ring work been done that in the embrasures and recesses
on both first and second floors you may still see the scratches and
inscriptions of prisoners or sentinels, much as they are preserved in
our own Tower of London. On Wednesday, the 18th of February 1874, the
work of reconstruction was finished by the placing of the iron vane
with its great fleur-de-lys upon the summit of the conical roof. It is
the fourth floor, just beneath this vane, that is the most interesting
of all the new work, as it presents a complete and accurate picture of
mediaeval defences, showing both the wooden hoarding which projected
beyond the walls in order to give space to hurl down stones and
boiling lead, and the guard's chemin-de-ronde cut in the solid wall
with its openings that communicate with each side. Its walls conjure
up a flood of memories of the men and women who saw those solid cliffs
of masonry before they fell into ruin and restoration:--

"Berthe au grand pied, Bietris, Allys
Harembourges, qui tint le Mayne,
Et Jehanne la bonne Lorraine
Qu'Anglois bruslerent a Rouen:
Ou sont-ilz, Vierge Souveraine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?"

On the 10th of November 1449 Charles the Seventh of France was riding
through his own good town of Rouen; by his side were Jacques Coeur,
Rene d'Anjou, King of Sicily, and Pierre de Breze. The English had
surrendered Rouen, and all of them were on their way home again who
had not left their bones in France.

CHAPTER X

_A City of Churches_

Et concupiscet Rex decorem tuum quoniam ipse est Dominus
Deus et adorabunt eum. Et filiae Tyri in muneribus vultum
tuum deprecabuntur; omnes divites plebis. Omnis gloria ejus
filiae regis ab intus, in fimbreis aureis, circumamicta
varietatibus.

A walk from Rouen to St. Sever will leave you with the impression that
Rouen has so many churches that she has to turn many of them into
shops, while St. Sever has so many shops that several of them have had
to masquerade as churches. But the many "sacred buildings" you may see
to-day are not much more than half of the churches and chapels of the
sixteenth century which rose after the English garrison had
disappeared. With the few exceptions I have already noted, Rouen has
been almost entirely reconstructed since 1450, and in nothing can this
be realised so well as in its churches. When Charles VII. first rode
into Rouen, of the greater churches onl