Account of a Tour in Normandy Volume Ii Part 6

[Footnote 53: See _Concilia Normannica_, II. pp. 56, 117, 403, 491, 508, &c]

LETTER XX.

MOULINEAUX--CASTLE OF ROBERT THE DEVIL--BOURG-THEROUDE--ABBEY OF BEC--BRIONNE.

(_Brionne, July_, 1818.)

Having accomplished the objects which we had proposed to ourselves in Rouen and its vicinity, we set out this morning upon our excursion to the western parts of the province. Our first stage, to Moulineaux, was by the same road by which we returned a few days ago from Bourg-Achard.

It is a delightful ride, through the valley of the Seine, here of great width, stretching to our left in an uninterrupted course of flat open country, but, on our right hand, bordered at no great distance by the ridge of steep chalky cliffs which line the bank of the river. The road appears to have been a work of considerable labor: it is every where raised, and in some places as high as fifteen feet above the level of the fields on either side.--Agriculture in this district is conducted, as about Paris, upon the plan called by the French _la pet.i.te culture_: the fields are all divided into narrow strips; so that a piece of not more than two or three acres, frequently produces eight or ten different crops, some of grain, others of culinary vegetables, at the same time that many of these portions are planted with apple and cherry trees. The land is all open and uninclosed: not a fence is to be seen; nor do there even appear to be any balks or head-marks. Strangers therefore who come, like us, from a country entirely inclosed, cannot refrain from frequent expressions of surprise how it is that every person here is enabled to tell the limits of his own property.

Moulineaux is a poor village, a mere a.s.semblage of cottages, with mud walls and thatched roofs. But the church is interesting, though desecrated and verging to ruin. Even now the outside alone is entire.

The interior is gutted and in a state of absolute neglect.--The building is of the earliest pointed style: its lancet-windows are of the plainest kind, being dest.i.tute of side pillars: in some of the windows are still remains of handsome painted gla.s.s.--Either the antiquaries in France are more honest than in England, or they want taste, or objects of this kind do not find a ready market. We know too well how many an English church, albeit well guarded by the churchwardens and the parson, has seen its windows despoiled of every s.h.i.+eld, and saint, and motto; and we also know full well, by whom, and for whom, such ravages are committed. In France, on the contrary, where painted gla.s.s still fills the windows of sacred buildings, now employed for the meanest purposes, or wholly deserted, no one will even take the trouble of carrying it away; and the storied panes are left, as derelicts utterly without value.--The east end of the church at Moulineaux is semi-circular; the roof is of stone, handsomely groined, and the groinings spring from fanciful corbels. On either side of the nave, near the choir, is a recess in the wall, carved with tabernacle-work, and serving for a piscina. Recesses of this kind, though of frequent occurrence in English churches, do not often appear in France. Still less common are those elaborate screens of carved timber, often richly gilt or gorgeously painted, which separate the nave from the chancel in the churches of many of our smaller villages at home. The only one I ever recollect to have seen in France was at Moulineaux.--I also observed a mutilated pillar, which originally supported the altar, ornamented with escalop sh.e.l.ls and fleurs-de-lys in bold relief. It reminded me of one figured in the _Antiquarian Repertory_, from Harold's chapel, in Battle Abbey[54].

Immediately after leaving Moulineaux, the road winds along the base of a steep chalk hill, whose brow is crowned by the remains of the famous castle of Robert the Devil, the father of Richard Fearnought. Robert the Devil is a mighty hero of romance; but there is some difficulty in discovering his historical prototype. Could we point out his _gestes_ in the chronicle, they would hardly outvalue his adventures, as they are recorded in the nursery tale. Robert haunts this castle, which appears to have been of great extent, though its ruins are very indistinct. The walls on the southern side are rents, and covered with brush-wood; and no architectural feature is discernible. Wide and deep fosses encircle the site, which is undermined by s.p.a.cious crypts and subterraneous caverns.--The fortress is evidently of remote, but uncertain, antiquity: it was dismantled by King John when he abandoned the duchy. The historians of Normandy say that it was re-fortified during the civil wars; and the fact is not dest.i.tute of probability, as its position is bold and commanding.

