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Transcriber's Notes
Inconsistent use of diacriticals in French words has been correctedexcept in Old French quotations.
Some illustrations have been moved so as not to break up the flowof the text, and some page numbers are omitted as a result. Theoriginal page numbers in the lists of Illustrationsand Maps have been preserved, but the links point to the pages onwhich the illustrations and maps actually appear in this e-text.
This text contains a few words in ancient Greek. Hover the mouseover the Greek to see a pop-up transliteration, like this:βιβλος.
The Story of Rouen
by Theodore Andrea Cook
Illustrated by Helen M.
James and Jane E. Cook
London: J.M. Dent & Co.
Aldine House, 29 and 30 Bedford Street
Covent Garden, W.C. 1899
All rights reserved
ST. MACLOU
ΤΗΙ ΜΗΤΡΙ ΔΙΔΑΚΤΡΑ
PREFACE
"Est enim benignum et plenum ingenui pudoris fateri per quosprofeceris."
THE story of a town must differ from the history of a nation in thatit is concerned not with large issues but with familiar and domesticdetails. A nation has no individuality. No single phrase can fairlysum up the characteristics of a people. But a town is like one facepicked out of a crowd, a face that shows not merely the experience ofour human span, but the traces of centuries that go backward intounrecorded time. In all this slow development a character that isindividual and inseparable is gradually formed. That character neverfades. It is to be found first in the geographical laws of permanentor slowly changed surroundings, and secondly in the outward aspect ofthe dwellings built by man, for his personal comfort or for the goodof the material community, or for his spiritual needs.
To these three kinds of architecture I have attached this story ofRouen, because even in its remotest syllables there are some tracesleft that are still visible; and these traces increase as the storyapproaches modern times. While moats and ramparts still sever a cityfrom its surrounding territory, the space within the walls preservesmany of those sharply defined characteristics which grow fainter whentown and country merge one into the other; the modern suburb graduallydestroys the personality both of what it sprang from and of what itviiimeets. Up to the beginning of the sixteenth century I have been morecareful to explain the scattered relics of an earlier time than duringthe years when Rouen was filled with exquisite examples of thebuilder's art. After that ce