Yon with another man of
Pavilly were released after the slaying of a butcher; and the Seigneur
d'Esneval gave sworn testimony that when a friend of the dead butcher
publicly called the accomplice in the crime "a murderer," that
accomplice would have been delivered up to justice if the principal
had not carried the Fierte. The retrospective action of the pardon on
the principal also extended to his accomplices, who began life afresh
just as he did. And this extension was solemnly confirmed at the
inquiry, from which I have just quoted. There is no doubt, however,
that so excessive a "prolongation" of the powers of pardon cannot have
been allowed throughout the whole history of the Fierte; for public
opinion could scarcely have permitted a gang of ruffians every year to
return to the full privileges enjoyed by their more honest comrades.
So at the end of the fifteenth, and again at the end of the sixteenth
century, we find it laid down that only those crimes _named_ by the
prisoner should be pardoned, if the Chapter thought fit, and that only
those accomplices who appeared _with him_ in the procession should
share in his pardon.

It was only in April 1407 that this long appeal was finally decided in
favour of the two accomplices of Maignart, who bore the Fierte
thirteen years before. But the Chapterhouse took good care that so
much tedious and costly legal work should not be thrown away, and the
strength of the precedents and charters they secured at this time was
never entirely lost while the "Privilege" existed in Rouen at all.

There is only one other matter much concerning the life of the people
at this period for which I have space left, and that is their Mystery
Plays. Two celebrated instances occur in these years before the
invasions of the English and the siege of Rouen. In November 1365 the
King gave two hundred crowns of gold to a troupe of "dancers and
musicians" who had played before him at the castle in the Place
Bouvreuil. In 1374 the Confrerie de la Passion was instituted at the
Church of St. Patrice, and on Holy Thursday held a procession in which
all the instruments of the Passion of Christ were carried through the
streets by children in the garb of angels. The Mystery that followed
was given by the direct sanction of the Church in presence of the
King, and in 1476 these representations became a regular annual
performance, and the Confrerie had developed by 1543 into a strong
rival of that more famous