ABBEY OF JUMIEGES--ITS HISTORY--ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS--TOMBS OF AGNES SOREL AND OF THE ENERVEZ.
(Ducler, July, 1818)
The country between Ducler and Jumieges is of much the same character with that through which we had already travelled from Rouen; the road sometimes coasting the Seine, and sometimes passing through a well-wooded country, pleasantly intermingled with corn-fields. In its general appearance, this district bears a near resemblance to an English landscape; more so, indeed, than in any other part of Normandy, where the features of the scenery are upon a larger scale.
The lofty towers of the abbey of Jumieges are conspicuous from afar: the stone of which they are built is peculiarly white; and at a distance scarcely any signs of decay or dilapidation are visible. On a nearer approach, however, the Vandalism of the modern French appears in full activity. For the pitiful value of the materials, this noble edifice is doomed to destruction. The arched roof is beaten in; and the choir is nearly levelled with the ground. Two cart-loads of wrought stones were carried away, while we were there; and the workmen were busily employed in its demolition. The greater part, too, of the mischief, appears recent: the fractures of the walls are fresh and sharp; and the fresco-paintings are unchanged.--Had the proud, abbatial structure but been allowed to have existed as the parochial church of the village, the edifice might have stood for ages; but the French are miserably deficient in proper feeling; and neither the historical recollections connected with Jumieges, nor its importance as a monument of architectural antiquity, could redeem it from their tasteless selfishness. In a few years, its very ruins will have perished; and not a wreck will remain of this ancient sanctuary of religion and of learning.
It was in the year 654 or 655, that St. Philibert, second abbot of Rebais, in the diocese of Meaux, founded this monastery. He selected the site upon which the present building stands, a delightful situation, in a peninsula on the right bank of the Seine. This peninsula, and the territory extending from Ducler to Caudebec, had been granted to him for this purpose by Clovis IInd, or, more properly speaking, by Bathilda, his queen; for the whole administration of affairs was in reality under her guidance, though the reins of state were nominally held by her feeble husband. The territory[[10]] had previously borne the name of Jumieges, or, in Latin, Gemeticum, a term whose origin has puzzled etymologists. Those who hold it disgraceful to be ever at a loss on points of this nature, and who prefer displaying a learned to an unlearned ignorance, derive Gemeticum, either from gemitus, because, "pro suis offensis illìc gemunt, qui in flammis ultricibus non erunt gemituri;" or from gemma, conformably to the following distich,--
"Gemmeticum siquidem a gemmâ dixere priores;
Quòd reliquis gemmæ, præcelleret instar Eoæ."
The ground upon which the abbey was erected was previously occupied by an ancient encampment. The author of the Life of St. Philibert, who mentions this circumstance, has also preserved a description of the original church. These authentic accounts of edifices of remote date, which frequently occur in hagiology, are of great value in the history of the arts[[11]].--The bounty of the queen was well employed by the saint; and the cruciform church, with chapels, and altars, and shrines, and oratories, on either side, and with its high altar hallowed by relics, and decked out with gold and silver and precious stones, shews how faithfully the catholics, in their religious edifices of the present day, have adhered to the models of the early, if not the primitive, ages of the church.
Writers of the same period record two facts in relation to Jumieges, which are of some interest as points of natural history.--Vines were then commonly cultivated in this place and neighborhood;--and fishes of so great a size, that we cannot but suppose they must have been whales, frequently came up the Seine, and were caught under the walls of the monastery.--The growth of the vine is abundantly proved: it is not only related by various monkish historians, one of whom, an anonymous writer, quoted by Mabillon, in the Acta Sanctorum ordinis Sancti Benedicti, says, speaking of Jumieges, "hinc vinearum abundant botryones, qui in turgentibus gemmis lucentes rutilant in Falernis;" but even a charter of so late a date as the year 1472, expressly terms a large tract of land belonging to the convent, the vineyard[[12]].--The existence of the English monastic vineyards has been much controverted, but not conclusively. Whether these instances of the northern growth of the vine, as a wine-making plant, do or do not bear upon the question of the supposed refrigeration of our climate by the increase of the Polar ice, must be left to the determination of others.--The whale-fishery of Jumieges rests upon the single authority of the Gesta Sancti Philiberti: the author admits, indeed, that it is a strange thing, "et a sæculo inauditum;" but still he speaks of it as a fact that has fallen under his own knowledge, that the monks, by means of hooks, nets, and boats, catch sea-fish[[13]], fifty feet in length, which at once supply their table with food, and their lamps with oil.