Bourg-Theroude, our next stage, is one of those places which are indebted to their names alone for the little importance they possess. At present, it is a small a.s.semblage of mean houses, most of them inns; but its Latin appellation, _Burgus Thuroldi_, commemorates no less a personage than one of the preceptors of William the Conqueror, and his grand constable at the time when he effected the conquest of England.--The name of Turold occurs upon the Bayeux tapestry, designating one of the amba.s.sadors dispatched by the Norman Duke to Guy, Earl of Ponthieu; and it is supposed that the Turold there represented was the grand constable[55].--The church of Bourg-Theroude, which was collegiate before the revolution, is at present uninteresting in every point of view.

About half way from this place to Brionne, we came in sight of the remains of the celebrated abbey of Bec, situated a mile and half or two miles distant to our right, at the extremity of a beautiful valley. We had been repeatedly a.s.sured that scarcely one stone of this formerly magnificent building was left upon another; but it would have shewn an unpardonable want of curiosity to have pa.s.sed so near without visiting it: even to stand upon the spot which such a monastery originally covered is a privilege not lightly to be foregone:--

"The pilgrim who journeys all day, To visit some far distant shrine; If he bear but a relic away, Is happy, nor heard to repine."--

And _happiness_ of this kind would on such an occasion infallibly fall to your lot and to mine. A love for botany or for antiquities would equally furnish _relics_ on a similar _pilgrimage_.

As usual, the accounts which we had received proved incorrect. The greater part of the conventual edifice still exists, but it has no kind of architectural value. Some detached portions, whose original use it would be difficult now to conjecture, appear, from their wide pointed windows, to be of the fifteenth century. The other buildings were probably erected within the last fifty years.--The part inhabited by the monks is at this time princ.i.p.ally employed as a cotton-mill; and, were it in England, n.o.body would suspect that it ever had any other destination. Of the church, the tower[56] only is in existence. I find no account of its date; though authors have been unusually profuse in their details of all particulars relating to this monastery. I am inclined to refer it to the beginning of the seventeenth century, in which case it was built shortly after the destruction of the nave. Its character is simple, solid elegance. Its ornaments are few, but they are selected and disposed with judgment. Each corner is flanked by two b.u.t.tresses, which unite at top, and there terminate in a crocketed pinnacle. The b.u.t.tresses are also ornamented with tabernacles of saints at different heights; and one of the tabernacles upon each b.u.t.tress, about mid-way up the tower, still retains a statue as large as life, of apparently good workmans.h.i.+p. They were fortunately too high for the democrats to destroy with ease. The height of the tower is one hundred and fifty feet, as I found by the staircase of two hundred steps, which remains uninjured, in a circular turret attached to the south side. The termination of this turret is the most singular part of the structure: it is surmounted by a cap, considerably higher than the pinnacles, and composed, like a bee-hive, of a number of circles, each smaller than the one below it. A few ruined arches of the east end of the church, and of one of the side chapels are also existing. The rest is levelled with the ground, and has probably been in a great measure destroyed lately; for piles of wrought stones are heaped up on all sides.

If historical recollections or architectural beauty could have proved a protection in the days of revolution, the church of Bec had undoubtedly stood. Ducarel, who saw it in its perfection, says it was one of the finest gothic structures in France; and his account of it, though only an abridgement of that given by Du Plessis, in his _History of Upper Normandy_, is curious and valuable.--Mr. Gough states the annual income of the abbey at the period of the revolution, to have exceeded twenty thousand crowns. Its patronage was most extensive: the monks presented to one hundred and sixty advowsons, two of them in the metropolis; and thirty other ecclesiastical benefices, as well priories as chapels, were in their gift[57].--Its possessions, as we may collect from the various charters and donations, might have led us to expect a larger revenue.

