Rouen (France) -- Description and travel; Rouen (France) -- History
On the fourth panel, behind four mace-bearers, rides an ecclesiastic
bearing what was once a double cross: the dove that flew above his
head has entirely disappeared. Then comes Cardinal de Boissey, the
Papal Legate, and among the other Cardinals (who may be recognised by
their hatstrings falling on their chests) are those of Bourbon,
Albret, and Lorraine. Much of this has been destroyed, but there is
enough left to realise what Du Bellay says about the ruinous
extravagance of the dresses:--"Many of the Frenchmen," he writes,
"carried the price of woodland, watermill, and pasture on their
backs." Yet the taste of the Englishmen, who had not spent so much,
was acknowledged to have produced as splendid an effect as the
gorgeous outlay of the French; as Fleurange particularly records of
the English pavilion made of wood, and drapery and glass, "elle etait
trop plus belle que celle des Francais, et de peu de coutance." In one
point, however, the ladies of Paris asserted a superiority they have
retained almost ever since; the Englishwomen confessed themselves
beaten; but when they followed the fashion of their fair rivals, it
was not much better; for, says the truthful historian, "what they lost
in modesty they did not make up in grace."
Most unfortunately, on the fifth and last panel, though the stair-rail
has preserved some of its details better than any of the rest, the
superiority of these French ladies cannot be sufficiently studied,
though several of their heads may be seen watching the procession from
the windows and balconies of Ardres. The plumed hats and horses of the
escort are particularly clear here, and they are more numerous than in
the famous "Triumph of Maximilian" or in the "Entry of Charles V. into
Bologna." The figure of the courtier just mounting his horse is the
one I like best of all except the dignified personage who bears the
cross before the French ecclesiastics.
If the English ambassador in 1596 was easily able to recognise the
subject of these carvings, no less quickly would the Cardinal de
Florence, the Papal Legate who came to Rouen in the same year, and was
also lodged in this house, remember the originals from which were
taken the carvings on the frieze above the windows on this wall. For
though later generations have misunderstood them, just as they
imagined the lower carvings to be the Council of Trent, it is quite
clear from some words first discovered on the stone in 1875, that the
frieze was inspired by the "Triumphs" of Petrarch. These words are as
follows; and I have added their proper continuation and beginning in
italics:--
"_Amor vincit mundum
Pudicitia vincit amorem
Mors vincit pudicitiam_
Fama vincit mortem
Tempus vincit _famam_
_Divinitas seu Eternitas omnia vincit_."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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