In conclusion I must express the earnest wish that the pages I have written about the carvings of the Maison Bourgtheroulde, and the illustrations accompanying them, will not have been published in vain. That the only authentic contemporaneous record of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, except the one picture at Hampton Court, should now be mouldering into decay in a French town is hardly creditable to those who can act with authority in valuable questions of historical art. If it be impossible to procure any good reproduction of these carvings for the pleasure and instruction of the public in our own National Galleries, a suggestion might at least be made that would secure their better preservation in the French house which they will soon cease to adorn. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE _Introductory_ 1 CHAPTER II _The First City_ 12 CHAPTER III _Merovingian Rouen_ 24 CHAPTER IV _Rouen under her own Dukes_ 44 CHAPTER V _The Conquest of England and the Fall of Normandy_ 72 CHAPTER VI _A French Town_ 103 CHAPTER VII _La Rue de la Grosse Horloge_ 134 CHAPTER VIII _The Siege of Rouen by Henry V._ 169 CHAPTER IX _Jeanne d'Arc and the English Occupation_ 200 CHAPTER X _A City of Churches_ 233 CHAPTER XI _Justice_ 264 CHAPTER XII _Death_ 292 CHAPTER XIII _Life_ 321 CHAPTER XIV _Literature and Commerce_ 369 _A Madrigal of 1550_ 362 _Appendix_ 394 _Index_ 403 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE _St. Maclou_ _Frontispiece_ _The Arms of Rouen_* 1 _The Original Fontaine Croix de Pierre_ 13 _Crypt of St. Gervais_ 19 _Statue of St. Louis_ 22 _Initial Letter from an old Manuscript_ 24 _The Arms of Rouen_* 35 _Chapelle de la Fierte de St. Romain_ 37 _The Arms of Normandy_* 44 _Figure from the Border of the Bayeux Tapestry_* 56 _Figure from the Border of the Bayeux Tapestry_* 64