We descended the hill upon which St. Gervais is built, and walked onward towards St. Paul, situated at the further and opposite end of the town, upon a gentle eminence, just above the Banks of the Seine.[59] M. Le Prevost was still our conductor.  This small edifice is certainly of remote antiquity, but I suspect it to be completely Norman.  The eastern end is full of antiquarian curiosities.  We observed something like a Roman mask as the centre ornament upon the capital of one of the circular figures; and Mr. Lewis made a few slight drawings of one of the grotesque heads in the exterior, of which the hair is of an uncommon fashion.  The Saxon whiskers are discoverable upon several of these faces.  Upon the whole, it is possible that parts of this church may have been built at the latter end of the tenth century, after the Normans had made themselves completely masters of this part of the kingdom; yet it is more probable that there is no vestige left which claims a more ancient date than that of the end of the eleventh century.  I ought just to notice the church of St. Sever,[60] supposed by some to be yet more ancient:  but I had no opportunity of taking a particular survey of it.

Thus much, or rather thus little, respecting the ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES of Rouen.  They merit indeed a volume of themselves.  This city could once boast of upwards of thirty parish churches; of which very nearly a dozen have been recently (I mean during the Revolution) converted into warehouses.  It forms a curious, and yet melancholy melange—­this strange misappropriation of what was formerly held most sacred, to the common and lowest purposes of civil life!  You enter these warehouses, or offices of business, and see the broken shaft, the battered capital, and half-demolished altar-piece—­the gilded or the painted frieze—­in the midst of bales of goods—­casks, ropes, and bags of cotton:  while, without, the same spirit of demolition prevails in the fractured column, and tottering arch way.  Thus time brings its changes and decays—­premature as well as natural:  and the noise of the car-men and injunctions of the clerk are now heard, where formerly there reigned a general silence, interrupted only by the matin or evening chaunt!  I deplored this sort of sacrilegious adaptation, to a respectable-looking old gentleman, sitting out of doors upon a chair, and smoking his pipe—­“c’est dommage, Monsieur, qu’on a converti l’eglise a”—­He stopped me:  raised his left hand:  then took away his pipe with his right; gave a gentle whiff, and shrugging up his shoulders, half archly and half drily exclaimed—­“Mais que voulez vous, Monsieur?—­ce sont des evenemens qu’on ne peut ni prevoir ni prevenir.  Voila ce que c’est!” Leaving you to moralize upon this comfortable morceau of philosophy, consider me ever, &c.

[36] A most ample and correct view of this west front will be found in Mr.
    Cotman’s Norman Antiquities.