The number of holy men who originally accompanied St. Philibert to his new abbey, was only seventy; but they increased with surprising rapidity; insomuch, that his successor, St. Aicadras, who received the pastoral staff, after a lapse of little more than thirty years from the foundation of Jumieges, found himself at the head of nine hundred monks, besides fifteen hundred attendants and dependants of various denominations.
During all these early ages, the monastery of Jumieges continued to be accounted one of the most celebrated religious houses in France. Its abbots are repeatedly mentioned in history, as enjoying the confidence of sovereigns, and as charged with important missions. In their number, was Hugh, grandson of Pépin le Bref, or, according to other writers, of Charlemagne. Here also, Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria, and his son, Theodo, were compelled to immure themselves, after the emperor had deposed them; whilst Anstruda, daughter of Tassilo, was doomed to share his imperial bed.
An æra of misfortune began with the arrival of the Normans. It was in May, in the year 841, that these dreadful invaders first penetrated as far as Rouen, marking their track by devastation. On their retreat, which almost immediately succeeded, they set fire to Jumieges, as well as to the capital. In their second invasion, under Ironside and Hastings, the "fury of the Normans" was poured out upon Neustria; and, during their inroad, they levelled Jumieges with the ground[[14]]. But the monks saved themselves: they dispersed: one fled as far as St. Gall; others found shelter in the royal abbey of St. Denis; the greater part re-assembled in a domain of their own, called Haspres, in Flanders, whither they carried with them the bodies of St. Aicadrus and St. Hugh: there too they resided till the conversion of their enemies to Christianity.
The victorious fleet of Rollo first sailed in triumph up the Seine, in the year 876. According to three monkish historians, Dudo of St. Quintin, William of Jumieges, and Matthew of Westminster, the chieftain venerated the sanctity of Jumieges, and deposited in the chapel of St. Vast, the corpse of the holy virgin, Hameltruda, whom he had brought from Britain. They also tell us that, on the sixth day after his baptism, he made a donation of some lands to this monastery.--The details, however, of the circumstances connected with the first, diminish its credibility; and Jumieges, then desolate, could scarcely contain a community capable of accepting the donation. But under the reign of the son and successor of Rollo, the abbey of Jumieges once more rose from its ashes. Baldwin and Gundwin, two of the monks who had fled to Haspres, returned to explore the ruins of the abbey: they determined to seclude themselves amidst its fire-scathed walls, and to devote their lives to piety and toil.--In pursuing the deer, the Duke chanced to wander to Jumieges, and he there beheld the monks employed in clearing the ground. He listened with patience to their narration; but when they invited him to partake of their humble fare, barley-bread and water, he turned from them with disdain. It chanced, however, that immediately afterwards, he encountered in the forest a boar of enormous size. The beast unhorsed him, and he was in danger of death. The peril he regarded as a judgment from heaven; and, as an expiation for his folly, he rebuilt the monastery. So thoroughly, however, had the Normans demonachised Neustria, that William Longa Spatha was compelled to people the abbey with a colony from Poitou; and thence came twelve monks, headed by Abbot Martin, whom the duke installed in his office in the year 930. William himself also desired to take refuge from the fatigues of government in the retirement of the monastery; and though dissuaded by Abbot Martin, who reminded him that Richard, his infant, son still needed his care, he did not renounce his intention:--but his life and his reign were soon ended by treachery.
