Rouen (France) -- Description and travel; Rouen (France) -- History
On his way from the Faubourg St. Sever to his lodgings in the Chateau
de Bouvreuil, five stages greeted his progress with loyal allegories.
Each bore its title written above in letters of gold or blue or rose
upon tin plates. The first was labelled "Repos Pacificque," and
represented by means of seven personages an acrostic on the royal name
of Charles. The second was "Ordre Politique," and was of a most
amazing ingenuity, for no less than forty-four persons were shown on
three stages one above the other which all turned round slowly on one
piece of timber. On the lowest appeared John the Evangelist with a
little angel by his side pointing him upwards to the splendours of the
Apocalypse; in the middle twenty-four aged harpers sat and harped,
with "lutes and rebecqs" in their hands; at the top shone the "Agnus
Dei," the lamb of Rouen from the civic arms, amidst a cloud of
evangelists and rainbows. On the third stage, labelled "Uncion des
Rois," was figured, with divers changes of scene, the coronation and
anointing of David, all arranged by Master David Pinel in token of the
joy of Rouen that Charles VIII. had been anointed with the holy oil at
Reims which had given strength to Charles VII. to turn out the hated
English. "Espoir en la croix" was represented on the fourth by the
victory of Constantine over Maxentius, with several "tirements de
courtines" or changes of scene. The fifth, styled "Nouvelle Eau
Celique," showed the blessings of the new reign after the sufferings
of the old one by a fountain which watered the Tree of the People, so
that leaves by a marvellous device appeared to flourish naturally
upon it, while wine was poured out from beneath for every passer-by to
drink, and five fair damsels sang harmoniously. That evening all the
shepherds and shepherdesses and other characters in these moving
"histories" came down and played a "mystery" before the King. But
perhaps the thing that pleased the young Charles most of all, was that
gay procession of young gentlemen of Rouen which caracoled before him
on horseback, under the leadership of no less a personage than his
majesty the King of Yvetot, the captain of the City Bridge. (See
footnote on page 36.)
In the next days he promised to confirm the charters of the town,
assured the canons in the exercise of the Privilege St. Romain, and
asked that the procession of the prisoner might pass by his chateau,
which was the more appropriate as the man released had been condemned
to death for killing a groom attached to one of the royal suite, who
had given wanton and continued provocation. Not till the seventeenth
of May were the requests both of the ecclesiastical and the civic
authorities fully granted at St. Ouen; the spokesman for each had been
Maitre Michel Petit, the "chantre" of the Chapterhouse, and by that
one fact, if by no other, King Charles must have been properly
impressed with the importance of the Church in Rouen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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