The estates belonging to the monastery in England, prior to the reformation, were both numerous and valuable.

Sammartha.n.u.s, author of the _Gallia Christiana_, says, in speaking of Bec, that, whether considered as to religion or literature, there was not, in the eleventh century, a more celebrated convent throughout the whole of Neustria. The founder of the abbey was h.e.l.louin, sometimes called Herluin, a n.o.bleman, descended by the mother's side from the Counts of Flanders, but he himself was a native of the territory of Brionne, and educated in the castle of Gislebert, earl of that district.

h.e.l.louin determined, at an early age, to withdraw himself from the court and from the world: it seems he was displeased or affronted by the conduct of the earl; and we may collect from the chroniclers, that it was not a very easy task in those times for an individual of rank, intent upon monastic seclusion, to carry his purpose into effect, and that still greater difficulties were to be encountered if he wished to put his property into mortmain. h.e.l.louin was obliged to counterfeit madness, and at last to come to a very painful explanation with his liege lord; and, when he finally succeeded in obtaining the permission he craved, his establishment was so poor, that he was compelled to take upon himself the office of abbot, from an inability to find any other person who would accept it.--The monkish historians lavish their praises upon h.e.l.louin. They a.s.sign to him every virtue under heaven; but they particularly laud him for his humility and industry: all day long he worked as a laborer in the building of his convent, whilst the night was pa.s.sed in committing the psalter to memory. At this period of his life, a curious anecdote is recorded of him: curious in itself, as ill.u.s.trative of the character of the man; and particularly curious, in being quoted as matter of commendation, and thus serving to ill.u.s.trate the feelings of a great body of the community.--His mother, who shared in the pious disposition of her son, had attached herself to the convent to a.s.sist in the menial offices; and one day, while she was thus engaged, the building caught fire, and she perished in the flames; upon which, h.e.l.louin, though bathed in tears, lifted up his hands to heaven, and gave thanks to G.o.d that his parent had been burned to death in the midst of an occupation of humility and piety!

During the life of h.e.l.louin, the abbey was twice levelled with the ground: on each occasion it rose more splendid from its ruins, and on each the site was changed, till at length it was fixed upon the spot from which its ruins are now vanis.h.i.+ng. The whole of Normandy would scarcely furnish a more desirable situation. Under the prelacy of h.e.l.louin, Bec increased rapidly in celebrity, and consequently in the number of its inmates: it was princ.i.p.ally indebted for this increase to an accidental circ.u.mstance. Lanfranc, a native of Pavia, a lawyer in Italy, but a monk in France, after having visited various monasteries, and distinguished himself by defending the doctrine of the real presence, then impugned by Berengarius, established himself here in the year 1042, and immediately opened a school, which, to judge from the language of Ordericus Vitalis[58], seems to have been the first ever known in Normandy. Scholars from France, from England, and from Flanders, hastened to place themselves under his care; his fame, according to William of Malmesbury, went forth into the outer parts of the earth; and Bec, under his auspices, became a most celebrated resort of literature. To borrow the more copious account given by William of Jumieges--"report quickly spread the glory of Bec, and of its abbot, h.e.l.louin, through every land. The clergy, the sons of dukes, the most eminent schoolmasters, the most powerful of the laity, and the n.o.bility, all hastened hither. Many, actuated by love for Lanfranc, gave their lands to the convent. The abbey was enriched with ornaments, with possessions, and with n.o.ble inmates. Religion and learning increased; property of all kinds abounded; and the monks, who but a few years before, could scarcely command sufficient ground for the site of their own building, now saw their estates extend for many miles in a lengthening line."--Promotion followed the fame of Lanfranc, who soon became abbot of the royal monastery of St. Stephen, at Caen, and thence was translated to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury.

