Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 1 eBook

Dawson Turner
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 230 pages of information about Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 1.

Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 1 eBook

Dawson Turner
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 230 pages of information about Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 1.
such circumstances, have been imprudent.  The clergy might break their word, or a mightier power might interpose.  D’Alegre, therefore, persuaded a young mam, formerly a page of his, of the name of Pehu, to surrender himself as guilty of the crime; and to him the privilege was granted; under the sanction of which, the real culprit, and several of his accomplices in the assassination, obtained a free pardon.  The widow and daughter of Hallot, in vain remonstrated:  the utmost that could be done, after a tedious law-suit, was to procure a small fine to be imposed upon Pehu, and to cause him to be banished from Normandy and Picardy and the vicinity of Paris.  But regulations were in consequence adopted with respect to the exercise of the privilege; and the pardons granted under favor of it were ever afterwards obliged to be ratified under the high seal of the kingdom.

The Chateau du Vieux Palais and le petit Chateau like the edifices which I have already noticed, have equally yielded to time and violence.  M. Carpentier has furnished us with representations of both these castles, drawn and etched by himself, in the Itinerary of Rouen.  The first of them has also been inaccurately figured by Ducarel, and satisfactorily by Millin, in the second volume of his Antiquites Nationales; where, to the pen of this most meritorious and indefatigable writer, of whom, as of our Goldsmith, it may be justly said, that “nullum fere scribendi genus non tetigit, nullum quod tetigit non ornavit,” it affords materials for a curious memoir, blended with the history of our own Henry Vth, and of Henry IVth, of France.  The castle was the work of the first of these sovereigns, and was begun by him in 1420, two years after a seven months’ siege had put him in possession of the city, long the capital of his ancestors, and had thus rendered him undisputed master of Normandy.  This was an event worthy of being immortalised; and it may easily be imagined that private feelings had no little share in urging him to erect a magnificent palace, intended at once as a safeguard for the town, and a residence for himself and his posterity.  The right to build it was an express article in the capitulation he granted to Rouen, a capitulation of extreme severity[59], and purchased at the price of three hundred thousand golden crowns, as well as of the lives of three of the most distinguished citizens; Robert Livret, grand-vicar of the archbishop, John Jourdain, commander of the artillery, and Louis Blanchard, captain of the train-bands.  The two first of these were, however, suffered to ransome themselves; the last, a man of distinguished honor and courage, was beheaded; but Henry, much to his credit, made no farther use of his victory, and even consented to pay for the ground required for his castle.  He selected for the purpose, the situation where, defence was most needed, upon the extremity of the quay, by the side of the river, near the entrance

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Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.