ng certain possessions outside the
town in exchange for the public mills of Rouen; and property was
further centralised by the royal charter granting these Halles, with
the Marche de la Vieille Tour, for an annual rent to the mayor and
burgesses of the town, who were also given full rights of possession
in the streams of Robec and Aubette. St. Louis also established the
right of the citizens to insist on their debtors coming to Rouen
itself to adjust their legal difficulties, and further assisted
commerce by prohibiting strange merchants from retail trade in the
city, and by making all Jews wear a circle of yellow (called rouelle)
on back and breast, as a distinctive mark.

The commercial privileges which I have already mentioned (see p. 85)
were fully confirmed by Philip Augustus, especially with regard to
exports to Ireland, while Louis IX. continued the gradual
consolidation of the river trade in the hands of the Rouen merchants.
What this involved, may be seen from the case which was brought before
the Parliament of Paris in 1272, when the Mayor of Rouen had seized
six barrels of wine which a landowner was bringing (as he asserted)
from his vineyards to his own house by river. Every quay along the
bank was rapidly taken possession of by the merchants, and by 1282 the
famous "Clos aux Galees," between the Rue du Vieux Palais and the Rue
de Fontenelle, was built in the parish of St. Eloi as a dockyard for
purposes of commerce and of war. But not long after this the space
appears to have been needed for other purposes, and the real "Clos
des Galees" was moved across the river to the other bank at the end of
the Empress Bridge, or "Pont de Mathilde." In a charter of 1297, the
change is marked by the name, "Neuves-Galees," and this occurs again
in 1308. It is remarkable as the first arsenal ever used for artillery
in France; for cannon, arms, and powder were all stored here in later
times, and here were built the ships that fought in the Hundred Years'
War by Charles VI., out of wood from the forests of Roumare. Just
before the great siege by the English in 1418 the citizens destroyed
it, but the name remained in the hostelry called the "Enseigne de la
Galere." Then the "Grenier a sel" and the "Hotel des Gabelles" were
built on the same spot; and finally you can only imagine very vaguely
where the first dockyards of Rouen were when you look now at the
Caserne St. Sever.

In tracing out the changes that have come in eac