manufactory, and may now be chiefly traced by the huge
chimney which obstructs the sky as you look up the Impasse Petit Salut
towards the Tour de Beurre of the Cathedral. Just opposite the
entrance to the public library is another instance of barbarous
neglect: the Church of St. Laurent. Once used as a magazine of shops
of every kind, sometimes a lost home for decrepit carriages, sometimes
a drying-house for laundry-women, these exquisite ruins of Renaissance
architecture have at last been rescued by the civic authorities, if
not from evident decay, at any rate from further mutilation. The tower
alone--but one among so many in Rouen--would be the proudest
possession of many a larger English town. The balustrade is decorated
by a pattern of letters, which pathetically express their hope of
better treatment in the battered legend: "Post Tenebras Spero Lucem."

Close to these eloquent ruins is a church that has had a somewhat
better fate, for if St. Godard has been rather roughly treated, the
beauty of its stained-glass windows has saved it from absolute
destruction. In the chapel of St. Peter, due east at the end of the
north aisle, is the great window that was made in 1555 to represent
St. Romain, who is shown at the top, on the left hand, dragging the
Gargouille of Rouen to destruction with his sacred stole (see p. 39).
Lower down, on the right, you must look at the King seated in his
royal chair, and the hounds at play before him on the carpet. In the
south aisle the corresponding window to the east has a tree of Jesse
in its upper part, and beneath is one of the finest examples of
sixteenth century painting in Rouen, work that reminds you of the work
of Rembrandt. Of these five figures of old men, the last two on the
right are especially worthy of attentive study. They were done in
1535. To the right of this window in the same chapel, looking
southwards, is another fine window of about the same date, said to be
copied from a design by Raphael and his school, of the life and
genealogy of the Blessed Virgin; but it is not so strong or original
in treatment as the last. Beneath it are two kneeling figures carved
upon the tomb of the family of Bec de Lievre.

[Illustration: EGLISE ST. LAURENT]

In the Rue Jeanne d'Arc is another church, St. Vincent, that must be
visited. I have spoken already of the little labourer in tunic and
breeches, with a sack of salt upon his back, who stands upon the
outside of the buttress to