By the time of Louis XV. it becomes somewhat difficult to find the interesting men of this or any other French city; you must look for them in the anti-chambers of the Duc de Choiseul, in the robing-rooms of the Pompadour or the Du Barry. In 1774 Rouen saw the typical sight of the Duchesse de Vauguyon reviewing her husband's troops. When Louis XV. passed through the town, and the Pompadour was seen smiling by his side, the citizens' reception of the doubtful honour was a very cold one. And when Louis XVI. paid his call of ceremony upon the Mayor, a still more melancholy presage broke the harmony of the peal that welcomed him from the Cathedral belfry, for the great bell Georges d'Amboise--which weighed 36,000 pounds, and had rung in every century since the great minister of Louis XII. gave him to the town--cracked suddenly, and was never heard again. He has a successor now, but his own metal was used for quite another purpose. When the Revolution broke out, the bronze that had served to call the faithful from all the countryside to prayer was melted into cannon and roundshot that were to send the Royalists to heaven by much quicker methods. Rouen passed comparatively lightly through the Reign of Terror. Only 322 persons were guillotined in the whole of Normandy, and the local justices beheaded nearly as many in suppressing the disorders that followed the general disorganisation of society. Even on the 1st of November 1793 we hear of the first night of Boieldieu's "La Belle Coupable" performed at the Theatre de la Montagne. And though Thouret is sent up as Deputy to Paris (and afterwards to draw up the Constitution), though the irascible Marquis d'Herbouville is always making a disturbance, though the "Carabots" revolt and break out into pillage, it is only when "Anarchists" from Paris come down to trouble them that the good folk of Rouen "draw the line." In fact, they hanged the over-zealous Bourdier and Jourdain upon the quay just by the bridge. It is interesting that no less a personage than Marat, then plain Dr Marat, had several Memoires crowned by the Academy of Rouen, one of them on Mesmerism. Voltaire thought little of his capabilities then, but the "ami du peuple" left a gentle reputation in the town, and is even credited with having preserved an old illuminated manuscript under his mattress during some riots that threatened its safety. A more authenticated fact is that Charlotte Corday came from Caen, and popular tradition insists still that it was from the carving of Herodias on the facade of Rouen Cathedral (which the townsfolk call "La Marianne dansant," for some unknown reason) that the suggestion came to her of saving the People from their Friend.