t the
beautiful courtyard (illustrated in this chapter) in the Rue Petit
Salut (now No. 13 Rue Ampere) was not put down as sixteenth century in
my notes, a date to which I was inclined by the fine open staircase
and doorway on the right of the courtyard. On its left is an undoubted
Renaissance pillar, probably taken from its original position in
another place, and high above you rises a gabled window with carved
sides.

The only historical event I have been tempted to connect with this
spot is the entry of Louis d'Orleans in 1452, who is said to have
lodged in the "Hotel d'Estellan, Rue Petit Salut." But the house is
worth visiting if only to speculate on the dungeon windows in the
corner of the little street outside, and to look up the Impasse Petit
Salut a little further on, where the Tour de Beurre rises with an
extraordinary effect of solitary beauty above the twisted roof trees
into the sky.

By the time of Louis XV. it becomes somewhat difficult to find the
interesting men of this or any other French city; you must look for
them in the anti-chambers of the Duc de Choiseul, in the robing-rooms
of the Pompadour or the Du Barry. In 1774 Rouen saw the typical sight
of the Duchesse de Vauguyon reviewing her husband's troops. When Louis
XV. passed through the town, and the Pompadour was seen smiling by his
side, the citizens' reception of the doubtful honour was a very cold
one. And when Louis XVI. paid his call of ceremony upon the Mayor, a
still more melancholy presage broke the harmony of the peal that
welcomed him from the Cathedral belfry, for the great bell Georges
d'Amboise--which weighed 36,000 pounds, and had rung in every century
since the great minister of Louis XII. gave him to the town--cracked
suddenly, and was never heard again. He has a successor now, but his
own metal was used for quite another purpose. When the Revolution
broke out, the bronze that had served to call the faithful from all
the countryside to prayer was melted into cannon and roundshot that
were to send the Royalists to heaven by much quicker methods.

Rouen passed comparatively lightly through the Reign of Terror. Only
322 persons were guillotined in the whole of Normandy, and the local
justices beheaded nearly as many in suppressing the disorders that
followed the general disorganisation of society. Even on the 1st of
November 1793 we hear of the first night of Boieldieu's "La Belle
Coupable" performed at the Theatre de la Montagne