ain, and he had
therefore gone on his way thinking no more about it.

Bigot took him back to Rouen forthwith, and made him give the same
story on oath before a justice, with the addition that he would
certainly be able to recognise the second of the two voices he had
heard. The new shopkeeper, Francois, was then brought into Court, and
after twenty other men had spoken, the blind man picked out his voice
among them all, as that which had spoken to him on the slopes above
Argenteuil. The test was repeated again and again, and invariably the
blind man picked out the same voice. Francois, who had weakened
visibly as each test proved successful, at last fell on his knees and
confessed that he had murdered his master and taken the papers to
Paris; and the Court immediately condemned him to be broken on the
wheel.

I have been able to suggest but a very few of the thoughts which the
Palais de Justice of Rouen should arouse in you; and of many points in
its history I have no space to tell; as of the "Clercs de l'Echiquier"
called the "Basoche," a merry company established in 1430, and
enlivening the records of the law for many centuries afterwards, as
you will see at the visit of Henri II. But after all, the main
impression is a very sombre one. The bitter sarcasms of Rabelais are
but too well founded. Mediaeval justice was almost as terrible as
mediaeval crime, and both were followed only too frequently by death.
For these old judges let no money go, however prodigal they were of
life and suffering; they scarcely ever let a prisoner go who had once
got into the grim machinery of their courts; and any miserable victim
who was once cast into one of their many dungeons must have welcomed
his release from lingering agony in death.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: THE DEAD BODY OF DE BREZE, FROM HIS TOMB IN ROUEN
CATHEDRAL]

CHAPTER XII

_Death_

Sedentes in tenebris et in umbra mortis, vinctos in
mendicitate.

... Comme sur un drap noir
Sur la tristesse immense et sombre
Le blanc squelette se fait voir....
... Des cercueils leve le couvercle
Avec ses bras aux os pointus,
Dessine ses cotes en cercle
Et rit de son large rictus.

The artist who first truly understood the rendering of light is also
the workman whose shadows are the deepest in every scene he drew. If I
were to leave you with an impression of the sixteenth century either
in Rouen or elsewhere-