ROUBLE, a silver coin of the value of 3s. 2d.; the unit of the Russian monetary system; a much depreciated paper rouble is also in circulation; the rouble is divided into 100 copecks.

ROUEN (112), the ancient capital of Normandy, a busy manufacturing town on the Seine, 87 m.  NW of Paris; a good portion of the old, crowded, picturesque town has given place to more spacious streets and dwellings; the old ramparts have been converted into handsome boulevards; has several Gothic churches unrivalled in beauty, a cathedral (the seat of an archbishop), &c.; the river affords an excellent waterway to the sea, and as a port Rouen ranks fourth in France; is famed for its cotton and other textiles; Joan of Arc was burned here in 1431.

ROUGET DE LISLE, officer of the Engineers, born at Lons-le-Saulnier; immortalised himself as the author of the “MARSEILLAISE” (q. v.); was thrown into prison by the extreme party at the Revolution, but was released on the fall of Robespierre; fell into straitened circumstances, but was pensioned by Louis Philippe (1760-1836).

ROUGE-ET-NOIR (i. e. red and black), a gambling game of chance with cards, so called because it is played on a table marked with two red and two black diamond-shaped spots, and arranged alternately in four different sections of the table.

ROUHER, EUGENE, French Bonapartist statesman, born at Riom, where he became a barrister; entered the Constituent Assembly in 1848, and in the following year became Minister of Justice; was more or less in office during the next 20 years; he became President of the Senate in 1869; fled to England on the fall of the Empire; later on re-entered the National Assembly, and vigorously defended the ex-emperor Napoleon III. (1814-1884).

ROULERS (20), a manufacturing town in West Flanders, 19 m.  SW. of Bruges; engaged in manufacturing cottons, lace, &c.; scene of a French victory over the Austrians in 1794.

ROULETTE, a game of chance, very popular in France last century, now at Monaco; played with a revolving disc and a ball.

ROUMANIA (5,800), a kingdom of SE.  Europe, wedged in between Russia (N.) and Bulgaria (S.), with an eastern shore on the Black Sea; the Carpathians on the W. divide it from Austro-Hungary; comprises the old principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which, long subject to Turkey, united under one ruler in 1859, and received their independence in 1878, in which year the province of Dobrudja was ceded by Russia; in 1881 the combined provinces were recognised as a kingdom; forms a fertile and well-watered plain sloping N. to S., which grows immense quantities of grain, the chief export; salt-mining and petroleum-making are also important industries; the bulk of the people belong to the Greek Church; peasant proprietorship on a large scale is a feature of the national life; government is vested in a hereditary limited monarch, a council of ministers, a senate, and a chamber of deputies; BUCHAREST (q. v.) is the capital, and GALATZ (q. v.) the chief port.