s, long since lost, sleep peacefully in the Cathedral choir, and
the pomp of death spreads its sombre magnificence in every sacred
building. The old fountains are playing in the squares and streets.
The fountain of St. Maclou, which had two figures like the Mannekin of
Brussels; the Croix de Pierre, with statues in every niche; the St.
Vincent, with its great dais overshadowing a group of the Nativity,
and water spouting from the mouths of oxen in the manger; the Lacrosse
with the Virgin and her Child; the Lisieux, whereon was carved the
Mount Parnassus with Apollo and the Muses, Pegasus too, and a great
triple-headed matron for Philosophy, and two bronze salamanders
vomiting streams of water; all the fountains that Jacques Lelieur has
traced for us are perfect and are playing in the town whose streets he
drew in 1525.

The sky grows darker, and the rain falls, as it fell then, even more
frequently than now; but we can pass beneath the "avant-soliers,"
those covered galleries that line the squares and market-places to
give shade or shelter to the merchant and his purchasers, and behind
their heavy timbers we shall be safe from the great wains of country
produce, or the lumbering chariots of the town, with their leather
hangings stamped in gold, dragged by the heavy Norman horses. The
streets are as narrow as they were first built in Pompeii; sixteen
feet is thought enough for the principal arteries of traffic, others
measure but ten feet, or even six, across. They are so crooked and the
line of houses on each side is often so uneven that it seems as if the
windings of some country footpath have been left in all their
primitive irregularity, and decorated here and there with casual
dwellings, while the gaps are filled in roughly as time goes on and
space grows more precious every year. This haphazard arrangement has
no doubt resulted in a certain picturesqueness of disposition and
perspective, and even in a tortuous maze of buildings very difficult
for any foreign enemy to assault; but it is obvious that the city's
internal plan has owed nothing either to military or aesthetic
considerations at the outset. For these streets that were not paved at
all until the fifteenth century, are only covered with rude stones,
and look more like the interior of a vast open drain than anything;
pigs and other animals stroll into them from the open doorways of the
commoner houses, and even the richer families seem to consider that
the