sergeants, all in
livery with wands of office. But the Mayor was not allowed to collect
his rates from the citizens unfairly, and the dispute which followed
Thomas du Bosc's attempt to levy the Gabelle, or tax upon salt, led
once more to Royal intervention--the King "put the communes under his
hand" as the phrase went, until the quarrel had been settled. The
importance of the salt trade in Rouen has been already noticed, and
the little salt-porter carved upon the Church of St. Vincent, and now
looking out from the south-east angle over the Rue Jeanne d'Arc, is a
sign that the same trade lasted for some centuries later in the
development of Rouen's commerce.

[Illustration: THE SALT PORTER, FROM EGLISE ST. VINCENT IN THE RUE
JEANNE D'ARC]

It was not merely in peaceful ways that the expansion of the civic
power may be traced at this time. For the long-drawn misery of the
Hundred Years' War began in 1337, and nine years afterwards the King
had to hurry to Rouen to oppose the advance of Edward III., who was
already at Caen and threatened the capital of Normandy. All the woods
of Bihorel, says the chronicler sadly, had to be cut down to make
"hedges and palisades" around the menaced city. After the defeat of
Cressy, the men of Rouen had a still sharper taste of the realities of
war, for the militia of the town, who had been hurried forward to
reinforce the broken army of the King, while their comrades at home
were strengthening the defences of Rouen, came up with an English
regiment near Abbeville, and contributed a heavy share to that loss
of "six thousand men of the communes" which Froissart chronicles.

That the town stood in grave need of all these warlike preparations,
as well against internal disorders as against enemies from without,
may be imagined from the disquieting scenes of 1356, when King John
came to the castle with a hundred men-at-arms, and arrested with his
own hands Charles le Mauvais, King of Navarre, and four of his suite
who were falsely accused of treason. The Count of Harcourt, the Sire
de Graville, Maubue de Mainnemare, and Colinet Doublet, were all
beheaded on the Champ du Pardon that night in April, while the King
looked on. The resistance of the citizens to this high-handed act of
injustice was only quelled by the spreading of the news of the King's
presence. But Philip, the brother of the King of Navarre (who had been
sent to prison near Cambrai), took instant vengeance by ravaging the
subu