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 years did they pray before the shrine of the Queen Virgin and Martyr, and also did they implore her to vouchsafe to grant them some token of her favor; and, at length, one of her fingers suddenly disjointed itself from the dead hand of the corpse.—­“This gift,” as the legend tells, “they received devoutly, and with it they returned to their monastery at Rouen.”—­Never was a miracle less miraculous; and it is fortunately now of little consequence to inquire whether the mouldering relic enriched an older monastery, or assisted in bestowing sanctity on a rising community.  According to the pseudo-hagiologists, the corpse of Saint Catherine was borne through the air by angels, and deposited on the summit of Mount Sinai, on the spot where her church is yet standing.  Conforming, as it were, to the example of the angels, it was usual, in the middle ages, to erect her religious