, I have been fortunate
enough to find them all printed by the care of M. A. Floquet, to whom
the judicial history of Rouen owes so much. To his industry and to
that of M. Charles de Beaurepaire I owe all the more astonishing and
unknown details which are derived from original authorities scarcely
yet appreciated at their full value. Both were scholars in the Ecole
des Chartes, the only school of accurate historical instruction in the
world; and for any possibility of using fruitfully the mass of details
they have brought to light I am indebted to my initiation by M. and
Madame James Darmesteter into the same principles of organised
research. The list of Authorities in the Appendix will show rather
more fully a debt to M. de Beaurepaire which can never be adequately
acknowledged.

My stay in Rouen was rendered more profitable and more pleasant by the
kindness of yet others of its citizens. To M. Georges Dubosc; to M. le
Marquis de Melandri; to M. Lafont who, as is but right in Armand
Carrel's birthplace, presides over the oldest and best French
provincial newspaper; to M. Edmond Lebel, Director of the Museum; to
M. Noel, the librarian, I would here express my heartiest gratitude.
To M. Beaurain I am under an especial obligation. Not only did he
carefully trace for me the madrigal, set in its modern dress by the
kindly skill of Mr Fuller Maitland, which English readers may now hear
for the first time since 1550; but he chose out of the vast store at
his command the portrait of Corneille by Lasne, and the View of Rouen
in 1620 by Merian. These were photographed by M. Lambin of 47 Rue de
la Republique, with whom I left a list of those typical carvings in
wood and stone of which visitors to Rouen would be likely to desire
some accurate and permanent record.

Among those things in this little volume to which I desire special
attention, as being unknown in England, and in some cases never
reproduced before, I would mention, in addition to the music in
Chapter XIII., the plan in Chapter IX. by Jacques Lelieur, who also
drew the view of the whole town reproduced in Chapter XIII. This plan
is the only instance of which I am aware which enables us to see a
French town of 1525 exactly as it was, for by a queer but easily
intelligible mixture of plan and elevation, the architect has drawn
not merely the course of various streets but the facades of the houses
on each side of them. And this leads me to my last, and perhaps my
most