to its purposes; but who does not grieve to see the Archbishop’s stall, once the most curious and costly, of the Gothic order, and executed at the end of the XVth century, transformed into a stately common-place canopy, supported by columns of chestnut-wood carved in the Grecian style?  The LIBRARY, which used to terminate the north transept, is—­not gone—­but transferred.  A fanciful stair-case, with an appropriate inscription,[53] yet attest that it was formerly an appendage to that part of the edifice.

Before I quit the subject of the cathedral, I must not fail to tell you something relating to the rites performed therein.  Let us quit therefore the dead for the living.  Of course we saw, here, a repetition of the ceremonies observed at Dieppe; but previously to the feast of the Ascension we were also present at the confirmation of three hundred boys and three hundred girls, each very neatly and appropriately dressed, in a sort of sabbath attire, and each holding a lighted wax taper in the hand.  The girls were dressed in white, with white veils; and the rich lent veils to those who had not the means of purchasing them.  The cathedral, especially about the choir, was crowded to excess.  I hired a chair, stood up, and gazed as earnestly as the rest.  The interest excited among the parents, and especially the mothers, was very striking.  “Voila la petite—­qu’elle a l’air charmant!—­le petit ange!"....A stir is made ... they rise... and approach, in the most measured order, the rails of the choir ...  There they deposit their tapers.  The priests, very numerous, extinguish them as dexterously as they can; and the whole cathedral is perfumed with the mixed scent of the wax and frankincense.  The boys, on approaching the altar, and giving up their tapers, kneel down; then shut their eyes, open their mouths; and the priests deposit the consecrated wafer upon their tongues.  The procession now took a different direction.  They all went into the nave, where a sermon was preached to the young people, expressly upon the occasion, by a Monsieur Quillebeuf, a canon of the cathedral, and a preacher of considerable popularity.  He had one of the most meagre and forbidding physiognomies I ever beheld, and his beard was black and unshaven.  But he preached well; fluently, and even eloquently:  making a very singular, but not ungraceful, use of his left arm—­and displaying at times rather a happy familiarity of manner, wholly exempt from vulgarity, and well suited to the capacities and feelings of his youthful audience.  His subject was “belief in Christ Jesus;” on which he gave very excellent proofs and evidences.  His voice was thin, but clear, and distinctly heard.

And now, my dear Friend, if you are not tired with this detour of the CATHEDRAL, suppose we take a promenade to the next most important ecclesiastical edifice in the city of Rouen.  What say you therefore to a stroll to the ABBEY of ST. OUEN?  “Willingly,” methinks I hear you reply.  To the abbey therefore let us go.