The Story of Rouen

III Museums and Libraries

The Musée des Antiquités at the northern end of the Rue de la République contains some very interesting prehistoric remains; a quantity of Merovingian relics, such as axe-heads, finger-rings, lance-points, necklaces, buttons, buckles, needles, combs, and pottery; the standard measures of Rouen from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century; lead crosses with formulas of absolution stamped upon them from the eleventh to the thirteenth century; medals and tokens of many local abbeys and confrèries; coins of the Dukes of Normandy from 911 to 1216; an eleventh-century Oliphant; some glass mosaics; and the statue of Henri Court Mantel from his tomb in the Cathedral. All these are in the first room. In the next are Roman vases and glassware; some fine bronze weapons; and a large Gallo-Roman mosaic; also “La Capucine,” as the first municipal fire-engine was called, which was only instituted in 1719. It was only in 1686 that any organisation at all was made to prevent fires, and the first “Pompiers de Rouen” were created in 1800. These facts, in connection with the general use of wood for common houses even till late in the sixteenth century, explain a great deal of the terrible destruction by fire in every quarter of the town. In a third room are gathered together some good examples of tapestry and furniture, and in a room by itself is a magnificent mosaic from Lillebonne. Of the inner quadrangle and the front courtyard I have spoken already in earlier pages.

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The Musée de Rouen in the Rue Thiers has four separate divisions each worthy of your attention. The first is the beautiful garden which stretches westward to the Rue Jeanne d’Arc. The second is the Town Library, which is entered by its own door opposite the Église St. Laurent. In my list of authorities I have mentioned books which can all be obtained in the Library, where there are excellent arrangements for the student to work and take notes from as many books as he likes, and keep them together from day to day. Among its more remarkable manuscripts are Anglo-Saxon writings of the tenth century, illuminated “Heures” of the fifteenth century, the “Missel” of Georges d’Amboise; there are also several “incunables d’imprimerie de Rouen,” and other rare works; by the help of M. Noël, M. Beaurain, and their capable assistants, no student of civic or departmental history can fail to find all he desires. For more careful researches into original authorities he will do well to consult M. Charles de Beaurepaire, who presides of the Archives, near the Prefecture in the Rue Fontenelle; and he will find further documents of interest in the Hôtel de Ville and the Library of the Chapterhouse, which is reached by way of the staircase out of the north transept in the Cathedral. The third division of the Musée de Rouen is the Gallery of Faience and Ceramics. The enamelled tiles for Constable Montmorency, called the “carrelages d’Ecouen,” which bear the mark, “Rouen, 1542,” were not made by Bernard Palissy, but by the man of whom a record exists in May 24, 1545, “Masséot Abaquesne, esmailleur en terre demeurant en la paroisse St. Vincent de Rouen.” After 1565 this “terre émaillée” is not made here any more, but in 1645 Esmé Poterat is the best maker of porcelain in France, and was the founder of the famous Rouen school of the “fond jaune ocré,” in which Guilleband and Levavasseur were conspicuous for their “style rayonnant” in the seventeenth century. On the right of this gallery is a very fine example of this style, with blue arabesques, and in the same room a queer mixture of localities is observable in the Chinese figures dancing the dances of Normandy, to the tune of Norman bagpipes, in a queerly Celestial atmosphere. There is also the famous “violon de faience” to be seen. The fourth and most important division is, of course, that which contains the pictures, and by a very sensible arrangement those which have especially to do with the ancient or modern history of the town are usually gathered into one gallery, which is of the highest interest to any student of the history of Rouen. Some two hundred and fifty prints, drawings, and paintings of local interest may often here be studied. In the galleries themselves, No. 413 is a view of Rouen taken from St. Sever by Jean Baptiste Martin who died in 1735. It shows the gates of the town, even the Vieux Palais on the left, the wooden bridge, the Ile St. Croix full of trees, the old piers still standing of the Empress Matilda’s Bridge, and a fashionable assemblage on the Cours la Reine, by the St. Sever bank. After reading this book, you will find few pictures more interesting as a reproduction of the various pieces of architecture now vanished.

Out of a list of pictures most kindly made for me by M. Edmond Lebel, the keeper of the Museum, I will select a few which must on no account be missed.

	Early Work.—
No.	421.	Ecce homo	Mignard.
″	34.	Concert sur une place publique	Berghem.
″		Paysage	Ruydaël.
″	570.	Portrait	Velasquez.
″	494.	Le Bon Samaritain	Ribera.
″	536.	Chasse au Sanglier	Sneyders.
″	285.	Portrait de l’auteur	Jouvenet.
″	481.	Vénus et Enée	Poussin.
″	54.	Vierge et Enfant	Sandro Botticelli.
″	210.	Vierge et Enfant (avec portraits)	Gérard (David).
″	573.	Vision	Veronèse.
″	316.	Baigneuses	Lancret.
	After 1800.—
No.	265.	La belle Zélie	Ingres.
″	115.	Paysages	Corot.
		Études Diverses	Géricault.
″	152.	La Justice de Trajan.	Delacroix.
″	544.	Un métier de chien	Stevens (Joseph).
″	239.	Études Diverses	Meissonier.
″	97.	Portrait	François Millet.
″	″	Tête	Bonington.
″	489.	Le Pilote	Renouf.
	Drawings.—
No.	811.	Étude	Lebrun.
″	833.	Figures	Rembrandt.
″	795.	Visite de Bonaparte à Rouen	Isabey.
″	737.	Vue de Rouen in 1777	Cochin.
″	796.	Étude	Jouvenet.
″	856.	Diverses Études	Géricault.
		Études	Delacroix.
	Sculpture.—
No.	937.	Napoleon (marbre)	Canova.
″	959.	Géricault (tombeau, marbre)	Etex.
″	946.	Armand Carrel (bronze)	David d’Angers.
″	934.	Pierre Corneille (terre cuite)	Caffieri.
″	941.	Boieldieu (marbre)	Dantan Jeune.
″	985.	Fontenelle (marbre)	Romagnesi.