Medieval battle Around 934, the
chief of the Normans of the
Seine and
Count of Rouen, Guillaume Longue-Épée, allied himself with the
Franks through marriage. This led to the formation of an anti-foreign party. It was led by Riulf - also of
Scandinavian descent - Count of
Cotentin, at the head of several other Norman barons. In their eyes, the
jarl was forging
alliances such that foreigners risked entering the
Court and Council, or stripping them of their possessions. Guillaume Longue-Épée, encouraged by
Anslech de Bricquebec,
Bernard le Danois and Bothon, Count of Bessin, was forced to take on an army of several thousand men with 300 soldiers. He confronted them in a meadow at the foot of
Mont-aux-Malades and the
city walls of Rouen, emerging victorious. (The very spot where this incredible battle took place is still known today as "Pré de la Bataille".) A little over a century later, in 1160-1170,
Wace's
Roman de Rou recounts the events and ensures that the name of the place where they took place will live on: Following the event, the meadow became a locality and took the name Pré de la Bataille for several centuries. It then extended west of Rouen, on one side from the foot of the Saint-Gervais heights to the Seine, and on the other from
Rouen's ramparts to the Yonville valley. Until 1419, according to Jean Oursel, the Porte du Pré was in existence as "par cette porte on alloi au Pré de la Bataille, pour les lavandières ". This gate leads to the meadows below the
Jacobins convent19. In 1420,
King Henry V of England, victorious after the
siege of Rouen, granted himself "a considerable space on the banks of the Seine, next to the Pré de la Bataille gate" and erected a tower called , the first element of the
Vieil-Palais. In 1520, both the Pré de la Bataille and the
Clos Saint-Marc N 8 were considered as potential hospital sites. In fact, the linen of plague sufferers, like that of other patients, was transported to the Pré de la Bataille quay, where
Hôtel-Dieu had a
laundry. In 1731, mention is made of a gate named Pré-de-la-Bataille. In reality, this was not a city gate, but a false one.
Rue odonym Initially, according to maps up to the 18th century, the site was a meadow. On June 18, 1785, part of it became a beverage fairground for
cider and
perry merchants. This area was mentioned by the Rouen town council on Frimmaire 12, Year X (December 3, 1801). It's only on an 1817 plan that a road called rue du Champ-de-Foire runs along its northern length. It may well have existed previously, as attested by the
Napoleonic cadastre ordered in 1807, although the Rouen
survey is undated35. The name then gave way to a new road running along the northern width. During the same meeting, having thus freed up a name, and the place remaining in the collective memory, on April 25, 1833, the municipal councilː'' [...]". This can be explained by the fact that, according to François Guillet, "in Normandy, as early as the 1800s, scholars and notables [...] embarked on the construction of a monument to provincial origins [...]; far from ending with the
Restoration, this quest for origins, in which the search for traces of the Scandinavian past forms part of an archaeology of provincial traditions, took on a particular intensity during the first half of the nineteenth century". Then, on August 1, 1833, the town council deliberated on extending the street at its northern end, marked by its intersection with rue du Champ-de-FoireN 10, as far as
rue Stanislas-Girardin. However, on June 15, 1841, this body decided to carry out only part of the project as far as rue du ChouquetN 12. The owners refused to cede the necessary land free of charge. It was only on an 1848 map that an extension appeared, but it was only a few meters from rue Stanislas-Girardin. On November 5, 1869, after a financial transaction, the council finally decided to remove the narrowing in front of rue du Chouquet. This allowed for an equal width along the entire length. Finally, in 1885, a map shows the complete extension, joining the Quai du Mont-Riboudet to Rue Stanislas-Girardin. This increased the street's length from 235 to 470 m. At least in 1903, as is still the case in 2020, the northern end was condemned. The street then ended at right-angles to rue Prosper-Soyer. In the 1840s, a small square to the west of the Hôtel-Dieu gardens also recalled the memory of this meadow, but it was not named. Fifty years later, this square was completely overtaken by the
urban sprawl of the Faubourg Cauchoise, to make way for a new district. In 1891, the street was paved. From August 25 to 27, 1944, three days before its liberation by the
Canadians, Rouen was bombed from the air to destroy the
bridges over the Seine. On the third day, bombs destroyed the lower part of rue du Pré-de-la-Bataille, hitting the twisting millN 13 Baillard-Duboc-Hauville, the Deshayes dyeing, printing, bleaching and
tanning chemicals plant, and the Letourneur dye works. After the war, the street was
renumbered. In the second half of the 20th century, rue du Pré-de-la-Bataille was extended to the
Quai de Boisguilbert, which runs alongside the Seine. However, in 2006, the southern section beyond avenue du Mont-Riboudet was renamed
rue René-Dragon in memory of the
Resistance fighter of the same name, thus losing the 135 m it had previously acquired. == Remarkable buildings and places of remembrance ==