Rouen is remarkably different from lots of the other towns I have visited so far. It couldn't be more different from Bordeaux where I like to imagine I am a merchant's daughter in a flowing dress. In Rouen, you can pretend to be a medieval apprentice in a city under siege. Or... you know.... a terrified French person in World War One or Two.
There are two reasons I have called this post "where history goes to die."
The first, is because, William the Conqueror and Joan of Arc both died here. The second is the attitude the inhabitants take towards some salient historical facts...
Lets start with some photos of the medieval quarter.
Here is a picture of the street where I ordered steak tartare only to have the waiter demand in a surprised voice "you know that this is RAW beef? Are you absolutely sure?!"
This here is the oldest Auberge in France. It is from 1345. CRAZY!
In case you can't see this, this says Le Bucher, which translates to something like the fire. It's where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. Yes. True. Epic right?
Here is a view of the town from up the Tower.
The Cathedral. It is magnificent, but mostly destroyed....
No excuse here, this is just a pretty picture.
This here is the Tower of Jeanne D'Arc.
This tower is all that remains of the Castle of Rouen which was built by Phillip Auguste after his conquest of Normandy.
In the ground floor cell of this tower, Joan of Arc was shown a series of torture devices in an attempt to frighten her into confessing the voices she heard were the devil, as opposed to a series of saints.
The tower is now a small museum to Jeanne D'Arc. However it did have a brief life as a German bunker during World War Two. During this time it was covered in camouflage paint, as you can see here.
Now for some Joan of Arc history...
Look anywhere around Rouen and you'll get this story about the nasty English and their general desire to put maids to death...
Most of the information goes not further than this... no mention of the fact that is was an Ecclesiastical Court that tried her (this was a bit like the International Criminal Court Pope's medieval UN).
However, this sign does have some rather important fine print...
Ahhhhhh...... the city was the capital of who? OH! The French. Which French? Oh, the French who wanted to be ruled by the king of England, those French.
Of course there is no mention here of the fact that Joan was in fact captured by the French and then SOLD to the English. There is also no mention here of the fact that the French Dauphin who Joan put on the throne did zero to nothing to help her.
And of course, we skip over the fact that the same church which canonnised her, burned her for heresy because she wore pants!
And so to end, I leave you with the Sublime to the Ridiculous Joan of Arc gallery. I like looking at how masculine versus feminine she is throughout the different eras. Here I have ranked them from 0 - 10 with zero being macho-Joan and 10 being pretty-poney-Joaney.
5/10
9/10
1/10
10/10
8/10 (but this one is actually really awesome I think!)
8/10
9/10
9/10
7/10
16/10
Until next time (a la prochaine!)
1 comment:
Looks like they have bent the history a bit! So did you eat the steak tartare??
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