attempts to recapture the town, but they were unsuccessful till 1449 when Somerset, the English commander, was obliged to surrender the principal fortified places in Normandy. During the close of the 15th century and the first half of the 16th, Rouen was the metropolis of art and taste in France and was one of the first places to reflect the influence of the Renaissance. During the wars of religion the arts declined. In 1562 the town was sacked by the Protestants. This did not prevent the League from gaining so firm a footing there that Henry IV. besieged it unsuccessfully and only obtained entrance after his abjuration. The revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685 lost Rouen many of its richest and most industrious citizens in the Calvinistic emigration. The town suffered less from the excesses of the French Revolution than from the depredations of bandits who, under the Directory, infested the neighbourhood of the city and were not suppressed till the Consulate. During the Franco-German War the city was occupied by the invaders from December 1870 till July 1871, and had to submit to heavy requisitions.
See A. Chéruel, Histoire de Rouen pendant l’époque communale (Rouen, 1843); Histoire de Rouen sous la domination anglaise au quinzième siècle (Rouen, 1840); N. Périaux, Histoire sommaire et chronologique de la ville de Rouen (Rouen, 1874); C. Enlart, Rouen (Paris, 1904).
ROUERGUE (Ruthenensis pagus), one of the old provinces
of France, was originally inhabited by the Rulheni. It was
bounded on the N. by Auvergne, on the S. and S.W. by Languedoc,
on the E. by Gévaudan and the Cévennes and on the W.
by Quercy. It included (1) the county of Rodez, (2) Haute and
Basse Marche; and it was divided between the dioceses of
Rodez and Vabres (province d’Alby after this province had
been separated from that of Bourges in 1678). Administratively
it formed first a sénéchoussée, dependent on Languedoc
(capital Villefranche, in the Basse Marche), and later it was
attached to the military governments of Guienne and Gascony.
It was then part of the departments of Aveyron and of Tarnet-Garonne. The county of Rodez, after having been in the
possession of the houses of Toulouse and Carlat, fell in the 14th
century into that of Armagnac. Jean II. of Armagnac having
served Charles V. faithfully during his wars with England,
received from him, in 1374, what were called the four “châtellenies”
with the “Commun de la paix,” a tax which had been
established there to organize resistance against foreigners.
Jean V. of Armagnac was deprived of the county for crime and
treason against Louis XI., in 1469, but afterwards it was given
back to Charles of Armagnac, who died without legitimate
issue in 1496. Its possession was then disputed between King
Francis I. and the duke of Alençon, who at last compromised
(1519); the king ceded the county to his sister Marguerite
d’Angouleme, who took it as dowry first to the duke of Alençon,
and then to her second husband Henri d’Albret, king of Navarre.
The county afterwards passed to Jeanne d’Albret, then to Henri IV.,
and was joined to the crown lands in 1590.
ROUGE (“red,” from Lat. rubeus), a French name applied to
various colouring substances of a brilliant carmine tint, especially when used as cosmetics. The best of these preparations
are such as have for their basis carthamine, obtained from
the safflower (Carthamus tinctorius). The Chinese prepare
a rouge, said to be from safflower, which, spread on the cards
on which it is sold, has a brilliant metallic green lustre, but
when moistened and applied to the skin assumes a delicate
carmine tint. Jeweller’s rouge for polishing plate is a fine red
iron oxide prepared by calcination from ferrous sulphate (green
vitriol).
ROUGET DE LISLE, CLAUDE JOSEPH (1760–1836), French
author, was born on the 10th of May 1760, at Lons-le-Saunier
(Jura). He entered the army as an engineer, and attained
the rank of captain. He was one of those authors whom a
single work has made famous. The song which has immortalized
him, the Marseillaise, was composed at Strassburg,
where Rouget de Lisle was quartered in April 1792. He wrote
both words and music in a fit of patriotic excitement after a
public dinner. The piece was at first called Chant de guerre de l’armée du Rhin, and only received its name of Marseillaise from its adoption by the Provençal volunteers whom Barbaroux
introduced into Paris, and who were prominent in the storming
of the Tuileries. The author was a moderate republican, and
was cashiered and thrown into prison; but the counter-revolution
set him at liberty. He died at Choisy-le-Roi (Seine et
Oise) on the 26th of June 1836. The stirring melody of the
Marseillaise and its ingenious adaptation to the words serve to
disguise the alternate poverty and bombast of the words
themselves. Rouget de Lisle wrote a few other songs of the same
kind, and in 1825 he published Chants français, in which he set
to music fifty songs by various authors. His Essais en vers
et en prose (1797) contains the Marseillaise, a prose tale of
the sentimental kind called Adelaïde et Monville, and some
occasional poems.
ROUGH CAST (the French equivalent is crépis), in architecture,
the exterior coating originally given to the walls of common
dwellings and outbuildings, but now frequently employed for
decorative effect on country houses, especially those built in
half timber. It is a composition of small gravel and sand,
mixed with strong lime mortar, and is thrown on the walls
already covered with two ordinary coats of plaster. Variety
can be obtained on the surface of the wall by small pebbles
of different colours, and in the Tudor period fragments of glass
were sometimes embedded. The central tower of St Alban’s
cathedral, built with Roman tiles from Verulam, was covered
with rough cast believed to be coeval with the building. The
rough cast was removed about 1870.
ROUHER, EUGÈNE (1814–1884), French statesman, was
born at Riom (Puy de Dome) on the 30th of November 1814.
He practised law in his native place after taking his degree
in Paris in 1835, and in 1846 sought election by his fellow citizens
to the Chamber of Deputies as an official candidate
of the Guizot ministry. It was only after the revolution of
1848, however, that he became deputy for the department
of Puy de Dome. Re-elected to the Legislative Chamber in
1849 he succeeded Odilon Barrot as minister of justice, with
the additional office of keeper of the seals, which he retained
with short intervals until January 1852. From the tribune
of the Chamber he described. the revolution of February as a
“catastrophe,” and he supported reactionary legislation, notably
the bill (May 31, 1850) for the limitation of the suffrage. After
the coup d’état of December 2, 1851, he was entrusted with the
redaction of the new constitution, and on his resignation of
office in January became vice-president of the Council of State.
After the formal establishment of the Empire, Napoleon III.
rewarded him by a grant of £40,000 and the estate of Cirey.
In 1855 he became minister of agriculture, commerce and public
works, and in 1856 senator. He secured for France an excellent
system of railways without making them a state monopoly,
and he conducted the complicated negotiations for the treaty
of commerce with England which was concluded in January
1860, and subsequently arranged similar treaties with Belgium
and Italy. In 1863 he became minister president of the Council
of State, and on the death of A. A. M. Billault minister of state
and chief spokesman of the emperor. before the Corps Législatif.
Although the government had a great majority in the Chamber,
the opposition counted the redoubtable names of Thiers,
Berryer and Jules Favre, and government measures were only
passed by frequent resort to the closure. Rouher had to
defend Napoleon's foreign adventures as well as the free trade
treaties and the extravagances of Baron Haussmann for
which¢he was directly responsible. After an attempted defence
of the foreign policy which had aided the aggrandizement of
Prussia at the expense of Austria, Thiers told him in the Chamber
that there were “no more blunders left for him to make.” He
opposed the abortive Liberal concessions of January 1867,
announced in a personal letter from Napoleon III. to himself,
and resigned with the rest of the cabinet, only to resume office
after a short interval as minister of finance. When concessions
became inevitable Rouher, the “vice-empereur,” resigned
