In the hands of the Protestants, the fortress, such as it was,
proved sufficient to resist the whole army of Charles IXth, during
several days.--Rouen was stoutly defended by the reformed, well aware of
the sanguinary dispositions of the bigotted monarch. They yielded, and
he sullied his victory by giving the city up to plunder, during
twenty-four hours; and we are told, that it was upon this occasion he
first tasted heretical blood, with which, five years afterwards, he so
cruelly gorged himself on the day of St. Bartholomew. Catherine of
Medicis accompanied him to the siege; and it is related that she herself
led him to the ditches of the ramparts, in which many of their
adversaries had been buried, and caused the bodies to be dug up in his
presence, that he might be accustomed to look without horror upon the
corpse of a Protestant!
Near the fort stood a priory[61], whose foundation is dated as far back
as the eleventh century, when Gosselin, Viscount of Rouen, Lord of
Arques and Dieppe, having no son to inherit his wealth, was induced to
dispose of it "to pious uses," by the persuasions of two monks, who had
wandered in pilgrimage from the monastery of Saint Catherine, on Mount
Sinai.
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