,
owing to the heavy obligations pressing on the town by reason of the
quarrel with the Duke of Burgundy, and of the severe war-taxes
depleting both private purses and public revenue, these entertainments
must be given up. We find that this Confrerie was not to be put off in
1415, and even repeated its play at Pentecost thirty years later; but
in 1410 their disappointment was only one of many signs of that
disorder and poverty which finally laid Rouen open and defenceless
before the English army.

Already, in 1383, commerce and industry had suffered cruelly from the
municipal anarchy which followed the suppression of the commune, and
from the heavy fines for its rebellion imposed by the King. It was not
for more than three centuries that the famous mayor reappeared; and
this is no solitary instance of such an obliteration in the country,
for though French Communes actually began before the Free Boroughs of
England, they had not any of the qualities of permanence they showed
in the nation where antiquity is more traceable in institutions than
in such buildings as are still scattered in profusion over France.
Another quaint little episode that shows the uneasiness of the town
occurred in 1405, and is to be found in the deliberations of the Hotel
de Ville for the 27th of September. Before Guillaume de Bellengues,
Captain of Rouen, and his council, the question was discussed of the
arrival of a certain Spanish captain, Pedro Nino, Count of Buelna,
from Harfleur. Seventeen days afterwards he came, and it is
interesting to observe that, in spite of relations with Spain which
had begun long previously, lasted until after Corneille's day, and are
still recorded in the name of the Rue des Espagnols, the good citizens
of Rouen were very much upon their guard when Pedro Nino sailed up the
Seine, and only allowed him to stay in their port and revictual on
very hard conditions, one of which was the entire surrender of all
offensive and defensive weapons. They also insisted on mooring his
three galleys in a certain spot, keeping a strict guard over them, and
not allowing any of his men in Rouen during the night.

It happens that the personality of Don Pedro is not unknown to us,
from other sources, and the bombastic account[38] written by his
faithful squire, Gutierre de Gamez, has so many interesting points in
it about Rouen at this date that I must refer to it, if only to bring
out of its obscurity a book that is hardly known, an