Lucius Davoren, Volume III by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

It was still quite early in the day when Lucius entered Rouen, but the bustle of commerce had begun upon the quays. Shrill voices bawled to each other among the shipping, and it seemed as if a small slice of the West India Docks had been transferred to this bluer stream. The bustle of business here was a very small matter compared with the press and clamour of the Shadrack-Basin district. Still the town had a prosperous progressive air. Lofty stone-fronted mansions and lofty stone-fronted warehouses glared whitely in the sunshine, some finished and occupied, but more in process of construction. This mushroom growth of modern commerce seemed to have risen all at once, to overshadow the quaint old city where the warrior-maid was martyred. Lucius, who had not seen the place for some years, looked round him aghast. This broad lime-white boulevard, these tall lime-white buildings, were as new as Aladdin's palace.

‘What has become of _my_ Rouen? ' he asked himself dejectedly. The city had pleased him five years ago, when he and Geoffrey passed through it during a long-vacation excursion, but the queer old gabled houses, older than the Fronde-nay, many of them ancient as the famous Joan herself-the archways, the curious nooks and corners, the narrow streets and inconvenient footways, in a word, all that had made the city at once delightful to the tourist and unwholesome for its inhabitants, seemed to be extinguished by those new boulevards and huge houses.