doubted but that they originated from the same root, the Anglo-Saxon bell, whence barbarous Latinists have formed Belfredus and Berfredus, terms for moveable towers used in sieges, and so denominated from their resemblance in form to bell-towers.  I mention this etymology, because the French have misled themselves strangely on the subject; and one of them has wandered so widely in his conjectures, as to derive beffroi from bis effroi, supposing it to be the cause of double alarm!  Happily, in the most alarming of all times for France, that of the revolution, this bell, though appointed the tocsin, had scarcely ever occasion to sound.  There is, however, another purpose, alarming at all periods, and especially in a town built of wood, to which it is appropriated, and to which we only yesterday heard it applied, the ringing to announce a fire.  The precautions taken against similar accidents in Rouen, are excellent, and they had need be so; for insurance-companies of any kind are unknown, I believe, in France[113], or exist only upon a most limited scale, at the foot of the Pyrenees, where the farmers mutually insure each other against the effects of the hail.  The daily office of this bell is to sound the curfew, a practice which, under different names, is still kept up through Normandy.  Here it rings nightly at nine.  In other towns it rings at nine in winter only, but not till ten in summer.  In some places it is called la retraite.

Adjoining the bell-tower is a fountain, ornamented with statues of Alpheus and Arethusa, united by Cupid; a specimen of the taste of the far-famed siecles de Louis XIV et de Louis XV, and a worthy companion of the water-works at Versailles.  There are in Rouen more than thirty public fountains, all supplied by five different springs, among which, those of Yonville and of Darnetal are accounted to afford the purest water.—­The Robec and the Aubette also flow through Rouen in artificial channels.  St. Louis granted them both to the city in 1262; but it was the great benefactor of the place, the Cardinal d’Amboise, who brought them within the walls, by means of a canal, which he caused to be dug at his own expence.  For a space of two leagues their banks are uninterruptedly lined with mills and manufactories of various descriptions; and it is this circumstance which has given rise to the saying, that Rouen is a wonderful place, for “that it has a river with three hundred bridges, and whose waters change their color ten times a day.”

As a building, the fountain of Lisieux, decorated with a bas-relief representing Parnassus, with Apollo, the Muses, and Pegasus, is most frequently pointed out to strangers; a wretched specimen of wretched taste.  Infinitely more interesting to us are the Gothic fountains or conduits, which are now wholly wanting in England.  Such is the fountain de la Croix de Pierre, which, in shape, style, and ornaments, resembles the monumental crosses erected