rded was
Guillemette Gomont in 1380, of whom nothing is recorded; but in the
next year strangely enough another woman carried the Fierte, by name
Jehanne Helart, the wife of Robert Cariel, who had slain Jehan
Vengier; and in 1388 Estiennotte de Naples, who had been brought from
Louvier to marry Guillaume Luart, of the parish of St. Vincent in
Rouen, was pardoned by the Chapter in spite of having murdered her
husband. In this example, as in many others, to our modern eyes, the
motives which persuaded the canons to pardon the criminal they chose
are scarcely intelligible, and I can only imagine that the key to the
tragedy has been lost in most of such cases. But it is the women who
are at the bottom of nearly all recorded crime in the long story of
the Fierte, and when they are themselves chosen it is often at the end
of a drama that surpasses in interest all the tales of mere masculine
malefactors in the most interesting criminal record I have ever seen.
I shall have occasion to speak of them later. For the present I can
only take note of the cases that have been most prominent before the
time of the English siege.

The ceremony of the "Levee de la Fierte" did not invariably meet with
the approval of the people, as may be seen from the last case I have
room to quote from this period. In 1394 Jehan Maignart, of the parish
of St. Maclou, murdered Rogier le Veautre, with the assistance of two
accomplices, Pierre Robert and Jehan Marie. After the procession of
the public pardon on Ascension Day was over, the members of the
Confrerie of St. Romain were leading Maignart in triumph through the
streets of Rouen, with a wreath of roses on his head, when suddenly a
poor woman appeared at the corner of the Rue de l'Ecole, and screamed
to the prisoner that he was a disloyal traitor; praying St. Romain
that for his next crime he would not escape the hanging that was his
due, for that now he was only screening the true criminals from
punishment.[37] The indignant Chapterhouse were only prevailed upon to
overlook the crime of insulting their released prisoner by the full
repentance of this woman. But "the Law" had heard her too, and it laid
its hand promptly on the two accomplices. The canons instantly
objected, and a valuable precedent was created by the decision of the
King, before whom the final appeal of the case was laid. By the royal
charter, signed in February 1395, the full privileges of the canons
were upheld. The proces-verb