the name of Rothomagus; it was the capital of the country of
the Velocasses.

If Rouen, as a town of Gaul, is little known to us, Rouen as a Roman
town is more so. Its existence is no longer doubtful; its importance
even is proved. All suppositions join to make one think that the Romans
were the first who erected external fortifications round the town.
Remains of walls evidently built by that people, were discovered in 1789
in the cellars of a house which had been built on the edge of the first
ditch[1]. These buildings extended westward even under the church of
Saint-Lo, and it is very probable that they joined towards the east with
other remains of roman architecture, found in digging the foundations of
another house, no 2, rue de la Chaine.

Here then, is the first boundary of Rouen under the Romans, and
drawn-out by them: _on the south_ the Seine, the waters of which at this
time, came as high as the line occupied at present by the rue des
Bonnetiers, the place de la Calende, that of Notre-Dame on its southern
portion, and thus along to the extremity of the rue aux Ours. _On the
north_, the ditch which existed the whole length of the streets de
l'Aumone, and Fosses-Louis-VIII, that is to say, from the river Robec at
the east, to the rue de la Poterne at the west. From the latter point
draw a line in a southern direction passing across the Mew-Market, the
rue Massacre and the rue des Vergetiers, to the rue aux Ours and you
will have the _western limit_. The _eastern limit_ is naturally marked
out by the course of the Robec. The town maintained this boundary till
the Xth century, the period of the establishment of Rollon, in this
portion of Neustria to which the Normans gave their name.

I have already said, that Rouen, was an important town under the Romans,
and this truth is proved, by the fact. It does not figures, it is true,
in the notice of the dignities of the Empire, as the seat of a superior
magistrate, but, nevertheless it is spoken of, as a town having a
garrison; and, it was there that the _praefectus militum Ursariensium_
or, as we should say in English, the colonel of the regiment of the
Ursarians, resided.

The ecclesiastical annals also, prove the importance of Rouen at this
period. We find, in fact, during the first ages of christianity, the
apostles coming into Gaul, going to Rouen, and fixing their abode in a
principal town that the sacred word might be more easily spread thro'
the surrounding