’On entering the doorway of the north porch (says Cassell), the visitor will be struck with the size, loftiness, and rich colour of the interior, 435 feet long and 89 feet high.  The ‘clerestory’ of the sixteenth century is full of painted glass.  On each side of the nave there is a series of chapels, constructed in the fourteenth century, between the buttresses of the main walls; they are full of very fine stained glass, and contain good pictures and monuments.  The transepts are remarkable for their magnificent rose-windows, and in the north transept there is a staircase of open-tracery work of exquisite workmanship.

’The choir, separated from the nave by a modern Grecian screen, was built in the thirteenth century, the carving of the stalls is extremely curious.  The elaborately carved screen in front of the sacristy was executed in the latter part of the fifteenth century, and its wrought-iron door must not be passed unnoticed.’[45]

The Church of St. Ouen ’surpasses the cathedral in size, purity of style, masterly execution, and splendid, but judicious decoration, and is inferior only in its historic monuments.  It is one of the noblest and most perfect Gothic edifices in the world.’  Thus it has been described again and again; suffice it for us to mention a few details of its construction.  It is said that the abbey of St. Ouen was orginally built in 533, in the reign of Clothaire I., and then dedicated to St. Peter.  Through various changes of construction and destruction, it holds a prominent part in the history of the time of the Conqueror and the Dukes of Normandy; and it was not for a thousand years after its foundation that the present building was completed.  ’During the troubles of the times of the Huguenots in the sixteenth century, it suffered greatly, especially in 1562, when the fanatics lighted bonfires inside, and burnt the organ, stalls, pulpit, and vestments.’  Again at the end of the eighteenth century, ’the building was exposed to the fury of the Revolutionists, when it was used as a manufactory of arms; a forge being erected within it and the painted windows so blackened as to become indecipherable; and later still, ’in the time of Napoleon I., a project was laid before him, by the municipality of Rouen, for destroying the church altogether!’

Perhaps there is no monument that we could point to in Europe which has a more eventful history, or which, after a lapse of thirteen hundred years, presents to the spectator, in the year 1869, a grander spectacle.  If we walk in the public gardens that surround it, and see its towers, from different points, through the trees, or, better still, ascend one of the towers and look down on its pinnacles, we shall never lose the memory of St. Ouen.  The beautiful proportions of its octagon tower, terminating with a crown of fleurs de lis, has well been called a ‘model of grace and beauty;’ whilst its interior, 443 feet long and 83 feet wide, unobstructed from one end to the other, with its light, graceful pillars, and the coloured light shed through the painted windows, have as fine an effect as that of any church in France; not excepting the cathedrals of Amiens and Chartres.