1936 On the Continent

remarkable specimens of later Gothic architecture.
    The street opposite the Cathedral’s main entrance leads to the Clock Tower, which contains the oldest iron clock in the world, dating from 1389. A little farther along, on the left, you will find the Palais de Justice. I can still remember how surprised I was, the first time I saw it, at the perfection of the style. I used to think that Gothic architecture was almost entirely religious, and that the civil specimens of it were bound to be much inferior to the cathedrals and churches.
    Going up the Rue Jeanne d’Arc, which is one of the main streets of the town, you will come across the Musée des Beaux Arts, sheltered discreetly behind the trees of the Square Solferino.
    This important museum contains a very fine collection of ancient and modern paintings. In particular, you can see there some beautiful specimens of the work of the best painters of the Romantic period, Géricault and Ingres, as well as a whole series of drawings of the French School ofthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But it is on the first floor that you will find the most fascinating collection in the museum: a set of pottery unique in the whole of Europe. In particular, I shall never forget my first delight at the old Rouen pottery, with its warm shades of colour and that wonderful tone of red, characterised by the exclusively floral inspiration of the decoration.
    Leaving the museum by the Rue Thiers, which runs into the Rue Jeanne d’Arc on the left, you will come into the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, and behind the statue of Napoleon, cast from the bronze of the cannons captured at Austerlitz, you will see the Town Hall of the old Norman City. The building was formerly an Abbey; the Abbey church, consecrated to St. Ouen, is on the right. It dates from 1318 and is considered to be typical of the pointed Gothic style at its very best.
Joan of Arc
    The whole of Rouen is impregnated with the grand and poignant memory of Joan of Arc. Personally, I can never go there without making a pilgrimage in heart to the places where she passed the last days of her life.
    All the vestiges of the life and death of Joan are centred round the street which bears her name and which crosses the old town from end to end, running from the river up to the Boulevard de la Marne near the “Rive-droite” station. Starting down the street from this boulevard and taking the first turning on the left, you will find the Tour Jeanne d’Arc, the remains of the ancient castle where Joan was tried by the ecclesiastical court. There is a small museum there devoted to souvenirs of the Maid. A little farther down the Rue Jeanne d’Arc, at No. 102, there is a courtyard where you are shown the foundations of the tower in which she was imprisoned, and whence they took her on May 30th, 1431, to lead her to the stake on the “Place du Vieux Marché. You reach this
Place
by turning to the right down the Rue Rollin opposite the Palais de Justice. A mosaic has been placed in the pavement to mark the exact spot where the stake stood, just in front of a small pavilion set up in 1931 in the style of the fifteenth century to commemorate the fifth centenary of her death.
    When you have seen these witnesses to her trial and burning, go down the Rue Jeanne d’Arc as far as the riverand there you will find the Boiëldieu bridge from which Joan’s ashes were flung into the Seine. Every year on May 30th, the day on which the people of Rouen solemnly celebrate Joan’s memory, a bouquet of roses is cast into the Seine from the same bridge.
    The Cours Boiëldieu is the centre of Rouen’s social life. It is a short promenade planted with trees on the right just before you come to the bridge. When you have tired yourself out looking at the old town, and I can assure you you’ll feel the strain climbing up and down the narrow precipitous streets, sit down for a drink at one of the many cafés on the Cours Boiëldieu. I can strongly recommend the Café Victor, the really “chic” café of Rouen. The best hotels are around there too, such as the Hôtel d’Angleterre and the Hôtel de France.
Hotels
    Visitors who want to be particularly comfortable should try the Hôtel de la Poste, in the Rue Jeanne d’Arc, with its 150 rooms and bathrooms. But there are plenty of other good and moderate-priced hotels in Rouen. You can get any information you want in this connection at the Syndicat d’Initiative, 8 Place des Arts.
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