of Mont Ste. Catherine, is also master of the
town, if he can but have abundant supplies of water and provisions;--no
needless stipulation! At the same time, it must be admitted that the
fort was equally liable to be converted into the means of annoyance.
Such actually proved the case in 1562, at which time it was seized by
the Huguenots; and considerations of this nature most probably prevailed
with the citizens, when they declined the offer made by Francis Ist, who
proposed at a public meeting to enlarge the tower into an impregnable
citadel. In the hands of the Protestants, the fortress, such as it was,
proved sufficient to resist the whole army of Charles IXth, during
several days.--Rouen was stoutly defended by the reformed, well aware of
the sanguinary dispositions of the bigotted monarch. They yielded, and
he sullied his victory by giving the city up to plunder, during
twenty-four hours; and we are told, that it was upon this occasion he
first tasted heretical blood, with which, five years afterwards, he so
cruelly gorged himself on the day of St. Bartholomew. Catherine of
Medicis accompanied him to the siege; and it is related that she herself
led him to the ditches of the ramparts, in which many of their
adversaries had been buried, and caused the bodies to be dug up in his
presence, that he might be accustomed to look without horror upon the
corpse of a Protestant!

Near the fort stood a priory[61], whose foundation is dated as far back
as the eleventh century, when Gosselin, Viscount of Rouen, Lord of
Arques and Dieppe, having no son to inherit his wealth, was induced to
dispose of it "to pious uses," by the persuasions of two monks, who had
wandered in pilgrimage from the monastery of Saint Catherine, on Mount
Sinai. These good men assured him, that, if he dedicated a church to
the martyred daughter of the King of Alexandria, the stones employed in
building it would one day serve him as so many stepping-stones to
heaven. They confirmed him in his resolution, by presenting him with one
of the fingers of Saint Catherine. To her, therefore, the edifice was
made sacred, and hence it is believed that the hill also took its name.
In the _Golden Legend_, we find an account of the translation of the
finger to Rouen not wholly reconcileable with this history.--According
to the veracious authority of James of Voragine, there were certain
monks of Rouen, who journeyed even until the Arabian mountain. For seven
long yea