On the 10th of November 1449 Charles the Seventh of France was riding through his own good town of Rouen; by his side were Jacques Coeur, Rene d'Anjou, King of Sicily, and Pierre de Breze. The English had surrendered Rouen, and all of them were on their way home again who had not left their bones in France. CHAPTER X _A City of Churches_ Et concupiscet Rex decorem tuum quoniam ipse est Dominus Deus et adorabunt eum. Et filiae Tyri in muneribus vultum tuum deprecabuntur; omnes divites plebis. Omnis gloria ejus filiae regis ab intus, in fimbreis aureis, circumamicta varietatibus. A walk from Rouen to St. Sever will leave you with the impression that Rouen has so many churches that she has to turn many of them into shops, while St. Sever has so many shops that several of them have had to masquerade as churches. But the many "sacred buildings" you may see to-day are not much more than half of the churches and chapels of the sixteenth century which rose after the English garrison had disappeared. With the few exceptions I have already noted, Rouen has been almost entirely reconstructed since 1450, and in nothing can this be realised so well as in its churches. When Charles VII. first rode into Rouen, of the greater churches only the Cathedral was within a little of completion. St. Ouen hardly suggested yet the building that appears to-day. As I have said, it was during the English occupation that the nave was begun. The beautiful central tower was only finished by Antoine Bohier, who did much to make perfect the building that we see to-day as the fifth church on the same site. It received its name from St. Ouen, who was buried in the second church in 689. The monastery which was added to the third church was under the rule of Nicolas de Normandie, son of the second Duke Richard, in 1042. This was destroyed by the usual fire, and the rebuilding was assisted by the Empress Matilda and Richard Coeur de Lion. The little remnant of beautiful Romanesque called the Tour aux Clercs, probably formed the northern apse of its transept. When this church in turn was burnt in the same fire that destroyed the original churches of St. Godard and St. Laurent, the monks fled to Bihorel with what could be rescued of their archives and their "treasure." At last, Abbe Jean Roussel, called Marc d'Argent, started the noble fabric that, mutilated as it is, is still one of the finest monuments of later "Gothic" in existence. His first meeting of architects and master-masons was called in 1321, and then was in all likelihood decided the outlines of that mighty plan which took a century and a half to approach completion--and well-nigh half a hundred architects.