that many of the strange carvings on the misereres in our cathedrals have references to these practices.  And yet, to the honor of England, they never appear to have been equally common with us as in France.—­According to Du Cange[108], the confraternity of the Conards or Cornards was confined to Rouen and Evreux.  I have not been able to ascertain when they were suppressed; but they certainly existed in the time of Taillepied, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, about fifty years previously to which they dropped their original name of Coqueluchers.  At this time too they had evidently degenerated from the primary object of their institution, “ridendo castigare mores atque in omne quod turpiter factum fuerat ridiculum immittere.”  Taillepied was an eye-witness of their practices; and he prudently contents himself with saying; “le fait est plus clair a le voir que je ne pourrois icy l’escrire.”

At a short distance from the palace is a small square, called the Place de la Pucelle, a name which it has but recently acquired, in lieu of the more familiar appellation of le Marche aux Veaux.  The present title records one of the most interesting events in the history of Rouen, the execution of the unfortunate Joan of Arc, which is said to have taken place on the very spot now covered by the monument that commemorates her fate.  Three different ones have in succession occupied this place.  The first was a cross, erected in 1454, only twenty-four years after her death; for even at this early period, the King of France had obtained from Pope Calixtus IIIrd, a bull directing the revision of her sentence, and he had caused her innocence to be acknowledged.  The second was a fountain of delicate workmanship, consisting of three tiers of columns placed one above the other, on a triangular plan, the whole decorated with arabesques and statues of saints, while the Maid herself crowned the summit, and the water flowed through pipes that terminated in horses’ heads.  The present monument is inferior to the second, equally in design and in workmanship:  it is a plain triangular pedestal, ornamented with dolphins at the base, and surmounted by the heroine in military costume.  Of the two last, figures are given by Millin[109], who could not be expected to suffer a subject to escape him, so calculated for the gratification of national pride.  In a preceding volume of the same work[110], he has represented the monument erected to her memory by Charles VIIth, upon the bridge at Orleans:  the latter is commemorative of her triumphs; that at Rouen, only of her capture and death.  But the King testified his gratitude by more substantial tokens:  he ennobled her three brothers and their descendants; and even allowed the females of the family to confer their rank upon the persons whom they married, a privilege which they continued to enjoy till the time of Louis XIIIth, who abolished it in 1634.