No doubt the revolt had had some obscure connection with the horrible excesses of the Jacquerie which at the same moment had been desolating Paris. The disorderly bands of ruffians who had been discharged from the French army were, at any rate, a direct source of annoyance to Rouen later on, as indeed they were to almost every town in France in that unhappy time, and Bertrand du Guesclin himself had to come to Rouen in 1364 to organise the army that finally crushed these licentious freebooters, and their ally, the King of Navarre, at Cocherel. Ever since the middle of the thirteenth century, frequent references occur in the records of the town to the various trades that, in spite of every drawback, continued slowly to progress towards riches and consolidation. Though the early commerce with England now died down, home industries flourished, and of them all, the making of woollen draperies soon became the pre-eminent commerce of the town, which in 1362 signalised the fact by placing the lamb or sheep upon its civic seal, which henceforth appears upon the arms of the town, and is also placed so prominently on the archway of the Grosse Horloge. Rabelais will tell you of the prosperous merchants who bought flocks of sheep from farmers like Dindenault, to make the "bons fins draps de Rouen," for Pantagruel and Panurge journeyed with Epistemon, Eusthenes, and Carpalim to Rouen from Paris, on their way to take ship at Honnefleur, and they will explain to you (for I cannot) why the towns that grow so thickly round the capital become more sparsely scattered towards the sea, and in their excellent company you may appreciate the gallantry of Eusthenes towards the Norman ladies, and even savour faintly, as from afar, the bouquet of that Vin blanc d'Anjou which Pantagruel bought in some old hostelry beside the Eau de Robec. "Mouton de Rouen," says the old proverb, "qui a toujours la patte levee," and her sons were ever ready from the earliest years to go their ways, "gaaignant," through all the trade-routes of Europe, where French and Spanish wines were to be bought and sold. And beyond them too; for in 1364 they had joined the mariners of Dieppe in an expedition to the far Canaries, and even helped towards a little settlement upon the coast of Africa, from which the good ship "Notre Dame de Bon Voyage" brought home a cargo of pepper, ivory, and gold-dust that caused much speculation on the quays of Rouen. In 1380 a few actual forts were set upon the Guinea Coast, under the command of that brave Norman admiral, Jean de Bethencourt, the chamberlain of Charles VI., who styled himself the King of the Canaries (most fascinating of titles!) before he died in 1425.