he wore a long robe of figured velvet, trimmed with fur, and a vermilion cap of the same sort. From this embassy also he returned unsuccessful; and the siege was recommenced with greater vigour. New negotiations were then entered into, as things became more desperate, and continued for ten days; at the end of which time the duke surrendered.

The chronicler delights to linger upon the magnificence of the king's entry. The royal archers led the way, clothed in jackets of vermilion, red, white, and green, with helmet on head, and harness on limbs, and armed with swords and daggers. Then came the heralds, clothed in their coats of arms, and followed by trumpets and clarions, "which sounded so strongly as to make a great melody, and a very sweet thing to hear." The chancellor of France marched next, with a white horse led by two grooms, bearing on his back a small coffer containing the seals of the king. Charles himself then appeared, preceded by his two esquires. He was armed cap-a-pie, and his horse was covered from head to heel with a cloth of azure velvet, embroidered with golden fleurs-de-lis. The lords who followed him were dressed in all the colours of the rainbow; and in this state the party was met by the clergy of Rouen, including the four mendicant orders, singing Te Deum laudamus. “It is a thing certain, that the king was never escorted at any time by so handsome and richly clothed a chivalry, nor by so great a body of warriors and men-at-arms, as at this entrance into the city of Rouen." Among the things worthy of note which the procession fell in with, was an artificial stag,

which," by a great and rare artifice," knelt before the king as he passed. There was also an Agnus Dei spouting wine from its horns! Perhaps, however, the most interesting sight was that of the Duchess of Somerset and the Countess Dunois, with Talbot and the other English lords detained as hostages, gazing upon the cortège from a window.

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CHAPTER XII.

NOTRE DAME AND SAINT OUEN.

ONCE on a time there was a dragon, and his name was Gargouille, and he lived in the forest of Rouvray. Every day he issued from his den as soon as the sun was up, and prowled about seeking whom he might devour. The husbandman in his fields, the priest at the altar, the maid at her spinning-wheel,—all were alike to him: he gobbled them up. He breakfasted at one village, dined at a second, supped at a third. Young or old, fat or lean, tough or tender,—it did not matter. A couple of youths were enough for breakfast; a man-at-arms, or a ploughman, with a few little boys and girls, sufficed for dinner and dessert; and a young Caletian lass afforded something light for supper. The country at last was thinned of provision; every day he had farther to go for his bite and sup; and at last Gargouille put his long snout, wistfully, but not rudely, over the walls of Rouen.

The citizens were dismayed. No man durst stir out of the town. If a young woman stole to the water-side to give her sweetheart the rendezvous (for young women in love-and when are they out of love?-have no fear), Gargouille was there. If little Tommy or Jacky let themselves down the ramparts to play at marbles in the road, or gather filberts in the wood (for little boys

have no sense), Gargouille was there. Every day somebody was missing. At last, Saint Romain, awaking one morning from a dose which the smell of the incense always threw him into, determined to take the matter in hand.

Being a priest, he could not fight the dragon himself, for the church," we all know," abhors blood;" and to send any innocent layman upon an errand of such doubtful result went against his conscience. He therefore demanded of the authorities a thief, and a murderer who had been already condemned to death; and with these heroes, as a cat's-paw, he marched away, on the day of the Ascension, to give battle to Gargouille. The thief, as might be expected, stole himself off; but the murderer, being used to killing, stood his ground. Saint Romain began to pray valiantly; and the dragon appeared.

The murderer's lance

Terrible was the conflict! had little effect upon the scale-armour of his opponent; but, on the other hand, his own defensive gear sufficed for his protection. The mark of Cain was upon his forehead, and Gargouille rather declined eating him. At last, alarmed by the noise made by Saint Romain, who redoubled his invocations, the monster turned his head to see what was the matter. That motion was fatal. The lance of his opponent entered between the wrinkles of the neck, and, glancing downwards, severed the oesophagus, penetrated the upper portion of the right lung, and buried itself in the heart. Gargouille, with a roar that made the whole forest shudder, immediately gave up the ghost.

In memory of this deed the clergy of Rouen were granted by King Dagobert the privilege - they and their successors for ever-of delivering a prisoner every year on the day of the Ascension. At first it did not matter of what crime the individual chosen had been convicted; but Henri Quatre, too much of a Protestant to be well read in his Catholic legends, excluded murderers, traitors, heretics, and coiners, from the benefit of the act. The "for ever" of King Dagobert extended only to the revolution.

It is meet that the reader should be acquainted with these facts, before setting out on his second tour through the curiosities of Rouen; for the very first object we come to is the monument of Saint Romain, and the place where a condemned prisoner was liberated every year according to ancient usage. A vast building, called the Halles, lies to the right of the Rue de Bec, which turns up from the quay; and before it is the Vieille Tour, on the first stage of which the levée de la fierte, or elevation of the shrine, took place, which delivered a prisoner from the doom his crimes had received.

Fifteen days before the Rogations, four canons paraded, in their ecclesiastical robes, to the various high courts of the city, to give notice of their privilege, in order that no criminal should be executed between that day and the one on which their claim was to be made. During the three rogation-days, two canon-priests, accompanied by the registrar of the chapter and two chaplains, preceded by the verger in cap and gown, with his silver mace, visited the prisons of the city and