Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/22

Rh 12 ROUEN its neighbourhood, and makes use of 30,000 tons of cotton annually. In 1876 there were in the Rouen district 1,099,261 spindles engaged in cotton-spinning, and 9251 power-looms. Hand-loom weaving is prosecuted (mainly in the country districts) by 13,000 workmen. In the roucnnerie department 190 manufacturers were engaged, producing annually to the value of 2,4QO,000. In the manufacture of printed cotton and woollen goods 22 establishments and 5000 workmen are employed. The annual production of printed calico amounts to 1,000,000 pieces, each 105 metres (about 115 yards) long ; 22 establishments with 700 workmen are devoted to the dyeing of cotton cloth, and 32 establishments with 1200 workmen to the dyeing of cotton thread, the industry being specially favoured by the quality of the water of Rouen. There are also 3 soap works, 7 chemical works, manufacturing soda, vitriol, and dyestuffs, and 10 iron foundries. Engineering works manufacture steam-engines, spinning-machines, and weaving-looms, agricultural machines, sewing-machines, &c., which are sold throughout France and exported to other countries to a total value of 360,000. There is an establishment at Deville for refining copper and manu- facturing copper pipes. Other works at Rouen are distilleries, oil mills, bleacheries and cloth-dressing establishments, tanneries, and ship-building yards. The town is also famous for its confectionery, especially sucrcs de pomme. Among the public institutions are extensive poorhouses (1800 beds in the hospice general), several tin litres, a public library (118,000 volumes and 2500 MSS.), a theo- logical faculty, a preparatory school of medicine and phar- macy, a preparatory school for higher instruction in science and literature, and schools of agriculture, botany, and forestry, painting and drawing schools, &c. 1 Si-sides the Grand Cours, which runs along the bank of the Seine above the town and is lined with magnificent elms, the public promenades comprise the Cours Boieldieu, with the composer's statue, the Solfer- ino garden in the heart of the town, and the botanical gar- dens at St Sever. (G. M E. ) History. Ratumaor Ratu- macos, the original name of Rouen, was modified by the Romans into Rotomagus, and by the writers of mediaeval Latin intoRodomum, of which the present name is a corrup- tion. Under Ctesar and the early emperors the town was the capital of the Veliocas- sians, a people of secondary rank, ana it did not attain to any eminence till it was made the centre of Lugduuensis Secunda at the close of the 3d century, and a little later the see of an arch- bishop. Rouen was lar# ly indebted to its first bishops from St Mello, the apostle of the region, who flourished about 260, to St Remigius, who died in 772. Ten or twelve of those prelates have the title of saints ; they built in their city many churches, and their tombs became in turn the origin of new sanctuaries, so that Rouen was already, at that early period, what it has remained to the present time, and in spite of its political character a religious city full of ecclesiastical monuments. From this period there has been preserved the precious crypt of St Gervais, which contains the tomb of the second bishop of Rouen, St Avitian. Under Louis " le Debonnaire " and his successors Normans several times sacked the city, but the conversion of Rollo in 912 made Rouen the capital of Normandy, and raised it to a greater degree of prosperity than ever. The first Norman kings of England rather neglected Rouen in favour first of Caen and afterwards of Poitiers, Le Mans, or Angers ; but the monas- teries, the local trade and manufactures, and the communal organization, which the people of Rouen had exacted from their sovereigns in 1145, maintained a most flourishing state of affairs, indicated by the rebuilding of several sumptuous churches, and notably of the great abbey which had been erected in the 5th century by St Victrix, and afterwards took the name of St Ouen from the bishop whose tomb it contained. Of this restora- tion there remains in the present building a small apse of two stories, the only Norman fragment of any importance preserved by the ancient capital of Normandy. The union of this province to France by Philip Augustus in 1204 did no damage to the prosperity of Rouen, although its inhabitants submitted to their new master only after a siege of nearly three months. To this period belong, if not the commencement, at least the rapid erection of the most important building in the town, the cathedral of Notre Dame, whose vast pile, erected between 1200 and 1220 by an architect called Ingelram or Enguerrand, underwent so many alterations, rest' nations, and extensions that it took its final form only in the 16th century. It is in plan a Latin cross 427 feet in length, with aisles completely surrounding it and giving access to the three great chapels of the choir. 'Jin west i^ade and those of the transept are of extreme richness. Each was surmounted by two towers, of which only one the Butter Tower (Tour de lieurre) was completed. The western fafade, frequently enlarged, embel- lished, or restored from its first construction to the present time, has two charming side doorways of the close of the 12th century, a ^rcat central doorway, a rose window, and countless arcades and Gothic pinnacles and turrets of the close of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century. The width of the front is increased by the pro- jection of the two towers : that on the left hand, the Tour Saint - Romain, was commenced about 1200, and raised to a greater height in 1465-1477 ; that on the right hand, the finer, has a height of 260 feet, and takes its name of Butter Tower from the fact that it was erected between 1485 and 1507 by means of the moneys paid by the faithful for permission to cat butter in Lent. On the north Plan of Rouen. side of the cathedral are various accessory buildings dating from the Middle Ages, and the Booksellers' Portal, corresponding to the Portail de la Calcnde in the south transept. Both portals are adorned with statues, and both, as well as the towers which flank them, date from the reigns of St Louis and Philip the Fair. Above the transept rises the central tower, which was rebuilt in the 15th and 16th centuries, and had before its destruction by fire in 1822 a height of 430 feet The iron spire added in 1876," though unfortunately much too slender, has raised it to a height of 485 feet, and thus made it the highest erection in Europe after the spires of Cologne cathedral. While more harmonious in its style than the exterior, the interior of Notre Dame de Rouen presents nothing peculiar in its architecture, with the exception of the false gallery along the nave with passages running round the pillars ; but the artistic curiosities are numerous and varied. In the choir may be noted a fine series of 13th-century stained-glass windows, carved stalls of the 15th century, the tombs of the English kings Henry II. and Richard I., that of Bishop Maurille, who built the larger part of the present structure, an elegant Gothic staircase, and various tombs of archbishops and nobles. Philip Augustus built a castle at Rouen, but it was rather a fortress than a palace, and the kings of France never treated it as a residence ; a round keep called Joan of Arc's Tower still stands. On the other hand, nothing remains of the castle erected by Henry V. of England when he took possession of Rouen in 1418 after a san-