week, had
signed many pardons, in memory of the God who had pardoned in those
days the sins of the whole world. So he spoke the words of deliverance
to Lestrange beside him, while the population crowded, still
terror-stricken and uncertain of their fate, into the Cathedral, and
filled its aisles with anxious faces, and climbed upon the pillars to
try and get some view of the little King near the altar, upon whose
will so many lives depended. Then at last appeared the Archbishop,
standing high where all might see him, and as he read the words of
pardon which had just received the royal signature, you may imagine
how the roof rang with a greater "Noel," a louder "Vive le Roi" than
ever had sounded in the Cathedral before.

From every prison and jail in the city the prisoners were hurried to
the Mother-church; with their fetters still upon them they fell on
their knees and thanked God and the King for their deliverance, while
their families hung round their necks and sobbed for joy to see them
again alive. It was that moment on the eve of the great festival when
all the bells of Rouen began to herald the coming of Easter. The great
paschal candle had been lit in the Cathedral, and as the Archbishop
turned from the joyful throng before him to the King still standing by
the altar-steps, he welcomed the beginning of a reign that was blessed
by the giving of such happiness. And as the people crowded noisily out
into the Parvis, and each wife took her husband home again, few
thought of the misery, and the madness worse than death, that was
coming upon the young King who had set the prisoners free.

There is one more tale, a very different one, that I must tell of this
same life of the people round the belfry of the Grosse Horloge, if
only to give you the contrast of the dealings of Louis XI. with the
good citizens of Rouen, and to emphasise the moral of their sturdy
independence. For though the commune was practically suppressed, in
spite of the King's pardon, and though the results of this famous
"Revoke de la Harelle" were felt until the society in which it had
occurred had almost ceased to be, yet the character of the burgesses
remained the same under whatever laws they lived, and their freedom of
opinion continued under every rule. So that when every door in the Rue
de la Grosse Horloge flew open on a morning in 1490, when every shop
was filled with gossips eager for the news, and even "Rouvel" himself
was tingling faintl