It was the rare good fortune of Bec, that the abbey furnished two successive metropolitans to the English church, both of them selected for their erudition, Lanfranc and Anselm. It is not a little remarkable, too, that both were Italians. Lanfranc, whilst archbishop of Canterbury, presided in the year 1077, at the dedication of the third church built at Bec. We may judge how far the abbey had at that time increased in consequence; for five bishops, one of them brother to the Conqueror, honored the ceremony with their presence; and the n.o.bles and ladies of France, Normandy, and England crowded to the spot, to refresh their bodies by the pleasures of the festival, and their souls by endowments to the convent.

In the fifteenth century, when our Henry Vth brought his victorious armies into France, the monks of Bec were reduced to a painful alternative. It was apprehended by the French monarch, that the monastery might be converted into a dpt by the English; and they were commanded either to demolish the church, or to fortify it against the invaders. They naturally regarded the latter as the lesser evil; and the consequence was, that the abbey was scarcely put into a state of defence, when it was attacked by the enemy, and, after sustaining a siege for a month, was obliged to surrender. A great part of the monastic buildings were levelled to the ground; and the fortifications which had been so strangely affixed to them were also razed: meanwhile the monks suffered grievously from the contending parties: their sacristy was plundered; their treasury emptied; and they were themselves exposed to a variety of personal hards.h.i.+ps. At the same time, also, the tomb of the Empress Maud[59], which faced the high altar, was destroyed, after having been stripped of its silver ornaments.

Considering the number of ill.u.s.trious persons who were abbots or patrons of Bec, and who had been elected from it to the superintendance of other monasteries, the church does not appear to have been rich in monuments. We read indeed of many individuals who were interred here belonging to the house of Neubourg, a family distinguished among the benefactors of the convent; and the records of the abbey speak also of the tomb of Richard of St. Leger, Bishop of Evreux; but the Empress was the only royal personage who selected this convent as the resting-place for her remains; and she likewise appears to have been the only eminent one, except h.e.l.louin, the founder, who lay in the chapter-house, under a slab of black marble, with various figures of rude workmans.h.i.+p[60]

carved upon it. His epitaph has more merit than the general cla.s.s of monumental inscriptions:--

"Hunc spectans tumulum, t.i.tulo cognosce sepultum; Est via virtutis nsse quis ipse fuit.

Dum quater hic denos vi venisset ad annos, Qu fuerant secli sprevit amore Dei.

Mutans erg vices, mundi de milite miles Fit Christi subito, Monachus ex laco.

Hinc sibi, more patrum, socians collegia fratrum, Cur, qu decuit, rexit eos, aluit.

Quot quantasque vides, hic solus condidit des, Non tm divitiis qum fidei meritis.

Quas puer haud didicit scripturas postea scivit, Doctus ut indoctum vix sequeretur eum.

Flentibus hunc n.o.bis tulit inclementia mortis s.e.xtilis quin bisque die decim.

Herluine pater, sic c?lica scandis ovanter; Credere namque tuis hoc licet ex meritis."

In number of inmates, extent of possessions, and possibly, in magnificence of buildings, other Norman monasteries may have excelled Bec: none equalled it in the prouder honor of being a seminary for eminent men and especially for those destined to the highest stations in the church. Lanfranc and Anselm were not the only two of its monks who were seated on the archiepiscopal throne at Canterbury. Two others, Theobald and Hubert obtained the same dignity in the following century; and Roger, the seventh abbot of Bec, enjoyed the still more enviable distinction of having been unanimously elected to fill the office of metropolitan, but of possessing sufficient firmness of mind to resist the attractions of wealth, and rank, and power. The sees of Rochester, Beauvais, and Evreux were likewise filled by monks from Bec; and it was here that many monastic establishments, both Norman and foreign, found their pastors. Three of our own most celebrated convents, those of Chester, Ely, and St. Edmund's Bury, received at different epochs their abbots from Bec; and during the prelacy of Anselm, the supreme pontiff himself selected a monk of this house as the prior of the distant convent of the holy Savior at Capua.--The village of Bec, which adjoins the abbey, is small and unimportant.

