It is pleasant to imagine that cultured circle, conversing over the troubles of the time or arguing on literary and scientific subjects. There were two girls in the Pascal family, the pretty Gilberte, who very soon married a young councillor of Rouen at twenty-one, and Jacqueline, five years her junior, who won the prize at the Puy des Palonods, and had the honour of an ode from Corneille on her literary success. There was Berthe Corneille too, the mother of Fontenelle, and though Thomas was but young, he may well have had his share in a friendship which must have been very attractive to his older brother. This house of theirs in the Rue Corneille was not the only one in which Pierre wrote his tragedies. Indeed, I imagine it was more the town-lodgings of his legal father, and only used by the sons when business kept them near the Law-courts. In the country outside, at Petit-Couronne south of the Seine, Corneille did nearly all his best work; and in estimating that work it is well to remember that he was not merely born at Rouen, but that he lived and wrote there till he was fifty-six. [Illustration: EAU DE ROBEC] The Pascals left Rouen in 1648 during the disturbances of the Fronde. They had come there in even more troublous times, for the riots called the "Revolte des Va-nu-Pieds" had only just been quelled before their arrival. The salt-tax had already created strong discontent in Southern Normandy, and in August 1639 a tax on the dyers roused the men of the Rue Eau de Robec into such hot rebellion, that they killed the King's officer and burnt the tax-gatherer's house. In the same street to-day, which must be but little changed, you may still imagine the furious assemblages by those black dye-stained waters that flow muddily beneath their multitude of bridges from the Place des Ponts de Robec to the eastern confines of the town. Chancellor Seguier was sent down with several thousand infantry and 1200 horse, called the "Fleaux de Dieu," and kept the gallows as busy as at any Black Assizes for some three months.