A TRAVELLER'S BLUNDER AT ROUEN.

BY MRS. GORE.

THERE is perhaps no city, except Nuremberg, which presents a gradation of Gothic architecture, from its highest adaptation in the temples of divine worship to the ordinary purposes of domestic life, so perfect as we find at Rouen. Its gorgeous churches, its tribunals, its Hotel de Bourgtheroude, renowned as they are, scarcely exceed in interest those quaint fragments and nameless patches of the olden time, which may be found in almost all its streets, intermingling with the common-place uncouthness of the Norman homesteads of the last century.

But, alas! the picturesque aspect of a city as remarkable for its historical monuments and traditions as for the beauty of its site, is gradually disappearing. Rouen, in its saucy prosperity of trade, is growing, like other nouveaux riches, ashamed of its origin. Every day some curious old structure is sacrificed to the innovations of luxury and pride.

Since the introduction of steam navigation on the Seine, splendid quays have arisen, regular streets are arising; a gay suspension-bridge extends its aërial span across the river, and a minor

Paris, adorned with boulevards, balconies, brilliant shops, showy façades, and meretricious sculptures, is closing out the venerable oddities of the curious old town, which witnessed the death of Joan of Arc and the birth of the great Corneille. One may almost discern there the peasant putting aside, one by one, the vestiges of his rusticity— his homely garments, his characteristic patois— and assuming the conventional garb of the times, the civic surtout, or embroidered suit of courtiership.

It is steam that has effected all this. Among those rich Norman valleys, vying in verdure and picturesqueness with those of England, the same towering and reeking chimneys which disfigure the beautiful glades of Derbyshire, are amassing wealth and generating ambition. Rouen is encompassed with suburbs and factories; and the whole of France, and some portions of the adjacent countries, to say nothing of the western colonies that trade with Havre de Grace, sleep in cotton nightcaps of her invention. The antiquarian has his account to settle with her spinning jennies for the barbarous innovations daily perpetrated against the sacred relics of the bad old times.

Let those who would admire the ancient capital of the conquerors of Britain, ere it forfeit all trace of its former grandeur, hasten thither without delay; and, above all, let them time their visit on

market-day, when an admixture of the peasantry of the environs with the more civilized population of a manufacturing town presents as amusing and anomalous an assemblage, as the showy quays and overhanging dwellings of the adjoining streets.

Last summer, in the course of a coasting tour in France, we happened to walk into Rouen, after disembarking from the Elbeuf steam-packet. Crowds of Norman peasant girls lined the road, with their white caps steepling almost in emulation of the engine chimneys, and their sabots clattering upon the road in rivalship with their noise.

It was the period when the removal of the remains of Napoleon occupied general attention in France; more especially on the banks of the Seine, which flattered themselves they were about to play a distinguished part in a great national pageant. In the capital, people were beginning to sing with renewed affection Béranger's affecting ballads relating to "le grand homme; and a peculiar smile of exultation seemed to animate their faces when discoursing on the subject with any English person; as if the valour of France had conquered back the precious deposit it had the bad taste to disturb in the sacredness of the Golgotha which, sole witness of the agony of a great soul, afforded the only fit sepulchre for the clay from which it was emancipated.

"I perceive you are all intent upon the same