his boats round
Southwark. Into the marsh fell the Fleet river, just as Robec into
Mala Palus; the English stream like the French one, formed the first
natural line of defence on that side; and both are now little better
than built-in sewers, one flowing into Thames at Blackfriars Bridge,
the other through its smaller tunnel into Seine near the Pont de
Pierre Corneille.

In the Museum of the Place Sainte Marie are the few Roman tombs that
have survived all other relics of their occupants, and some of the
money that they brought here, coins of Posthumus, of Tetricus, of
Gordian, of Commodus. It is said, too, that when the foundations of
vanished St. Herbland were being dug, some rusty iron rings for
mooring boats and mouldering ship timbers were discovered, which were
supposed to have been traces of the Roman quay. But the word "Port
Morant" is probably not derived from _Portus Morandi_, but from
_Postis_, and refers to the far more modern "avant soliers" or jutting
balconies, which were supported on stout beams, and ran round the
Parvis when Jacques Lelieur was making his sketches of the town in
1525. With such mere conjectures we must leave all that the Roman
occupation has to tell. Their story was a short one; for the town was
outside that circle where Roman influence was chiefly felt; and it
ended with the Frankish invasions from beneath the Drachenfels. From
being the head of a Roman province, Rouen became one of the fourteen
cities of the Armorican Confederation, through the influence of the
churchmen who now begin to appear in the dim records of the
city-chronicles as the defenders of these earliest citizens.

The Romans laid foundations here, as they did in so many places in
Europe, and then passed away. But before they disappeared there had
been time for the first missionaries of the Christian faith to sow the
seeds that were to grow into the Church. The legions left the city,
but the faith of Rome stayed on. As early as the second century (and
some say earlier still) came St. Nicaise. After him arrived St. Mellon
of Cardiff, who is said to have converted the chief Pagan temple into
a Christian church. St. Sever was the third "Bishop." In 400, St.
Victrice had laid the foundations of the first church on the site of
the Cathedral, and tradition puts the beginning of what became St.
Ouen as one year earlier. Strangely enough there remains a record of
the ecclesiastical architecture of these early days that is o