uggestion of the
connection between Rouen and Spain, and means "amiable," as in the
phrase, "Bien o mal carado." For the root of the word is evidently in
the Greek [Greek: charis], and is found in the Gaelic "cara" (the
friend or ally), and the Breton "Caradoc," who was the Caractacus of
Roman days.

[Illustration: THE MAISON CARADAS IN THE RUE SAVONNERIE]

If you will follow me a little further in the same direction, as the
Rue de la Savonnerie becomes the Rue des Tapissiers, you will find the
corner of the aged Rue du Hallage on your left marked by an ancient
parrot in a decrepit cage. He has been living there for so long that
he is certain to be there to blink at any new arrival in the next half
century, and as you pass him you will remember the parrot who was
discovered in Central America, full of years and knowledge, in a
village where not a single inhabitant understood what the bird said.
He had been found among the ruined houses of a people who had vanished
utterly, and he had become the sole repository of syllables that have
been never heard elsewhere. If anyone could really understand him, I
have often fancied that this faded bag of feathers at the corner of
the Rue du Hallage could use the most astonishing language about the
things that he has seen, for he could hardly be in a better place in
Rouen than this strange street that crawls beneath shadowed archways
to the Marche aux Balais and the Rue de l'Epicerie. It takes its name
from the Maison du Haulage, where the merchants paid town dues upon
their goods, and a few steps further in the Rue des Tapissiers will
bring you to the Halles themselves, to which you enter through a huge
black archway that gapes upon the Place de la Basse Vieille Tour. Upon
the left are some of those old "avant soliers" which you have seen in
Jacques Lelieur's drawing of the Place du Vieux Marche, the covered
causeways formed by projecting walls propped up by heavy timbers.
There is much hideously vulgar modern decoration to spoil the full
effect, but the main outlines of the old building are all there, and
you may imagine what it looked like for yourself.

On each side, as you enter the dark tunnel, great warehouses stretch
out to right and left, still on the same spot where Charles V. gave
Rouen the Halle aux Drapiers in 1367. Since then they have been
constantly filled and constantly rebuilt. Beneath your feet are
immense vaults that have been used since 1857 for storing oil an