period is a "couturiere" the
heroine of the Fierte. In the very next year Denise de Gouy, whose
previous history is not pleasant reading, took service with a citizen
of Rouen, and by means of false keys provided by her lover, robbed her
employer of a considerable quantity of linen, using her special
knowledge to pick and choose the best. She only escaped being hanged
with her paramour by being about to give birth to a child, and was
finally pardoned by the Chapterhouse. In 1492 a dressmaker was far
less fortunate. She was unable to satisfy a lady as to the fit of her
stays, and this angry customer, whose name was Marie Mansel, gave her
so shrewd a blow with her fist that the poor little dressmaker died in
a week. The canons apparently so sympathised with the annoyances of a
badly fitting corset, that they gave Marie Mansel her freedom. But the
episode has its value in showing that the modern muscular female is
not so new an apparition as she fancies. Tradesmen did not always get
the worst of it, however, in such disputes as these; for in 1525 a
butcher complained bitterly that his hair had been cut too short, in a
barber's shop near St. Ouen. The mistake so preyed upon his mind that
when he met the barber next day he smote him on the head and ran away
into the cemetery of St. Ouen. But Nicolas Courtil pursued him
valiantly, armed only with the instruments of his calling, and finally
killed the butcher by stabbing him in the neck with a pair of
scissors.

[Illustration: PALAIS DE JUSTICE

TOURELLE IN THE RUE ST. LO]

Priests are almost as interesting as the ladies in this extraordinary
record. In 1520 a curate from Marcilly hired Germain Rou for two
sovereigns to hide a baby in a chalk-pit, and then fled to Rome. The
cries of the child were heard two days afterwards by some travellers,
and Germain Rou, condemned to have his hand cut off and then be
hanged, was pardoned. In 1535 an even more flagrant crime is
registered against an ecclesiastic. Louis de Houdetot, a subdeacon,
had been so successful in his courtship of Madame Tilleren, that the
lady's husband sent her out of the town to her father's house. But
this did not stop the priest from continuing to visit her, and while
M. Tilleren was in Rouen news was brought him that Houdetot had
actually beaten M. de Catheville's servants in trying to get into the
house. This was too much; so Tilleren "took a corselet of beaten iron
(hallecrest) and a crossbow with a long