THE BEAUTIES OF FRANCE 



401 



Did Joan ever see it, we wonder? And 

 then there is the great sixteenth century 

 Maison de Bourgtheroulde, with its ex- 

 quisitely sculptured facade, the windows 

 exceptionally effective and beautiful. On 

 one wing are the famous historical panels 

 picturing the celebrated meeting of Kings 

 Henry VIII of England and Francis I 

 of France on the Field of the Cloth of 

 Gold. These are mere suggestions ; Rouen 

 is full of others no less interesting. Just 

 off the broad, modern Rue Jeanne d'Arc a 

 careful citizenry has gummed the Renais- 

 sance fagade of an artisan's house to the 

 stone wall of a big business building, that 

 men may see how their fellow-workmen 

 of four centuries ago lived, when "a man 

 was proud not only of the house of his 

 God, but of the house wherein he dwelt." 

 The city's great appeal, of course, is as 

 a show place of magnificent ecclesiastical 

 architecture. Certainly no one could 

 think of the beauties of France without 

 instantly visioning the country's astonish- 

 ing array of these sacred edifices. They 

 have to a very marked degree the char- 

 acteristics of their locations, and are 

 therefore in the same physical category 

 as parts of France, as the mountains and 

 plains, the rivers and trees, taken prov- 

 ince by province. Geography has in- 

 fluenced them ; foreign trade has had a 

 part in their design ; and, most of all, in 

 the great Gothic cathedrals we find that 

 Nature herself has been the model from 

 which the inspiration that crystallized in 

 them has been drawn. 



CHURCHES OF ROUEN 



The Cathedral of Rouen towers above 

 the busy town as a memorial of creation. 

 From its Tour de St. Romain, on the 

 north side of the facade, to the opposite 

 Tour de Beurre — built largely with the 

 money received for dispensations permit- 

 ting the faithful to eat butter during 

 Lent — the structure presents an archi- 

 tectural progression which typifies all the 

 styles in vogue during the 400 years it 

 was in process of construction. If you 

 do not like this effect, you can always 

 find a beautiful portal or window or cap- 

 ital at hand to admire ; and right under 

 the aged walls is the little flower market, 

 where a glorious burst of kaleidoscopic 



hues wonderfully livens up the cold 

 stones and gives a flashing contrast to the 

 somber and curious Street of the Grocers, 

 which opens out of the square. 



After the cathedral, first in importance 

 is the Church of St. Ouen, crested with 

 that elegant central tower called the 

 Crown of Normandy, gleaming with so 

 many lofty stained-glass windows that it 

 seems all one great jewel, and always 

 ready, if you gaze into the holy-water 

 font, to give you a glorious reflection of 

 practically its entire interior- — vaults, pil- 

 lars, arches, and splendid windows. The 

 smaller Church of St. Maclou is a veri- 

 table gem of the florid Gothic. Its build- 

 ers had a new ideal and piled up a won- 

 derfully captivating fagade, curved out- 

 ward, with five richly sculptured arches, 

 growing in size and rising in height 

 toward the center (see page 399). 



Of the innumerable churches in Rouen, 

 almost every one is to be visited for some 

 personal peculiarity or beauty or for its 

 historic associations. On the apse of St. 

 Vincent a little salt porter recalls the 

 right King Charles VI gave to the church 

 in 1409 to take toll from every bag of 

 salt that entered the city. Other churches 

 are today but desecrated skeletons. Here 

 one is inches deep in the sticky lees of 

 cheap red wine, with its profaned altar 

 dripping as red as any sacrificial stone 

 the Druids ever knew ; yonder one still 

 caring for man, but as an inn for the 

 body instead of for the soul. And from 

 the tower of one, whose nave echoes now 

 to the dish-pan feet of splendid Percher- 

 ons, the lonely figure of King David looks 

 out over the transformed city and fingers 

 his harp in silent regret. 



WHERE JOAN OE ARC WAS TRIED 



In a city whose history is so complex 

 as that of Rouen, so full of the most 

 astonishing violence, the centuries have 

 naturally woven a spell of both beauty 

 and romance about the ancient clock- 

 tower and bridge grouped under the 

 name of the Grosse Horloge. The bell- 

 tower is something to look for in every 

 French city as the symbol of popular 

 sentiment. Quite as often as not the bell 

 roused the people against their rulers ; 

 agrain it called them from behind their 



