rue Massacre and the rue des Vergetiers, to the rue aux Ours and you
will have the _western limit_. The _eastern limit_ is naturally marked
out by the course of the Robec. The town maintained this boundary till
the Xth century, the period of the establishment of Rollon, in this
portion of Neustria to which the Normans gave their name.

I have already said, that Rouen, was an important town under the Romans,
and this truth is proved, by the fact. It does not figures, it is true,
in the notice of the dignities of the Empire, as the seat of a superior
magistrate, but, nevertheless it is spoken of, as a town having a
garrison; and, it was there that the _præfectus militum Ursariensium_
or, as we should say in English, the colonel of the regiment of the
Ursarians, resided.

The ecclesiastical annals also, prove the importance of Rouen at this
period. We find, in fact, during the first ages of christianity, the
apostles coming into Gaul, going to Rouen, and fixing their abode in a
principal town that the sacred word might be more easily spread thro'
the surrounding country.

As Saint-Nicaise did not come to Rouen, we must consider Saint-Mellon,
as its most ancient bishop. The erection, or the consecration of a first
chapel in Rouen, under the patronage of the virgin, is the only
important event which the life of this prelate contains. As to the
destruction of a temple dedicated to the pretended idol Roth, I think I
have proved in an other work[2], first, that there never existed an idol
of that name, neither was the temple situated on the ground occupied by
the church of Saint-Lo; secondly, that this temple was demolished by
Saint-Romain, nearly four hundred years later.