ruin of the Revolution and the iconoclasm of the
religious struggles have left far deeper marks; and Rouen, sacked by
the English, and occupied by the Germans, suffered more injury at the
hands of her own citizens, than either from Time or from any foreign
foe.

In the last half of the eighteenth century it was that Rouen lost most
of her mediaeval characteristics, under the levelling regime of
Intendant de Crosne, whose one good work was the building of the
boulevards. Hardly as much change was wrought when the great new
streets of 1859 were cut that swept away the old infected quarters of
the fifteenth century. The Revolution, that is responsible for the
debasement of St. Laurent and St. Ouen, among many other atrocities,
did most injury in abolishing those picturesque local bodies, like the
"Cinquantaine" and the "Arquebusiers," and substituting for them a
meaningless "Garde Nationale." Its efforts at "national" nomenclature
were fortunately in most cases abortive.

The Rouen of to-day, though so much taken up with commerce, is not
unworthy of her great traditions. A town that in art can show the
names of Poussin, Jouvenet, and Gericault; and in letters, Gustave
Flaubert, Maupassant, and Hector Malot, has not been left too far
behind by older memories. But it is in the number of its citizens who
have devoted themselves to the history and the archaeology of their own
town, their "Ville Musee," that Rouen has been especially blest. In
Farin the historian, in M. de Caumont the archaeologist, in Langlois,
de la Queriere, Deville, Pottier, Bouquet, Periaux; above all, in
Floquet, the town can point to a band of chroniclers of which any
city might be proud. To all of them I have been indebted. And no less
does this sketch of their city's story owe to those who are still
living within its streets, and still ready to point the visitor to
their greatest beauties: M. Charles de Beaurepaire, whose work in the
Archives is of the highest value, and to whom I am indebted for nearly
every reference to the records of the town; MM. Noel and Beaurain, who
preside over the Library; M. Georges Dubosc, M. Jules Adeline, and
many more.

Scarcely a year before these lines were written one more link between
Rouen and the literature of the world was lost. In August 1896 died a
"Professor of German" in the Lycee de Rouen, who had held her post
since 1882. There had lived Camille Selden, in a quiet seclusion, from
which she published the "