Sketches in Italy and Greece (London, 1874).

THE CATHEDRAL OF ROUEN.
THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN.

The approach to Rouen is indeed magnificent. I speak of the immediate approach; after you reach the top of a considerable rise, and are stopped by the barriers, you then look down a straight, broad, and strongly paved road, lined with a double row of trees on each side. As the foliage was not thickly set, we could discern, through the delicately clothed branches the tapering spire of the Cathedral and the more picturesque tower of the Abbaye St. Ouen—with hanging gardens and white houses to the left—covering a richly cultivated ridge of hills, which sink as it were into the Boulevards and which is called the Faubourg Cauchoise. To the right, through the trees, you see the river Seine (here of no despicable depth or breadth) covered with boats and vessels in motion: the voice of commerce and the stir of industry cheering and animating you as you approach the town. I was told that almost every vessel which I saw (some of them two hundred and even of three hundred tons burthen) was filled with brandy and wine. The lamps are suspended from the centre of long ropes, across the road; and the whole scene is of a truly novel and imposing character. But how shall I convey to you an idea of what I experienced, as, turning to the left, and leaving the broader streets which flank the quay, I began to enter the penetralia of this truly antiquated town? What narrow streets, what overhanging houses, what bizarre, capricious ornaments! What a mixture of modern with ancient art! What fragments, or rather what ruins of old delicately-built Gothic churches! What signs of former and of modern devastation! What fountains, gutters, groups of never-ceasing men, women and children, all occupied, and all apparently happy! The Rue de la Grosse Horloge (so called from a huge, clumsy, antiquated clock which goes across it) struck me as being not among the least singular streets of Rouen. In five minutes I was within the courtyard of the Hôtel Vatel, the favourite residence of the English.

It was evening when I arrived in company with three Englishmen. We were soon saluted by the laquais de place—the leech-like hangers-on of every hôtel—who begged to know if we would walk upon the Boulevards. We consented; turned to the right; and, gradually rising gained a considerable eminence. Again we turned to the right, walking upon a raised promenade; while the blossoms of the pear and apple trees, within a hundred walled gardens, perfumed the air with a delicious fragrance. As we continued our route along the Boulevard Beauvoisine, we gained one of the most interesting and commanding views imaginable of the city of Rouen—just at that moment lighted up by the golden rays of a glorious sunset—which gave a breadth and a mellower tone to the shadows upon the Cathedral and the Abbey of Saint Ouen....

CATHEDRAL OF ROUEN

I have now made myself pretty well acquainted with the geography of Rouen. How shall I convey to you a summary, and yet a satisfactory description of it? It cannot be done. You love old churches, old books, and relics of ancient art. These be my themes, therefore: so fancy yourself either strolling leisurely with me, arm in arm, in the streets—or sitting at my elbow. First for the Cathedral:—for what traveller of taste does not doff his bonnet to the Mother Church of the town through which he happens to be travelling—or in which he takes up a temporary abode? The west front, always the forte of the architect’s skill, strikes you as you go down, or come up, the principal street—La Rue des Calmes,—which seems to bisect the town into two equal parts. A small open space (which, however has been miserably encroached upon by petty shops) called the Flower-garden, is before this western front; so that it has some little breathing room in which to expand its beauties to the wondering eyes of the beholder. In my poor judgment, this western front has very few elevations comparable with it—including even those of Lincoln and York. The ornaments, especially upon three porches, between the two towers, are numerous, rich, and for the greater part entire:—in spite of the Calvinists,[17] the French Revolution, and time. Among the lower and smaller basso-relievos upon these porches is the subject of the daughter of Herodias dancing before Herod. She is manœuvering on her hands, her feet being upwards. To the right, the decapitation of Saint John is taking place.

The southern transept makes amends for the defects of the northern. The space before it is devoted to a sort of vegetable market: curious old houses encircle this space: and the ascent to the door, but more especially the curiously sculptured porch itself, with the open spaces in the upper part—light, fanciful and striking to a degree—produce an effect as pleasing as it is extraordinary. Add to this the ever-restless feet of devotees, going in and coming out, the worn pavement, and the frittered ornaments, in consequence—seem to convince you that the ardour and activity of devotion is almost equal to that of business.

As you enter the Cathedral, at the centre door, by descending two steps, you are struck with the length and loftiness of the nave, and with the lightness of the gallery which runs along the upper part of it. Perhaps the nave is too narrow for its length. The lantern of the central large tower is beautifully light and striking. It is supported by four massive clustered pillars, about forty feet in circumference;[18] but on casting your eye downwards, you are shocked at the tasteless division of the choir from the nave by what is called a Grecian screen: and the interior of the transepts has undergone a like preposterous restoration. The rose windows of the transepts, and that at the west end of the nave, merit your attention and commendation. I could not avoid noticing to the right, upon entrance, perhaps the oldest side chapel in the Cathedral: of a date, little less ancient than that of the northern tower, and perhaps of the end of the Twelfth Century. It contains by much the finest specimens of stained glass—of the early part of the Sixteenth Century. There is also some beautiful stained glass on each side of the Chapel of the Virgin, behind the choir; but although very ancient, it is the less interesting, as not being composed of groups, or of historical subjects. Yet, in this, as in almost all the churches which I have seen, frightful devastations have been made among the stained-glass windows by the fury of the Revolutionists....

As you approach the Chapel of the Virgin, you pass by an ancient monument, to the left, of a recumbent Bishop, reposing behind a thin pillar, within a pretty ornamented Gothic arch. To the eye of a tasteful antiquary this cannot fail to have its due attraction. While, however, we are treading upon hallowed ground, rendered if possible more sacred by the ashes of the illustrious dead, let us move gently onwards towards the Chapel of the Virgin, behind the choir. See, what bold and brilliant monumental figures are yonder to the right of the altar! How gracefully they kneel and how devoutly they pray! They are the figures of the Cardinals D’Amboise—uncle and nephew:—the former minister of Louis XII. and (what does not necessarily follow, but what gives him as high a claim upon the gratitude of posterity) the restorer and beautifier of the glorious building in which you are contemplating his figure. This splendid monument is entirely of black and white marble, of the early part of the Sixteenth Century. The figures just mentioned are of white marble, kneeling upon cushions, beneath a rich canopy of Gothic fret-work....