This second æra of the prosperity of Jumieges was extremely short; for the prefect, whom Louis d'Outremer, King of France, placed in command at Rouen, when he seized upon the young Duke Richard, pulled down the walls of this and of all the other monasteries on the banks of the Seine, to assist towards the reparation and embellishment of the seat of his government. But from that time forward the tide of monastic affairs flowed in one even course of prosperity; though the present abbatial church was not begun till the time of Abbot Robert, the second of that name, who was elected in 1037. By him the first stone of the foundation was laid, three years after his advancement to the dignity; but he held his office only till 1043, when Edward the Confessor invited him to England, and immediately afterwards promoted him to the Bishopric of London.--Godfrey, his successor at Jumieges, was a man conversant with architecture, and earnest in the promotion of learning. In purchasing books and in causing them to be transcribed, he spared neither pains nor expence. The records of the monastery contain a curious precept, in which he directs that prayers should be offered up annually upon a certain day, "pro illis qui dederunt et fecerunt libros."--The inmates of Jumieges continued, however, to increase in number; and the revenues of the abbey would not have been adequate to defray the expences of the new building, had not Abbot Robert, who, in 1050, had been translated to the see of Canterbury, supplied the deficiency by his munificence, and, as long as he continued to be an English prelate, remitted the surplus of his revenues to the Norman abbey. He held his archiepiscopal dignity only one year, at the expiration of which he was banished from England: he then retired to Jumieges, where he died the following spring, and was buried in the choir of the church which he had begun to raise. At his death, the church had neither nave nor windows; and the whole edifice was not completed till November, in the year 1066. In the following July the dedication took place. Maurilius, Archbishop of Rouen, officiated, in great pomp, assisted by all the prelates of the duchy; and William, then just returned from the conquest of England, honored the ceremony with his presence.
I have dwelt upon the early history of this monastery, because Normandy scarcely furnishes another of greater interest. In the Neustria Pia, Jumieges fills nearly seventy closely-printed folio pages of that curious and entertaining, though credulous, work.--What remains to be told of its annals is little more than a series of dates touching the erection of different parts of the building: these, however, are worth preserving, so long as any portion of the noble church is permitted to have existence, and so long as drawings and engravings continue to perpetuate the remembrance of its details.
The choir and extremities of the transept, all of pointed architecture, are supposed to have been rebuilt in 1278.--The Lady-Chapel was an addition of the year 1326.--The abbey suffered materially during the wars between England and France, in the reigns of our Henry IVth and Henry Vth: its situation exposed it to be repeatedly pillaged by the contending parties; and, were it not that the massy Norman architecture sufficiently indicates the true date, and that we know our neighbors' habit of applying large words to small matters, we might even infer that it was then destroyed as effectually as it had been by Ironside: the expression, "lamentabilitèr desolata, diffracta et annihilata," could scarcely convey any meaning short of utter ruin, except to the ears of one who had been told that a religious edifice was actually abimé during the revolution, though he saw it at the same moment standing before him, and apparently uninjured.--The arched roof of the choir received a complete repair in 1535: that of the nave, which was also in a very bad state, underwent the same process in 1688; at the same time, the slender columns that support the cornice were replaced with new ones, and the symbols of the Evangelists were inserted in the upper part of the walls. These reparations are managed with a singular perception of propriety; and though the manner of the sculpture in the symbolic figures, is not that of a Gothic artist, yet they are most appropriate, and harmonize admirably with the building.
You must excuse me that, now I am upon this subject, I venture to "travel somewhat out of the record," for the sake of proposing to you a difficulty which has long puzzled me:--the connection which Catholic divines find between St. Luke's Bull and the word Zecharias;--for it appears, by the following distich from the Rhenish Testament, that some such cause leads them to regard this symbol as peculiarly appropriate to the third Evangelist:--
"Effigies vituli, Luca, tibi convenit; extat
Zacariæ in scriptis mentio prima tuis."--
An antiquary might be perplexed by these figures, the drawings whereof I now send you. He would find it impossible to suppose the exquisitely-sculptured images and the slender shafts with richly-wrought capitals, of the same date as the solid simple piers and arches all around; and yet the stone is so entirely the same, and the workmanship is so well united, that it would require an experienced eye to trace the junction. In the middle of the sixteenth century, the central tower was also found to need reparation; and the church, upon this occasion, sustained a lasting injury, in the loss of its original spire, which was of lead, and of great height and beauty. It was taken down, under pretence of its insecurity; but in reality the monks only wished to get the metal. This happened in 1557, under Gabriel le Veneur, Bishop of Evreux, the then abbot. Five years afterwards the ravages of the Huguenots succeeded: the injury done to Jumieges by these sectaries, was estimated at eighty thousand francs; and the library and records of the convent perished in the devastation.
