The Atherstone, Nuneaton, and Warwickshire Times. — 1889-02-02 (Atherstone, Warwickshire, England)

THR ENGLISH AT ROIIHN.—Rouen WWI the scene of a terrible siege in the fifteenth century. Two years otter the Battle of Agincourt Henry V. disembarked with an army of 40,000 men near the mouth of the Touques—the pleasant river that winds from Trouville-Deauville to Lisieux, through a beautifully wooded valley—and reducing the chief towns of Lower Normandy and securing himself from attacks from other quarters, congaed the Seine and invested Rouen. Then commenced that memorable siege, wherein, says the author of "La Normandie," the greatest names of England endeavoured to win for themselves a glorious posterity. For six long mooths the city, under Alan Blanchard, held out, though famine sorely rold upon the crowds assembled within its walls The stern, unrelenting nature of King Henry V. is plainly shown in the history of this siege. Thousands of peasantry who had taken refuge in the city were cast out of the gates, but were refused passage through the English ranks. Horrible must have been the condition of these poor wretches. Women, we read, dying of starvation, gave birth t•-• children, who were hauled up in baskets to receive baptism, and lowered again to die on their mothers' breasts. Within the walls the population wasted away. Famine reduced It by one-half. Yet still Henry relented not. "War.' said be, "has three handmaidens ever waiting on her Eire. Blond, and Famine; and I have chosen Famine, the meekest maid of the awes" In despair the citizens resolved to fire their city and to throw themselves in a body on the English host. Henry, however, not to be disappointed of the coveted prize. when almost within his grasp, offered terms that were accepted, and the English King entered Rouen In triumph, though, as subsequent history shows, not to hold the city long The callous indifference to all human suffering which Henry evinced on this occasion culminated in his treatment of the patriot Alan Blanchard, who on the entry of the English was put to death in cold blood. But a trifling stain on the English memory in this murder of Blanchard when contrasted with the foul deed with which we all associate the city of Rouen—the burning of the noble Maid of Orleans in the Place de la Pirelli, In this old market place of Ronan we may stand and call to mind facts of peat history not creditable to the English nation. Pew blacker deeds can be laid at the door of the Inquisition, which on the 21st of February. 1431, was arrayed against a helpless girl loaded with chains, to charge her with sorcery and heresy, and to endeavour, by subtle, crafty croesquestioning, to make her weave her own condemnation. The simple frankness of Joan of Are, however, seems to have been a match for all, even for Cowbell. Bishop of Beauvais. President of that Court of the inquisition which contrived to have her burnt at the stake on the 30th of May, 1431. Every incident connected with the burning of the Maid of Orleans has been duly chronicled: but no one was near to hand down to posterity the tale of how King John murdered his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, in the tower that once stood on the Place de la Baase-Veille-Tour, erected in 996 by the admirable Richard Sans-Peur, third Duke of Normandy. It is generally admitted by historians that, after John had sent Prince Arthur from Falaiss to this castle be killed him with his own hands in April, 1203, and that he further cast his body into the Seine, whose waters then flowed beneath the walls of the tower. Mystery, however, is shrouded around the bloody deed, as to the method to which John resorted to be rid of his nephew. Were we to be made acquainted with the wbble of the ciecurnitances the murder of Alan Blanchard and the sacrifice of Joan of Arc might be the !mat shameful of the thret blank deeds that stain for all time the memory of the English at Rouen.—" A Ramble through Normandy," is the Christmas Number of the Etifitti Illuetrnted Maeaelue.