The hall, or exchange, allotted to the
mercers, is two hundred and seventy-two feet in length, by fifty feet
wide: those for the drapers and for wool are, each of them, two hundred
feet long; and all these are surpassed in size by the corn-hall, whose
length extends to three hundred feet. They are built round a large
square, the centre of which is occupied by numberless dealers in
pottery, old clothes, &c.; and, as the day on which we chanced to visit
them was a Friday, when alone they are opened for public business, we
found a most lively, curious, and interesting scene.
It was on the top of a stone staircase, the present entry to the
_halles_, that the annual ceremony[53] of delivering and pardoning a
criminal for the sake of St. Romain, the tutelary protector of Rouen,
was performed on Ascension-day, according to a privilege exercised, from
time immemorial, by the Chapter of the Cathedral.
The legend is romantic; and it acquires a species of historical
importance, as it became the foundation of a right, asserted even in our
own days.
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