I was returning to our carriage, when a soldier invited me to walk to a part of the monastic grounds (for they are very extensive) which is appropriated to the purpose of keeping up the true breed of Norman horses. The French government have several similar establishments: they consider the matter as one of national importance; and, as France has not yet produced a Duke of Bedford or a Mr. c.o.ke, the state is obliged to undertake what would be much better effected by the energy of individuals.--A Norman horse is an excellent draft horse: he is strong, bony, and well proportioned. But the natives are not content with this qualified praise: they contend that he is equally unrivalled as a saddle-horse, as a hunter, and as a charger. In this part of the country the present average price of a hussar's horse is nineteen pounds; of a dragoon's thirty-four pounds; and of an officer's eighty pounds.--These prices are considered high, but not extravagant. France abounds at this time in fine horses. The losses occasioned by the revolutionary wars, and more especially by the disastrous Russian campaign, have been more than compensated by five years of peace, and by the horses that were left by the allied troops. An annual supply is also drawn from Mecklenburg and the adjacent countries. Importations of this kind are regarded as indispensable, to prevent a degeneration in the stock. A Frenchman can scarcely be brought to believe it possible; that we in England can preserve our fine breed of horses without having recourse to similar expedients; and if at last, by dint of repeated a.s.severations, you succeed in obtaining a reluctant a.s.sent, the conversation is almost sure to end in a shrug of the shoulders, accompanied with the remark--"Ah, vous autres Anglais, vous voulez toujours voler de vos propres ailes."

As we approached Brionne, the face of the country became more uneven; and we pa.s.sed an extensive tract of uncultivated chalk hills, resembling the downs of Wilts.h.i.+re.--Brionne itself lies in a valley watered by the Risle: the situation is agreeable, and advantageous for trade. The present number of its inhabitants does not amount to two thousand; and there is no reason to apprehend that the population has materially decreased of late years. But in the times of Norman rule, Brionne was a town of more importance: it had then three churches, besides an abbey and a lazar-house. At present a single church only remains; and this is neither large, nor handsome, nor ancient, nor remarkable in any point of view. We found in it a monument of the revolution, which I never saw elsewhere, and which I never expected to see at all. The age of reason was a sadly irrational age.--The tablet containing the rights and duties of man, disposed in two columns, like the tables of the Mosaic law, is still suffered to exist in the church, though shorn of all its republican dignity, and degraded into the front of a pew.

On the summit of a hill that overhangs the town, stood formerly the castle of the Earls of Brionne; and a portion of the building, though it be but an insignificant fragment, is still left. The part now standing consists of little more than two sides of the square dungeon, The walls, which are about fifty feet in height, appear crumbling and ragged, as they have lost the greater part of their original facing. Yet their thickness, which even now exceeds twelve feet, may enable them to bid defiance for many a century, to "the heat of the sun, and the furious winter's rages."--Nearly the half of one of the sides, which is seventy feet long, is occupied by three flat Norman b.u.t.tresses, of very small projection. No arched door-way, no window remains; nor any thing, except these b.u.t.tresses, to give a distinct character to the architecture: the hill is so overgrown with brush-wood, that though traces of foundation are discernible in almost every part of it, no clear idea can be formed of the dimensions or plan of the building. Its importance is sufficiently established by its having been the residence of a son or brother of Richard IInd, Duke of Normandy, on whose account, the town of Brionne, with the adjacent territory, was raised into an earldom.

Historians speak unequivocally of its strength. During the reign of William the Conqueror, it was regarded as impregnable. This king was little accustomed to meet with disappointment or even with resistance; but the castle of Brionne defied his utmost efforts for three successive years. Under his less energetic successor, it was taken in a day. Its possessor, Robert, Earl of Brionne, felt himself so secure within his towers, that he ventured, with only six attendants, to oppose the whole army of the Norman Duke; but the besiegers observed that the fortress was roofed with wood; and a shower of burning missiles compelled the garrison to surrender at discretion.--The castle was finally dismantled by the orders of Charles Vth.

