[Illustration: A WINDOW IN THE MAISON BOURGTHEROULDE, DESCRIBED ON PAGE 337]
Louange et gloire en action de grâce, Chantons à Dieu de la paix vray auteur: Par qui la France en seur repos embrasse, Ses ennemys faictz amys en grand heur. Vive son Roy, vive, Vive son Roy de ce bien protecteur Soubz qui de paix divers peuples jouyssent Dont luy est deu cybas joye et honneur, Puis que les cielz de la paix s'ésiouyssent, Puis que les cielz de la paix s'ésiouyssent.]
NOTE.--_For the benefit of those not learned in Sixteenth-Century Music, it may be interesting to hint that the melody is written here for the Second Soprano, and to add, for their encouragement, that the experiment of performing this Madrigal, unaccompanied, with two ladies, and two male voices in the Alto parts, proved perfectly successful, thanks to the science of Mr Fuller-Maitland and the goodwill of the singers._
[Illustration: VIEW OF ROUEN, FROM THE ENGRAVING BY MÉRIAN IN 1620]
[Illustration: THE COMMERCE OF ROUEN, FROM THE BAS-RELIEF BY CONSTON IN THE BOURSE]
Rouen est ville bien marchande C'est à cause de la mer grande Et est ce semble sans doutance Quasi la meilleure de France.
Ouy fameuse cité c'est toy qui prens la peine D'aller chercher bien loin l'ambre, la porcelaine, Le sucre, la muscade, et tant d'excellents vins.... ... Soye, oüate, tabac, draps de laine, poisson, Bois, bleds, sel, bescars, tout luy vient à foison.
Such popular festivals as that I have just described upon Ascension Day are of very ancient origin, even if they do not date back to that earliest "Fête aux Normands," whose institution you will remember in 1070. Two years afterwards began the Confrèrie de la Vierge to which Pierre Daré, Lieutenant-General for the King, gave fresh lustre when he was elected its Master in 1486. Though older poems (like that of Robert Wace) are connected with the Confrèrie, to him is due the beginning of those "Palinods" sung in honour of the Virgin in the Church of St. Jean des Prés, which were called the "Puy de Conception," like the Puy d'Amour of the Provençal troubadours. The name probably originated in the refrain which ran through all the various metres allowed in the poems which were sent in for competition, as Pierre Grognet describes in 1533--