Rouen (France) -- Description and travel; Rouen (France) -- History
The Rouen besieged by King Henry V. can be almost exactly traced along
the lines of the modern boulevards shown in map B. The extension
eastwards, which is given in map E. with this chapter, took place
chiefly during the fourteenth century when Rouen was rapidly growing
to be the second town in the kingdom. In making the circuit of the
walls you will remember passing the Tour du Colombier between the
Porte Martainville and the Porte St. Hilaire. It is represented now by
a picturesque old house standing four-square upon a buttressed wall
above the stream, at the extreme eastern verge of the great enclosure
of the hospital. It is still called the Maison des Celestins, and aged
men over sixty are preserved there to live out in peace the autumn of
their days. Both the name and the present occupiers are an appropriate
reminder of one who is connected with some of the better memories of
the English occupation, the Duke of Bedford who founded the Couvent
des Celestins, that was ruined by the Huguenots in 1562, upon the land
formerly occupied by his Chateau de Chantereine, called "Joyeux
Repos."
This convent, which was also known as the "Val Notre Dame," is not the
only trace which the Duke of Bedford's benefactions left in Rouen. He
also took the Carmelite brethren under his especial protection, being
no doubt supported in this charitable action by the English Carmelite
confessor of Henry V., Thomas de Valde, who died at Rouen in 1430. But
his most intimate connection with ecclesiastical Rouen is recorded in
the archives of the Cathedral, where we are told that he left the
chapterhouse in his will a beautiful golden chalice garnished with
gems, a pair of golden censers and a silver-gilt crucifix, in memory
of his being made a canon at his own request. And there is some irony
in the thought that at the moment he was giving these proofs of his
affection for the town, his councillors were, with his consent,
pursuing Jeanne d'Arc with every subtlest form of legal and religious
torture.
Scarcely a year after Jeanne had been burnt in the Vieux Marche, the
Duke's wife, Anne of Burgundy, died at the early age of 28, and in
addition to this private loss he had to submit to the consequences of
a grave error of judgment in his second marriage to Jacqueline,
daughter of Pierre de Luxembourg, Count of St. Pol, an alliance which
gravely offended the whole house of Burgundy. In 1435 he died himself
on the 14th of September, "die exaltacionis Sancte Crucis" as the
chapterhouse entries record, in the same Chateau of Rouen where Jeanne
d'Arc had suffered her last imprisonment. His body was embalmed and
buried in a leaden coffin in the choir of Rouen Cathedral by the side
of the dukes of Normandy and the English kings his ancestors, beneath
a magnificently sculptured tomb.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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