gratiæ quingentesimo trigesimo sexto gestum esse indubiâ fide invenio. Nam dominantibus longo post tempore in Normanniâ. Anglis, ortâque inter Joannem Hollandum, Auglum, et Yvetoti dominum quæstione, quasi proventuum ejus terræ pars fisco Regis Anglorum quotannis obnoxia esset, Caleti Proprætor anno salutis 1428, de ratione litis judiciario ordine se instruens, id, sicut annotatum a me est, comperisse judicavit."--_Robert Gaguin_, lib. II. fol. 17. [46] _Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions_, IV. p. 728.--The question is also discussed in the _Traité de la Noblesse_, by M. de la Roque; in the _Mercure de France_, for January, 1726; and in a Latin treatise by Charles Malingre, entitled "_De falsâ regni Yvetoti narratione, ex majoribus commentariis fragmentum_." [47] _Précis Analytique des Travaux de l'Académie de Rouen_, 1811, p. 181. LETTER VII. ON THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN FRANCE. (_Rouen, June_, 1818.) Abandoning, for the present, all discussion of the themes of the elder day, I shall occupy myself with matters relating to the living world. The fatigued and hungry traveller, whose flesh is weaker than his spirit, is often too apt to think that his bed and his supper are of more immediate consequence than churches or castles. And to those who are in this predicament, there is a material improvement at Rouen, since I was last here: nothing could be worse than the inns of the year 1815; but four years of peace have effected a wonderful alteration, and nothing can now be better than the Hôtel de Normandie, where we have fixed our quarters. Objection may, indeed, be made to its situation, as to that of every other hôtel in the city; but this is of little moment in a town, where every house, whatever street or place it may front, opens into a court-yard, so that its views are confined to what passes within its own quadrangle; and, for excellence of accommodations, elegance of furniture, skill in cookery, civility of attendance, nay, even for what is more rare, neatness, our host, M. Trimolet, may challenge competition with almost any establishment in Europe. For the rent of the house, which is one of the most spacious in Rouen, he pays three thousand francs a year; and, as house-rent is one of the main standards of the value of the circulating medium, I will add, that our friend, M. Rondeau, for his, which is not only among the largest but among the most elegant and the best placed for business, pays but five hundred francs more. This, then, may be considered as the _maximum_ at Rouen. Yet Rouen is far from being the place which should be selected by an Englishman, who retires to France for the purpose of economizing: living in general is scarcely one-fourth cheaper than in our own country. At Caen it is considerably more reasonable; on the banks of the Loire the expences of a family do not amount to one-half of the English cost; and still farther south a yet more sensible reduction takes place,