without him, until, after many emphatic
reminders of his royal pardon, the King was prevailed upon to give him
back again, and he rings the curfew to this day. But he was not hung
up until October 1449, when, after Talbot had left the Vieux Palais,
the Council joyfully gave orders to Laurent des Loges, "pour pendre et
asseoir certaine cloche nommee Rouve estant en la tour du beffroy";
and in the town accounts stands the cheery item of "Sept sous six
deniers pour vin donne aux ouvriers," when it was hung on the very
Saturday on which the Duke of Somerset was handing to Charles VII. the
articles of capitulation. So when a French king at last came through
the famous street again, Rouvel, who had remained in the dignified
silence of the conquered for sixty-seven years, made his joyful note
heard again above all the clamour of the citizens, and rang a welcome
to the freedom of the city, to deliverance from the English, to the
return of the King who confirmed the ancient privileges of the Charte
aux Normands, maintained the Echiquier de Normandie, and did, in fact,
everything that was expected of him except re-establish the Mayor. For
the revolt of the Harelle had entirely deposed the Mayor from office.
In 1389 his councillors were reduced to six, and it was only three
centuries later that, in 1695, the King once more appointed a real
mayor out of the usual three candidates presented by the town.

Then the bell "Cache Ribaut" came down, as was but right of him, from
his high place within the campanile, and Rouvel swung again on his
home-beam, "a la seconde croisee en ogive," and proceeded on his old
business of proclaiming elections, festivals, and fires and curfews,
and does so still. Affectionate flattery once called him a "cloche
d'argent," from his peculiar tone; but the most open-minded foreigner
can hardly, I think, now take any other interest in his voice than
that aroused by his long history, for he has grown somewhat hoarse
from ringing no less than 650 strokes at nine each evening for so many
years.

The old clock shares with that of the Palais de Justice in Paris the
honour of being the first in France. Guillaume Thibault and Guillaume
Quesnel painted with fine gold and azure the face towards the Vieux
Marche, which Olivier had made when he decorated both sides of the old
Porte Massacre, and they set upon it the figures of the lamb and of
the four evangelists. Its face was carved as it is now in the days of
Fran