ing in height and diameter as they rise, and
terminating in a cross, whose clumsy shape only renders the destruction
of that which it replaces the more to be regretted. The form is octagon
throughout; and upon every compartment in each of the stories, is
carved, at a short distance from its base, a narrow cinquefoil-headed
arch, surmounted by a triangular crocketed canopy. But the crockets and
finials have been in most instances destroyed. The water issues from
four pipes in the basement. Each of the arches of the lower tier serves
as a tabernacle for a wooden statue of a Madonna, or saint, of wretched
execution, a poor substitute for those that occupied the same niches
previously to the troubles of 1792, at which time the religious
character of the fountain marked it out as an object of popular
vengeance. It was suffered to continue in its mutilated and degraded
state, from that period till the year 1816, when the inhabitants of this
part of the town undertook to restore it at their own expense. Their
labors have hitherto proceeded no farther than filling the niches afresh
with images, and doing such repairs as were absolutely necessary to keep
the whole structure from falling into ruin. Even by this, however, they
have secured themselves the good will of the archbishop, who consecrated
the fountain with great pomp anew, on the 24th of August, 1816.

The resemblance between the _Fountain of the Stone Cross_, at Rouen, and
the monumental crosses erected in England by King Edward I. to
perpetuate the memory of his consort, Eleanor of Castillo, will not fail
to strike the British antiquary. It is more than probable, that the idea
of the former was borrowed from the latter, to which, however, it is
very inferior in point of richness of ornaments, or beauty of
execution.

NOTES:

[176] It is right to observe, that the accounts here given of this and
the following article, are little more than a translation, in the second
instance materially abridged, of what is published upon the same
subjects, in _Jolimont, Monumens de la Normandie_.

PLATE LXXVIII.

PALACE OF JUSTICE, AT ROUEN.

[Illustration: Plate 78. PALACE OF JUSTICE, AT ROUEN.]

The building here figured was, from its foundation, devoted to the
purpose of the administration of justice; and, notwithstanding the many
mutilations to which it has at different times been exposed, it still
remains an interesting, and, in the city of Rouen, almost a uniq