Brionne is known in ecclesiastical history as the place where the council of the church was held, by which the tenets of Berengarius were finally condemned. It appears that the archdeacon of Angers, after some fruitless attempts to make converts among the Norman monks, took the bold resolution of stating his doctrines to the duke in person; and that the prince, though scarcely arrived at years of manhood, acted with so much prudence on the occasion, as to withhold any decisive answer, till he had collected the clergy of the duchy. They a.s.sembled at Brionne, as a central spot; and here the question was argued at great length, till Berengarius himself, and a convert, whom he had brought with him, trusting in his eloquence, were so overpowered by the arguments of their adversaries, that they were obliged to renounce their errors. The doctrine of the real presence in the sacrament, was thus incontrovertibly established; and it has from that time remained an undisputed article of faith in the Roman Catholic church.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 54: Vol. III. p. 187.--The engraving in the _Antiquarian Repertory_ was made from a drawing in the possession of the late Sir William Burrell, Bart.]

[Footnote 55: The word _Turold_, in the tapestry, stands immediately over the head of a dwarf, who is holding a couple of horses; and it has therefore been inferred by Montfaucon, (_Monumens de la Monarchie Franaise_, I. p. 378.) that he is the person thus denominated. But M.

Lancelot, in the _Mmoires de l'Acadmie des Inscriptions_, VI. p. 753, supposes Turold to be the amba.s.sador who is in the act of speaking; and this seems the more probable conjecture. The same opinion is still more decidedly maintained by Father Du Plessis, in his _Histoire de la Haute Normandie_, II. p. 342.--"Sur une ancienne tap.i.s.serie de l'Eglise de Baieux, que l'on croit avoir t faite par ordre de la Reine Mathilde femme du Conqurant, pour reprsenter les circonstances princ.i.p.ales de cette mmorable expdition, on lit distinctement le mot _Turold_ ct d'un des Amba.s.sadeurs, que Guillaume avoit envoiez au Comte de Ponthieu; et je ne doute nullement que ce Turold ne soit le mme que le Conntable. Le savant Auteur des Antiquitez de notre Monarchie croit cependant que ce mot doit se rapporter un Nain qui tient deux chevaux en bride derriere les Amba.s.sadeurs; et il ajoute que ce Nain devoit tre fort connu la Conr du Duc de Normandie. On avoue que si c'est lui en effet qui doit s'appeller Turold, il devoit tenir aussi la Cour de son Prince un rang distingu; sans quoi on n'auroit pas pris la peine de le dsigner par son nom dans la tap.i.s.serie. On avoue encore que le nom de Turold est plac l de maniere qu'on peut la rigueur le donner au Nain aussi bien qu' l'un des deux Amba.s.sadeurs; et comme le Nain est appliqu tenir deux chevaux en bride, on pourrait croire enfin que c'est le Conntable, dont les t.i.tres de l'Abbae de Facan nous ont appris le nom: _Signum Turoldi Constabularii_. Mais le Nain est trs-mal habill, il a son bonnet sur la tte, et tourne le dos au Comte de Ponthieu, pendant que les deux Amba.s.sadeurs n.o.blement vtus regardent ce Prince en face, et lui parlent dcouverts: trois circonstances qui ne peuvent convenir, ni au Conntable du Duc, ni toute autre personne de distinction qui auroit tenu compagnie, ou fait cortege aux Amba.s.sadeurs."]

[Footnote 56: This tower is figured, but very inaccurately, by Gough, in his _Alien Priories_, I. p. 22.--The cupola which then surmounted it is now gone; and the cap to the turret, which served as the staircase, has strangely changed its shape.]

[Footnote 57: _Alien Priories_, I. p. 24.]

[Footnote 58: "Nam antea, sub tempore s.e.x duc.u.m vix ullus Normannorum liberalibus studiis adhsit; nec doctor inveniebatur, donec provisor omnium, Deus, Normannicis oris Lanfranc.u.m appulit. Fama periti illius in tot ubertim innotuit Europ, unde ad magisterium ejus multi convenerunt de Franci, de Wasconi, de Britanni, necne Flandri."--_d.u.c.h.esne, Scriptores Normanni_, p. 519.]

