Leaving for the present the dusty legends of superstition, I describe with pleasure my recollections of the glorious prospect over which the eye ranges from the hill of Saint Catherine.—­The Seine, broad, winding, and full of islands, is the principal feature of the landscape.  This river is distinguished by its sinuosity and the number of islets which it embraces, and it retains this character even to Paris.  Its smooth tranquillity well contrasts with the life that is imparted to the scene, by the shipping and the bustle of the quays.  The city itself, with its verdant walks, its spacious manufactories, its strange and picturesque buildings, and the numerous spires and towers of its churches, many of them in ruins, but not the less interesting on account of their decay, presents a foreground diversified with endless variety of form and color.  The bridge of boats seems immediately at our feet; the middle distance is composed of a plain, chiefly consisting of the richest meadows, interspersed copiously with country seats and villages embosomed in wood; and the horizon melts into an undulating line of remote hills.

Footnotes: 

[49] Farin, Histoire de Rouen, I. p. 97.

[50] In a paper printed in the Transactions of the Rouen Academy for 1818, p. 177, it appears that, so late as 1789, a considerable portion of very old walls was discovered under-ground; and that they consisted very much of Roman bricks.  Among them was also found a Roman urn, and eighty or more medals of the same nation, but none of them older than Antoninus.—­From this it appears certain that Rouen was a Roman station, though of its early history we have no distinct knowledge.

[51] These are the Tour du Gascon, Tour du Donjon, and Tour de la Pucelle.

[52] Histoire de Rouen, I. p. 32.

[53] Histoire de Rouen, III. p. 34.

[54] It is also worth while to read the following details from Bourgueville, (Antiquites de Caen, p. 33) whose testimony, as that of an eye-witness to much of what he relates, is valuable:—­“Ils ont le Privilege Saint Romain en la ville de Rouen et Eglise Cathedrale du lieu, au iour de l’Ascension nostre Seigneur de deliurer un prisonnier, qui leur fut concede par le Roy d’Agobert en memoire d’un miracle que Dieu fist par saint Romain Archeuesque du lieu, d’auoir deliure les habitans d’un Dragon qui leur nuisoit en la forest de Rouuray pres ladite ville:  pour lequel vaincre il demanda a la justice deux prisonniers dignes de mort, l’un meurtrier et l’autre larron:  le larron eut si grand frayeur qu’il s’enfuit, et le meurtrier demeura auecque ce saint homme qui vainquit ce Serpent.  C’est pourquoy l’on dit encore en commun prouerbe, il est asseure comme vn meurtrier.  Ce privilege de deliurance ne doit estre accorde aux larrons.—­Saint Ouen successeur de S. Romain, Chancelier dudit Roy d’Agobert viron l’an 655, impetra ce priuilege:  dont