The western front of the church still remains almost perfect; and it is most singular. It consists, of three distinct parts; the central division being nearly of equal width to the other two conjointly, and projecting considerably beyond them. The character of the whole is simplicity: the circular door-way is comparatively small, and entirely without ornament, except a pillar on each side; the six circular-headed windows over the entrance, disposed in a double row, are equally plain. Immediately above the upper tier of windows, is a projecting chequered cornice; and, still higher, where the gable assumes a triangular form, are three lancet-shaped apertures, so extremely narrow, that they resemble the loop-holes of a dungeon rather than the windows of a church. In each of the lateral compartments was likewise originally a door-way, and above it a single window, all of the same Norman style, but all now blocked up. These compartments are surmounted with short towers, capped with conical spires. The towers appear from their style and masonry to be nearly coeval with the lower part of the building, though not altogether so: the southern is somewhat the most modern. They are, however, so entirely dissimilar in plan from the rest of the front, that we cannot readily admit that they are a portion of the original design. Nor are they even like to each other. Both of them are square at their bases, and preserve this form to a sufficient height to admit of two tiers of narrow windows, separated from each other by little more than a simple string-course. Above these windows both become octagon, and continue so to the top; but in a very different manner. The northern one has obtuse angles, imperfectly defined; the southern has four projecting buttresses and four windows, alternating with each other. The form of the windows and their arrangement, afford farther marks of distinction. The octagon part is in both turrets longer than the square, but, like it, divided into two stories.
The central tower of the church, which was large and square, is now reduced to a fragment: three of its sides are gone; the western remains sufficiently perfect to shew what the whole was when entire. It contained a double tier of arches, the lower consisting of two, which were large and simple, the upper of three, divided by central shafts and masonry, so that each formed a double window. All of them were circular-headed, but so far differed from the architecture of the nave, that they had side-pillars with capitals.
The church[[15]] was entered by a long narrow porch.--The nave is a fine specimen of Norman architecture, but is remarkable in that style for one striking peculiarity, that the eight wide circular arches on either side, which separate it from the aisles, are alternately supported by round pillars and square piers; the latter having semi-cylindrical columns applied to each of their sides. The capitals are ornamented with rude volutes. The arches in the triforium are of nearly the same width as those below, but considerably less in height. There is no archivolt or moulding or ornament. Above these there is only one row of windows, which, like all the rest, are semi-circular headed; but they have neither angular pillars, nor mouldings, nor mullions. These windows are rather narrow externally, but within the opening enlarges considerably. The windows in the upper and lower tiers stand singly: in the intermediate row they are disposed by threes, the central one separated from the other two by a single column.--The inside of the nave is striking from its simplicity: it is wholly of the eleventh century, except the reparations already mentioned, which were made in 1688.--The choir and Lady-Chapel are nearly demolished; and only some fragments of them are now standing: they were of pointed architecture, and posterior to the nave by at least two centuries.
A smaller church, dedicated to St. Peter, stood near the principal one, with which it was connected by means of a corridor of pointed arches. There are other instances of two churches being erected within the precincts of one abbey, as at Bury St. Edmund's. St. Peter's was a building at least of equal antiquity with the great church. But it had undergone such alterations in the year 1334, during the prelacy of the twenty-seventh abbot, William Gemblet, that little of the original structure remained. He demolished nearly the whole of the nave, for the sake of adding uniformity to the cloisters of the monastery.--M. Le Prevost, however, is of opinion, that the ruins of Jumieges contain nothing more interesting to an antiquary than the west end of the portion of building, which subsequently served as the nave. It is a mass of flint-work; and he considers it as having belonged to the church that existed before the incursion of the Normans.