[Footnote 59: A question always existed, whether the Empress was really buried here, or at the abbey of Ste Marie des Prs, at Rouen. Hoveden expressly says, that she was interred at Rouen: the chronicle of Bec, on the other hand, is equally positive in the a.s.sertion that her body was brought to Bec, and entombed with honor before the altar of the Virgin.

The same chronicle adds that, in the year 1273, her remains were discovered before the high altar, sewed up in an ox's hide.--Still farther to substantiate their claim, the monks of Bec maintained that, in 1684, upon the occasion of some repairs being done to this altar, the bones of the empress were again found immediately under the lamp (which, in Catholic churches, is kept constantly burning before the holy sacrament,) and that they were deposited once more in the ground in a wooden chest, covered with lead.--The Empress was a munificent endower of monasteries, and was at all times most liberal towards Bec. William of Jumieges says, that it would be tedious to enumerate the presents she made to the abbey, but that the sight of them gave pleasure to those strangers who have seen the treasures of the most n.o.ble churches. His remarks on this matter, and his account of her arguments with her father, on the subject of her choice of Bec, as a place of her interment, deserve to be transcribed.--"Transiret illac hospes Grcus aut Arabs, voluptate traheretur eadem. Credimus autem, et credere fas est, quissimum judicem omnium non solm in futuro, verumetiam in prsenti seculo, illi centuplum redditurum, quod seruis suis manu sicut larga, ita devota gratantr impendit. Ad remunerationem ver instantis temporis pertinere non dubium est, qud, miserante Deo, sopita adversa valetudine, sanct.i.tatem refouit, et Monachos suos, Monachos Beccenses, qui pr omnibus, et super omnes pro ipsius sospitate, jugi labore supplicandi decertando pene defecerant, aura prosper valetudinis ejus afflatos omnin redintegravit.--Nec supprimendum illud est silentio, im, ut ita dicatur, uncialibus literis exaratum, seculo venturo transmittendum; qud antequam convalesceret postulaverat patrem suum, ut permitteret eam in C?n.o.bio Beccensi humari. Quod Rex primo abnuerat, dicens non esse dignum, ut filia sua, Imperatrix Augusta, qu semel et iterm in urbe Romulea, qu caput est mundi, per ma.n.u.s summi Pontificis Imperiali diademate processerat insignita, in aliquo Monasterio, lict percelebri et religione et fama, sepeliretur; sed ad civitatem Rotomagensium, qu metropolis est Normannorum, saltem delata, in Ecclesia princ.i.p.ali, in qua et majores ejus, Rollonem loquor et Willelmum Longamspatam filium ipsius, qui Neustriam armis subegerunt, positi sunt, ipsa et poneretur. Qua deliberatione Regis percepta, illi per nuncium remandavit, animam suam nunquam fore ltam, nisi compos voluntatis su in hac duntaxat parte efficeretur.--O femina macte virtutis et consilii sanioris, paruipendens pompam secularem in corporis depositione! Noverat enim salubrius esse animabus defunctorum ibi corpora sua tumulari, ubi frequentis et devotis supplicationes pro ipsis Deo offeruntur. Victus itaque pater ipsius August pietate et prudentia fili, qui ceteros et virtute et pietate vincere solitus erat, cessit, et voluntatem, et pet.i.tionem ipsius de se sepelienda Becci fieri concessit. Sed volente Deo ut prfixum est, sanitati integerrim rest.i.tuta convaluit."--_d.u.c.h.esne, Scriptores Normanni_, p. 305.]

[Footnote 60: _Histoire de la Haute Normandie_, II. p, 281.]

LETTER XXI.

BERNAT--BROGLIE--ORBEC--LISIEUX--CATHEDRAL--ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

(_Lisieux, July_, 1818.)