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one of these dwellings voices were heard in argument, amid them a woman’s.
    ‘I understand that their wedding ceremony is most picturesque,’ Charles-André remarked. ‘The happy couple are made to jump over a broomstick. That is all. Then they are adjudged to be married.’
    ‘Easily done,’ said Mme Julie.
    ‘And easily undone,’ continued the student. He aspired to sophistication, and was keen to please the doctor’s wife, though afraid to shock. ‘I was told … it is said that they sell their women when they are done with them. They sell them … often … it seems … for a gallon of beer.’
    ‘A gallon of English beer?’ enquired the doctor, setting the student at his ease by a levity of manner. ‘Now that really is too low a price.’ His wife struck him playfully on the arm. ‘I would not sell you , my dear, for anything less than a tonneau of the finest Bordeaux,’ he continued, and was struck again, to his pleasure. Charles-André was envious of such intimacy.

    In constructing the 82 miles of the Paris and Rouen Railway Mr Joseph Locke the Engineer was able merely to follow the leisurely descent of the River Seine between those two great cities. But in extending the line to Le Havre - where it would connect with steamer services across the English Channel, and thence with the London and Southampton Railway, completing the route from Paris to London - he was confronted by more strenuous feats of engineering. These difficulties were reflected in the tender price: £15,700 per mile for the Paris and Rouen, in excess of £23,000 per mile for the additional 58 miles of the Rouen and Le Havre. Moreover, the Frenchgovernment insisted upon an investigation into the proposed gradients of the line. Mr Locke had initially proposed a maximum of 1 in 110. Some of the French argued for 1 in 200 on grounds of safety, a proposal which would either have imposed a considerably longer route, or else caused much additional cutting and embanking, thus greatly increasing the cost. Eventually, a compromise gradient of 1 in 125 was agreed between the parties.
    Mr Brassey had established himself at Rouen once more, this time accompanied by his wife Maria, who spoke the French language fluently and was able to act as interpreter with officials from the French Ministry. They paid their respects to the Consul, and made themselves known at the Anglican church of All Saints on the Ile Lacroix. They enquired about a circulating library of English books, but none had yet been established. In her idle moments Mrs Brassey visited the great Gothic edifices of the city: St-Ouen, with its lofty triforium and glittering rose-window; St-Maclou, with its carved doors and grotesque Last Judgment; and the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, where a verger in full regalia, with plumed hat, rapier and staff, imposed his presence upon her. He pointed out the circumference of the Amboise bell, the resting place of Pierre de Brézé, the effigy of Diane de Poitiers and a mutilated statue from the tomb of Richard Coeur-de-Lion. He indicated the Gargoyle Window, and recounted the legend of the Tour de Beurre, erected in the seventeenth century with money paid for indulgences to eat butter during Lent.
    Mr Brassey’s men took the line from the terminus of the Paris and Rouen, swung it across the Seine on a new bridge, then bent it in a northerly loop through the hills and valleys of the city. They built the Ste-Catherine Tunnel, 1600 metresin length; raised the Darnétal Viaduct; blasted out the tunnels of Beauvoisine, St-Maur and Mont Riboudet. They traversed the river Cailly just south of Malaunay. Ahead lay the river Austreberthe, which was to be crossed at Barentin by a fine and elegant viaduct. Mrs Brassey informed her husband about the Tour de Beurre, and wondered what edifices could be raised in their own day from the sale of indulgences.

    ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be