nces, and its lovely courtyard opened
to the Rue des Carmes on the other side (see p. 288).

[Footnote 54: Most of the dwelling-houses were of wood, which explains
why so few are left.]

This same old house was a canon's residence, and the property of the
Chapter of the Cathedral before the Revolution. Some furniture-dealers
bought it at the general sale of ecclesiastical effects. In 1893 it
was sold to the State for 36,000 francs by Mr Dumont, to whom the
Civil Tribunal had awarded it. The loss to the Rue St. Romain would be
a serious one, if the house were finally pulled down. A fatal passion
for "alignement" has Haussmannised Rouen quite enough already, and to
strip the Cathedral bare of all appendages would be to forget the main
object of mediaeval architecture in France. I have pointed out
elsewhere that it was owing to a more settled state of society that
the English Cathedral rose from the turf of a broad quiet close, as at
Salisbury. In France the houses of the Cathedral towns crowded close
round the walls that were their temporal safety as well as their
spiritual salvation. The Parvis of Notre Dame is a creation of modern
Paris. Many a church in Provence still shows by the machicolations and
loopholes on its walls and towers that it could have played the
fortress with a good grace whenever necessary. And it was no doubt
because a French cathedral rose above the clustered houses round its
base that its lines of architecture spring so boldly to the sky, and
that its detailed carving within easy vision was so close and
excellent.

This old Rue St. Romain may have received its name from the Hotel St.
Romain mentioned in it in 1466. In any case the name of the city's
patron saint could hardly have been given to a more characteristic
thoroughfare. By 1423 it seems to have been called the Rue
Feronnerie, which is interesting, because the workers in metal (whose
trade is preserved in their old quarter of the Rue Dinanderie) were
not natives of Rouen, but all came from Lorraine, and especially from
Urville, a town within a few leagues of Domremy. So that Jean Moreau,
a maker of copper flagons in the Rue Ecuyere, was especially chosen by
Pierre Cauchon to go to his native place and make inquiries as to the
truth of Jeanne d'Arc's statement about her birth and upbringing.

[Illustration: CENTRAL TOWER OF ST. OUEN FROM THE SOUTH-EAST]

The next place in Rouen that actually saw Jeanne herself was the open
space round