Three weeks, however, gave them time for profitable reflections. When next the royal messengers appeared in the Chapterhouse, in the persons of the President of the Parliament of Paris, and the Grand Seneschal de Breze, their reception was not so chilling as before. Every preacher in the town had exhorted his congregation to pray that God would direct their proper choice. The revered shrine of St. Romain, that Fierte which represented the proudest token of ecclesiastical liberty, had been borne in solemn procession round the town. Public sentiment had been intensely agitated by the unwonted course events had taken. On the fateful 21st of August the Cathedral was packed with hundreds of the faithful, eager to be first to hear the decision of the canons. By three o'clock the ten bells of the Cathedral had summoned the canons to the matins which preceded the election that was to release the Church from widowhood, and give to Rouen a new archbishop. At last the Chapter assembled, the doors were shut, and every avenue to the Chapterhouse was strictly guarded. At the last moment an aged canon, rising from his death-bed to exercise his most cherished privilege, tottered into the assembly to select a friend to vote for him, and went back to die. Suddenly the door of the Chapterhouse opened again, and Etienne Tuvache the Chancellor uttered in a loud voice his last summons to all those who had the right to vote that they should forthwith enter. When it had closed again--for there was no reply--the solemn oath was administered to every canon that he would rightly and reverently choose the candidate he honestly thought best. Any excommunicated person was warned to retire, and Masselin the Dean began his exhortation on the importance of their choice. When he had finished, all save the electors themselves withdrew, and on the flagged floor of the Chapterhouse the canons knelt to the singing of the "Veni Creator," and prayed for inspiration. Suddenly all leapt to their feet at once with one united shout of "Georges d'Amboise shall be Archbishop!" At once the great bells rang out to the town that the election had been made, while within the Cathedral every wall re-echoed with the shouts of "Noel, Noel!" as the people heard that Georges d'Amboise had been elected. A few days afterwards a still larger throng assembled in the Parvis to watch the great ecclesiastic of their choice advance on bare feet from the Church of St. Herbland and receive the episcopal ring from the Abbess of St. Amand, with the words, "Messire, je le donne a vous vivant, vous me le rendrez mort." As he came nearer to the western gates, Masselin, the "Grand Doyen," formally presented to him the Cathedral, and received his promise of loyalty and honest government, sworn on the books of the evangelists, and not till then did Georges d'Amboise mount his episcopal chair and give his first blessing to the people of Rouen as their Archbishop.