There are few changes in them, as new windows, new doors, but they remain the same old wooden buildings with wooden galleries suspended over the narrow, irregular, oddly paved streets. Today in Caudebec one breathes the air of the middle ages.
The Reformation—the great religious awakening of the 16th century—developed great sympathy in Caudebec. The Protestants, the Huguenots (a term borrowed from Switzerland, meaning bound together by oath) were quite numerous. Religious wars followed. The English assisted the Protestants—the Spanish, the Catholics. Rival dukes and princes sought to take advantage of these conditions and conflicts followed from which pillage, incendiarism, and destruction resulted.
On April 24, 1592, Caudebec capitulated to the Duke of Palma, On May 15th it capitulated a second time to Henry IV of France amid the cheers of the people.
On April 15th Henry IV issued the "Edict of Nantes" and established universal liberty and equality as to religious professions and worship. Great general prosperity followed, especially in manufacture and agriculture.
On Oct. 17, 1685, Louis XIV revoked "the Edict of Nantes." This was followed by persecution, pillage, and destruction of property and people, especially of the Huguenots. Great numbers of people fled from France and among them our progenitor Jacques Caudebec.
On Sept. 19, 1749, Louis XV visited Caudebec with all the splendor of the French court. With their enthusiastic Royalist spirit the people unharnessed the horses and they themselves drew the royal carriage.
Caudebec is to-day a noted summer resort with a population of about 2,000, with fairs three times a year, with annual boat regattas, with provision for pleasure and entertainment. The people of nearby cities may thus enjoy its healthful climate and its hospitality.
A recent traveller has thus viewed Caudebec as approached from the sea by river. "Between the great forest of Maulevrier on our left and the green meadows on our right is the great broad Seine, fringed with shady arbors and with rows of modest homely hotels. The graceful church spire dominates the town which is in the midst of rising green hills. The old Caudebec, one of the oldest of Norman towns, with its medieval houses, narrow, crooked, ill-paved streets, was built on the site of the Roman settlement, Lotum and gives unmistakable evidence of its antiquity. The quaint windows and doorways, the overhanging and irregular roofs almost against one another are everywhere visible and are covered with creeping vines and climbing flowering plants."
