deu cybas joye et honneur,
Puis que les cielz de la paix s'esiouyssent,
Puis que les cielz de la paix s'esiouyssent.]

NOTE.--_For the benefit of those not learned in
Sixteenth-Century Music, it may be interesting to hint that
the melody is written here for the Second Soprano, and to
add, for their encouragement, that the experiment of
performing this Madrigal, unaccompanied, with two ladies,
and two male voices in the Alto parts, proved perfectly
successful, thanks to the science of Mr Fuller-Maitland and
the goodwill of the singers._

[Illustration: VIEW OF ROUEN, FROM THE ENGRAVING BY MERIAN IN 1620]

[Illustration: THE COMMERCE OF ROUEN, FROM THE BAS-RELIEF BY CONSTON
IN THE BOURSE]

CHAPTER XIV

_Literature and Commerce_

Rouen est ville bien marchande
C'est a cause de la mer grande
Et est ce semble sans doutance
Quasi la meilleure de France.

Ouy fameuse cite c'est toy qui prens la peine
D'aller chercher bien loin l'ambre, la porcelaine,
Le sucre, la muscade, et tant d'excellents vins....
... Soye, oueate, tabac, draps de laine, poisson,
Bois, bleds, sel, bescars, tout luy vient a foison.

Such popular festivals as that I have just described upon Ascension
Day are of very ancient origin, even if they do not date back to that
earliest "Fete aux Normands," whose institution you will remember in
1070. Two years afterwards began the Confrerie de la Vierge to which
Pierre Dare, Lieutenant-General for the King, gave fresh lustre when
he was elected its Master in 1486. Though older poems (like that of
Robert Wace) are connected with the Confrerie, to him is due the
beginning of those "Palinods" sung in honour of the Virgin in the
Church of St. Jean des Pres, which were called the "Puy de
Conception," like the Puy d'Amour of the Provencal troubadours. The
name probably originated in the refrain which ran through all the
various metres allowed in the poems which were sent in for
competition, as Pierre Grognet describes in 1533--

"On y presente les rondeaulx
Beaulx pallinotz et chans royaulx
Et sappelle celle journee
La feste du Puy honoree."

In these rhymes are preserved just those details of the people's life
for which we have been looking. Great events and mighty personages in
the world outside are passed unnoticed. The important trivialities of
the householder's existence are the