The first church at Rouen was built about the year 270:  three hundred and thirty years subsequently, this edifice was succeeded by another, the joint work of St. Romain and St. Ouen, which was burned in the incursions of the Normans, about the year 842.  Fifty years of Paganism succeeded; at the expiration of which period, Rollo embraced the faith of Christ, and Rouen saw once more within its walls, by the munificence and piety of the conqueror, a place of Christian worship.  Richard Ist, grandson of this duke, and his son Robert, the archbishop, enlarged the edifice in the middle of the tenth century; but it was still not completed till 1063, when, according to Ordericus Vitalis, it was dedicated by the Archbishop Maurilius with great pomp, in the presence of William, Duke of Normandy, and the bishops of the province.  Of this building, however, notwithstanding what is said by Ducarel[80] and other authors, it is certain that nothing more remains than the part of St. Romain’s tower, just noticed, and possibly two of the western entrances; though the present structure is believed to occupy the same spot.

To the honor of the spirit and good feeling of the inhabitants of Rouen, this church is one of those that suffered least in the outrages of the year 1793.  Its dimensions, in French feet, are as follows:—­

FEET.

Length of the interior.............. 408
Width of ditto....................... 83
Length of nave...................... 210
Width of nave........................ 27
Ditto of aisles...................... 15
Length of choir..................... 110
Width of ditto....................... 35-1/2
Ditto of transept.................... 25-1/2
Length of ditto..................... 164
Ditto of Lady-Chapel................. 88
Width of ditto....................... 28
Height of spire..................... 380
Ditto of towers at the west end..... 230
Ditto of nave........................ 84
Ditto of aisles and chapels.......... 42
Ditto of interior of central tower.. 152
Depth of chapels..................... 10

Four clustered pillars support the central tower, each of which is thirty-eight feet in circumference; the rest, of which there are forty-four in the nave and choir, those in the former clustered, the others circular, are less by one-third.  The windows amount in number to one hundred and thirty-three; the chapels to twenty-five.  Most of the latter were fitted up during the minority of Louis XIVth, with wreathed columns, entwined with foliage, the style in vogue in the seventeenth century.  In the farthest of these chapels, upon the south side, is the tomb of Rollo, first Duke of Normandy; in the opposite chapel, that of his son and successor, William Longue-Epee, who was treacherously murdered at Pecquigny, in 944, during a conference with Arnoul, Count of Flanders.

[Illustration:  Monumental Figure of Rollo, in Rouen Cathedral]