t the tenth chapter will deal with a few of the
numberless churches of the town, and the eleventh with that Palais de
Justice which is the triumphant signal that the sixteenth century had
begun. If I am to give you, then, a glimpse, however short, of the
people themselves in earlier years before they are overshadowed by the
great names of prelates and of princes, this will be my last
opportunity.

If any Norman were asked what was the most valuable of the privileges
which he possessed by right of citizenship in the earliest times, I
suppose he would answer without hesitation that it was the Charte aux
Normands, that confirmation, granted by Louis X. in 1315, of the old
"Custom of Normandy" ascribed by tradition to Rollo and traced by
record to William the Conqueror. It was also called the "clameur de
haro," and affectionate antiquarians derive the word from the "Ha
Rou!" with which a suppliant cried to the first pirate duke that
"wrong was being done." It is no mere artifice of fiction[33] that
this same consecrated phrase might have been heard among the
Englishmen of the Channel Islands early in the nineteenth century, and
even to this hour, that cry of "_Haro! Haro!_ a l'aide mon prince, on
me fait tort!" preserves the custom of Normandy, and of Rollo the
Dane, in Jersey, so that the sound of it "makes the workman drop his
tools, the woman her knitting, the militiaman his musket, the
fisherman his net, the schoolmaster his birch, and the ecrivain his
babble, to await the judgment of the Royal Court."

[Footnote 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.]

It was soon after this confirmation of their ancient rights of
justice, that the citizens lost for a time the privileges of their
mayoralty owing to a financial dispute in 1320, which necessitated the
intervention of the King. The second epoch in the history of the
commune began, and penalties were adjudged for all cases of
misdemeanour or of shirking office. The equal, in Court-precedence, to
a Count, the Mayor of Rouen was not merely the head of the Town
Council, but sovereign-judge in matters of goods or of inheritance,
with his own court and guards and prisons. On Christmas Day, to the
sound of "Rouvel's" welcome, he marched in state to the Hotel de
Ville, surrounded by his peers and counsellors and