The cloisters, which stood to the south-west of St. Peter's, are now almost wholly destroyed.--To the west of them is a large hall or gallery, known by the name of la Salle des Chevaliers. It is entered by two porches, one towards the north-west, the other towards the south-west[[16]], both full of architectural beauty and curiosity. I know of no authority for their date; but, from the great variety and richness of their ornaments, and the elegant taste displayed in the arrangement of these, I should suppose them to have been erected during the latter half of the twelfth century: one of the arches is unquestionably pointed, though the cusp of the arch is very obtuse. The slight sketch which accompanies this letter, represents a fragment of the inner door-way of the south-west porch, and may enable you to form your own judgment upon the subject.
The stones immediately over the entrance are joggled into each other, the key-stone having a joggle on either side.--I have not observed this peculiarity in any other specimen of Norman masonry.--Between these porches apartments, along the interior of which runs a cornice, supported by grotesque corbels, and under it a row of windows, now principally blocked up, disposed in triplets, a trefoil-headed window being placed between two that are semi-circular, as seen in the accompanying drawing. The date of the origin of the trefoil-headed arch has been much disputed: these perhaps are some of the earliest, and they are unquestionably coeval with the building.
The stupid and disgraceful barbarism, which is now employing itself in the ruins of Jumieges, has long since annihilated the invaluable monuments which it contained.--In the Lady-Chapel of the conventual church was buried the heart of the celebrated Agnes Sorel, mistress of Charles VIIth, who died at Mesnil, about a league from this abbey, during the time when her royal lover was residing here.--Her death was generally attributed to poison; nor did the people hesitate in whispering that the fatal potion was administered by order of the Queen. Her son, the profligate tyrant Louis XIth, detested his father's concubine; and once, forgetting his dignity and his manhood, he struck the Dame de Beauté.--The statue placed upon the mausoleum represented Agnes kneeling and offering her heart to the virgin; but this effigy had been removed before the late troubles: a heart of white marble, which was at the foot of the tomb, had also disappeared. According to the annals of the abbey, they were destroyed by the Huguenots. The tomb itself, with various brasses inlaid upon it, remained undisturbed till the period of the revolution, when the whole memorial was removed, and even her remains were not suffered to rest in peace. The slab of black marble which covered them, and which bore upon its edges the French inscription to her memory, is still in existence; though it has changed its place and destination. The barbarians who pillaged the convent sold it with the rest of the plunder; and it now serves as a threshold to a house near the Mont aux Malades, at Rouen[[17]]. The inscription, which is cut in very elegant Gothic characters, is as follows: a part of it is, however, at present hidden by its position:--"Cy gist Agnes Surelle, noble damoiselle, en son vivant Dame de Roqueferriere, de Beaulté, d'Yssouldun, et de Vernon sur Seine, piteuse entre toutes gens, qui de ses biens donnoit largement aux gens d'église et aux pauvres; qui trespassa le neuvieme jour de Fevrier, l'an de grace 1449.--Priez Dieu pour elle."--It is justly to be regretted, that some pains are not taken for the preservation of this relic, which even now would be an ornament to the cathedral.--The manor-house at Mesnil, where the fair lady died, still retains its chimneys of the fifteenth century; and ancient paintings are discernible on the walls.
The monument in the church of St. Peter, generally known by the name of le tombeau des énervez, was of still greater singularity. It was an altar-tomb, raised about two feet above the pavement; and on the slabs were carved whole-length figures, in alto-relievo, of two boys, each about sixteen years of age, in rich attire, and ornamented with diadems, broaches, and girdles, all copiously studded with precious stones. Various traditions concerning this monument are recorded by authors, and particularly at great length by Father du Plessis[[18]].--The nameless princes, for such the splendor of their garb denotes them to have been, were considered, according to a tradition which prevailed from very early times, as the sons of Clovis and Bathilda, who, in the absence of their father, were guilty of revolt, and were punished by being hamstrung; for this is the meaning of the word énervez.--According to this tradition, the monks, in the thirteenth century, caused the monument to be ornamented with golden fleurs-de-lys, and added the following epitaph:--
"Hic in honore Dei requiescit stirps Clodovei,
Patris bellica gens, bella salutis agens.
