resemblance in form to bell-towers. I mention this etymology, because
the French have misled themselves strangely on the subject; and one of
them has wandered so widely in his conjectures, as to derive _beffroi_
from _bis effroi_, supposing it to be the cause of double alarm!
Happily, in the most alarming of all times for France, that of the
revolution, this bell, though appointed the _tocsin_, had scarcely ever
occasion to sound. There is, however, another purpose, alarming at all
periods, and especially in a town built of wood, to which it is
appropriated, and to which we only yesterday heard it applied, the
ringing to announce a fire. The precautions taken against similar
accidents in Rouen, are excellent, and they had need be so; for
insurance-companies of any kind are unknown, I believe, in France[113],
or exist only upon a most limited scale, at the foot of the Pyrenees,
where the farmers mutually insure each other against the effects of the
hail. The daily office of this bell is to sound the curfew, a practice
which, under different names, is still kept up through Normandy. Here it
rings nightly at nine. In other towns it rings at nine in winter only,
but not till ten in summer. In some places it is called _la retraite_.

Adjoining the bell-tower is a fountain, ornamented with statues of
Alpheus and Arethusa, united by Cupid; a specimen of the taste of the
far-famed _siecles de Louis XIV et de Louis XV_, and a worthy companion
of the water-works at Versailles. There are in Rouen more than thirty
public fountains, all supplied by five different springs, among which,
those of Yonville and of Darnetal are accounted to afford the purest
water.--The Robec and the Aubette also flow through Rouen in artificial
channels. St. Louis granted them both to the city in 1262; but it was
the great benefactor of the place, the Cardinal d'Amboise, who brought
them within the walls, by means of a canal, which he caused to be dug
at his own expence. For a space of two leagues their banks are
uninterruptedly lined with mills and manufactories of various
descriptions; and it is this circumstance which has given rise to the
saying, that Rouen is a wonderful place, for "that it has a river with
three hundred bridges, and whose waters change their color ten times a
day."

As a building, the fountain of Lisieux, decorated with a bas-relief
representing Parnassus, with Apollo, the Muses, and Pegasus, is most
frequently pointed out to st