Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 2Turner, Dawson
History
Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 2
Turner, Dawson
Architecture -- France -- Normandy; Normandy (France) -- Antiquities; Normandy (France) -- Description and travel
The town of Louviers, though never fortified, is noticed on several
occasions in history. It was the seat of the conferences between Richard
Coeur-de-Lion and Philip Augustus, which ended in the treaty of 1195,
defining new limits to Normandy.--It was, as I have already mentioned,
one of the items of the compensation made by the same Duke to the
Archbishop of Rouen, for the injury done to the church, by the erection
of Château Gaillard.--During the wars of Edward IIIrd, "Louviers," to
use the language of old Froissart, "after the battle of Caen, was soon
entered by the Englishmen, as it was not closed; and they over-ran, and
spoiled, and robbed it without mercy, and won great riches; for it was
the chief place in all Normandy for drapery, and was full of
merchandize."--And, in the subsequent warfare of the fifteenth century,
this town, like the others in the duchy, was taken by our countrymen,
under Henry Vth, and lost by them under his successor.--Hither the
Norman parliament retired when the Huguenots were in possession of
Rouen; and here they remained till the recapture of the capital.--It was
probably owing in a great measure to this circumstance, that Louviers
was induced to distinguish itself by a devoted attachment to the party
of the league, for which it suffered severely in 1591, when it was
captured and pillaged by the royalists shortly after their victory at
Ivry. The town was then taken through the treachery of a priest of the
name of Jean de la Tour, who received, as a recompence, a stall in the
cathedral at Evreux, but was so much an object of abhorrence with his
brethren, that he scarcely ever ventured to appear in his place. During
the holy week, however, he attended; and it once happened, that while he
was so officiating, all the canons contrived to leave the church towards
the close of the psalm, which immediately precedes the _Benedictus_ at
_Laudes_, so that the anthem, _Traditor autem_, which is sung with that
hymn, necessarily fell to the part of de la Tour, who found himself
compelled to chaunt it, to his own extreme confusion, and the infinite
amusement of the congregation. Irritated and mortified, the poor priest
preferred his complaints to the king; but it was one thing to love the
treason, and another to love the traitor; and his appeal obtained no
redress.
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