In such a building as the cathedral at Rouen, it is impossible to forget the people who once trod its pavement; memories that not all the modern paraphernalia and glitter can obliterate.  If we visit the cathedral after vespers, when the candles in the Lady-chapel look like glowworm-lights through the dark aisles, we are soon carried back in imagination to mediaeval days.  The floor of the nave is covered with kneeling figures of warriors, each with a red cross on his breast; the pavement resounds to the clash of arms; there is a low chorus of voices in prayer, a sound of stringed instruments, a silence—­and then, an army of men rise up and march to war.  There is a pause of six hundred years, and another procession passes through these aisles; the pavement resounds to less martial footsteps,—­they are not warriors, they are ‘Cook’s excursionists’!

Let us now leave the cathedral, and see something more of the town.

It is a fine summer’s afternoon, in the middle of the week, the air is soft and quiet; the busy population of Rouen seem, with one consent, to rest from labour, and the Goddess of Leisure tells her beads.  One, two (decrepit old men); three, four, five (nurses and children); six, seven, eight (Chasseurs de Vincennes or a ‘noble Zouave),’ and so on, until the Rosary is complete and there are no more seats.[50] Every day under our windows they come and wedge themselves close together on the long stone seats under the dusty trees, to rest; and thread themselves in rows one by one, as if some unseen hand were telling, with human beads, the mystery of the Rosary.

Why do we speak of what is done every day in every city of France?  Because it is worth a moment’s notice, that in the day-time of busy cities men can, if they choose, find time to rest.  There are gardens open, and seats provided in the middle of the cities, so that the poor children need not play on dustheaps and under carriage-wheels.  There is a small open square in the heart of Rouen, laid out with rocks and trees, and a waterfall, which we should dearly like to shew to certain ‘parish guardians.’

The modern business-like aspect of Rouen communicates itself even to religious matters, and before we have been here long, we think nothing of seeing piles of crucifixes, and ‘Virgins and children’, put out in the street in boxes for sale, at a ‘fabrique d’ornaments de l’eglise.’  We, the people of Rouen, do a great business in chasublerie, and the like; we drive hard bargains for images of the Saviour in zinc and iron (they are catalogued for us, and placed in rows in the shop windows); we purchase lachryma Christi by the dozen; and, for a few sous, may become possessed of the whole paraphernalia of the Holy Manger.

We have been cheated so often at Rouen, that we are inclined to ask the question whether we, English people, really possess a higher working morality than the French.  Are we really more straightforward and honourable than they?  Are there bounds which they overstep and which we cannot pass?  It has been our pride for centuries to be considered more noble and manly than many of our neighbours; is there any reason to fear that our moral influence is on the wane, in these days of universal interchange of thought, free-trade, and rapid intercommunication?