and horrible." Hume has been rather too brief: but he judiciously observes that the conduct of the Duke of Bedford "was equally barbarous and dishonourable." Indeed it were difficult to pronounce which is entitled to the greatest abhorrence--the imbecility of Charles VII. the baseness of John of Luxembourg, or the treachery of the Regent Bedford?
The identical spot on which she suffered is not now visible, according to Millin; that place having been occupied by the late Marché des Veaux. It was however not half a stone's throw from the site of the present statue. In the Antiquités Nationales of the last mentioned author (vol. iii. art. xxxvi.) there are three plates connected with the History of JOAN of ARC. The first plate represents the Porte Bouvreuil to the left, and the circular old tower to the right--in which latter Joan was confined, with some houses before it; the middle ground is a complete representation of the rubbishing state by which many of the public buildings at Rouen are yet surrounded; and French taste has enlivened the foreground with a picture of a lover and his mistress, in a bocage, regaling themselves with a flagon of wine. The old circular tower ("qui vit gémir cette infortunée," says Millin) exists no longer. The second plate represents the fountain which was built in the market-place upon the very spot where the Maid suffered, and which spot was at first designated by the erection of a cross. From the style of the embellishments it appears to have been of the time of Francis I.
Goube has re-engraved this fountain. It was taken down or demolished in 1755; upon the site of which was built the present tasteless production-- resembling, as the author of the Itinéraire de Rouen (p. 69) well observes, "rather a Pallas than the heroine of Orleans." The name of the author was STODTS. Millin's third plate--of this present existing fountain, is desirable; in as much as it shews the front of the house, in the interior of which are the basso-rilievos of the Champ de drap d'Or: for an account of which see afterwards.
Millin allows that all PORTRAITS of her--whether in sculpture, or painting, or engraving--are purely IDEAL. Perhaps the nearest, in point of fidelity, was that which was seen in a painted glass window of the church of the Minimes at Chaillot: although the building was not erected till the time of Charles VIII. Yet it might have been a copy of some coeval production. In regard to oil paintings, I take it that the portrait of JUDITH, with a sword in one hand, and the head of Holofernes in the other, has been usually copied (with the omission of the latter accompaniment) as that of JEANNE D'ARC. I hardly know a more interesting collection of books than that which may be acquired respecting the fate of this equally brave and unfortunate heroine.