Rouen, Its History and Monuments | Page 4

49�� 26' 27'' of north latitude and 1�� 14' 16'' longitude, from the meridian of Paris. The sun rises and sets about five minutes later at Rouen, than at Paris. The length of Rouen without the suburbs, is one kilometre and three hundred metres, or about the third part of a league, from the south extremity of the rue Grand-Pont, to the north extremity of the rue Beauvoisine. Its length from east to west is a quarter of a league, from one extremity to the other of the places Cauchoise and Saint-Hilaire. The circumference of the town by the quays does not exceed six kilometres or one league and a half.
Rouen, by its home and foreign trade, is one of the most important towns of the kingdom; the numerous manufactories which it contains, have caused it to be surnamed the Manchester of France[3]. Rouen, is the see of an archbishopric, whose metropolitan church has for suffragans the bishoprics of Bayeux, Evreux, Seez and Coutances. It is the chief place of the fourteenth military division; the principal town of the departement of the Seine-Inferieure.
There is besides at Rouen, a cour royale, a tribunal de premi��re instance, six courts of justices of the peace; a chamber and tribunal of commerce, a counsel of prudent men for the arbitration of small differences, principally between the manufacturers and their workmen; boards of direction for the direct and indirect taxes, for the customs and for the registry of domains, and a mint. Amongst the principal public buildings are two large hospitals, a handsome custom-house, the exchange, a magnificent lunatic asylum (in Saint-Sever), a large and small seminary, a royal college, nineteen public schools, a great many elementary schools for children of both sexes, and two principal prisons.
Lastly, this town has thirty three barriers, three covered markets, eight open markets, twenty one public places, about seventeen thousand houses, and more than four hundred and seventy streets, and contains a population of about ninety thousand inhabitants.
[Footnote 1: It is the sugar refinery of Mr Sautelet, rue des Carmes, opposite the place of the same name.]
[Footnote 2: Recherches sur l'histoire religieuse, morale et litt��raire de Rouen, depuis les premiers temps jusqu'a Rollon. Rouen, J. Fr��re, 1826, 8vo.]
[Footnote 3: The principal filatures, manufactories and bleaching establishments, are situated in the suburb of Saint-Sever, and in the valleys of Deville, Bapeaume and Maromme. Amongst the principal stuffs, which are wrought in its manufactories, we must mention its rouenneries, the general name given to all those striped or checked cotton, stuffs which are used for womens dresses.]
[Illustration: Cath��drale.]

RELIGIOUS MONUMENTS.
PAROCHIAL CHURCHES.
CATHEDRAL.
All historians attribute the erection, or at least the consecration of the first christian chapel in Rouen to Saint-Mellon. They agree also in placing that chapel on a portion of the ground occupied at present by the Cathedral. To point out exactly the place, would be next to impossible; but we must necessarily suppose it to the north end of the present edifice. The tower of Saint-Romain, the foundation of which is probably the remains of one of the churches which succeeded each other on this spot, and which, is assuredly the most ancient part of the whole edifice, would of itself, prove what I say. It will not be doubted, when we remember that the waters of the Seine, during the time of Saint-Mellon (260 to 311), and even seven centuries afterwards, reached as high as the place, which is known at present by the name of la Calende, that is to say almost at the base of the present Cathedral on its southern side.
The Cathedral, which was pillaged in the year 841, was not, according to all probability, destroyed then; or, we must suppose (that which is hardly possible), that it had been rebuilt in the interval before the year 912, the period of the baptism of Rollo in this church. Being exposed to continual acts of devastation from pirates, the inhabitants fled in all directions, and did not think of building temples; and as Rollo, having been baptized in this Cathedral, in the year 912, made most magnificent presents immediately after the ceremony, it is clear, that the edifice had been only plundered and not destroyed.
About the end of the Xth century, Richard Ist caused the Cathedral to be enlarged. The archbishop Robert continued the improvements.
Guillaume-le-Batard placed Maurille in the archiepiscopal see, in the year 1055. Maurille finished the Cathedral, and caused to be erected the stone pyramid which bears his name, and in the year 1063, he dedicated the temple in the presence of William, and the bishops of Bayeux, Avranches, Lisieux, Evreux, Seez and Coutances.
In 1117, this Cathedral was struck by the electric fluid.
In 1200, the metropolitan church was destroyed by fire. Jean-Sans-Terre, duke of Normandy and king of England, assigned funds for the reconstruction of the