Ad votum matris Bathildis poenituere,
Scelere pro proprio, proque labore patris."--
Three other lines, preserved by Yepez, in his chronicle, refer to the same tale, but accuse the princes of a crime of deeper die than mere rebellion against parental authority:--
"Conjugis est ultus probrum; nam in vincula tradit
Crudeles natos, pius impietate, simulque
Et duras pater, o Clodovee, piusque maritus."
Mabillon supposed the tomb to have been erected for Tassilo and his son; but I do not know how this conjecture is to be reconciled to the appearance of the statues, both representing persons of equal age. An examination of the grave at the time of the destruction of the abbey, might have afforded some interesting results; though, had any discovery been made, it would have been but a poor reward for the desolation which facilitated the research.
Footnotes:
[10] Immediately on the opposite side of the Seine, are extensive turf-bogs, which are of rare occurrence in this part of France; and in them grows the Andromeda polifolia, a plant that seems hitherto to have been discovered no where else in the kingdom.
[11] The following particulars relative to the territory of Jumieges, as well as the church, are curious: they are copied from an extract from the Life of St. Philibert, as given in the Neustria Pia, p. 262.--"Congruè sanè locus ille Gemmeticus est dictus, quippe qui instar gemmarum multivario sit decore conspicuus. Videas illic arborum comas sylvestrium, multigenos arborum fructus, solum fertile, prata virentia, hortorum flores suaveolentes, bortis gravidas vîtes, humum undique cinctam aquis, pascua pecorum uberrima, loca venationi apta, avium cantu circumsonantia. Sequana fluvius illic cernitur late ambiens: et deindè suo pergeus cursu, uno duntaxat commeantibus aditu relicto. Ibi mare increscens nunc eructat: nunc in sinum suum revolutum, navium fert compendia, commercia plurimorum. Nihil illic deest; quicquid vehiculis pedestribus, et equestribus plaustris, et ratibus subministratur, abunde suppetit. Illic castrum condidere antiqui; ibi stant, in acie, illustria castra Dei: ibi præ desiderio paradisi suspirantes gemunt, quibus postea opus non erit, in flammis ultricibus, nihil profuturos edere gemitus. Ibi denique almus sacerdos, Philibertus, multiplici est laude et prædicatione efferendus: qui instar Patriarchæ Jacob, in animabus septuaginta, demigravit in hanc eremum, addito grege septemplici, propter septiformem gratiam spiritus sancti. Ibi enim eius prudentia construxit mœnia quadrata, turrita mole surgentia; claustra excipiendis adventantibus mirè opportuna. In his domus alma fulget; habitatoribus digna. Ab Euro surgit Ecclesia, crucis effigie, cujus verticem obtinet Beatissima Virgo Maria; Altare est ante faciem lectuli, cum Dente sanctiss, patris Philiberti, pictum gemmarum luminibus, auro argentoque comptum: ab utroque latere, Joannis et Columbani Aræ dant gloriam Deo; adherent verò a Boreâ, Dyonisii Martyris, et Germani Confessoris, ædiculæ; in dextrâ domus parte, sacellum nobile extat S. Petri; a latere habens S. Martini oratorium. Ad Austrum est S. Viri cellula, et petris habens margines; saxis cinguntur claustra camerata: is decor cunctorum animos oblectans, eum inundantibus aquis, geminus vergit ad Austrum. Habet autem ipsa domus in longum pedes ducentos nonaginta, in latum quinquaginta: singulis legere volentibus lucem transmittunt fenestræ vitreæ: subtus habet geminas ædes, alteras condendis vinis, alteras cibis apparandis accommodatas."
[12] Allusions to the cultivation of the vine at Jumieges, as then commonly practised, may be found in many other public documents of the fifteenth century: but we may come yet nearer our own time; for we know that, in the year 1500, there was still a vineyard in the hamlet of Conihoult, a dependence upon Jumieges, and that the wine called vin de Conihoult, is expressly mentioned among the articles of which the charitable donations of the monastery consisted.--We are told, too, that at least eighteen or twenty acres, belonging to the grounds of the abbey itself, were used as a vineyard as late as 1561.--At present, I believe, vines are scarcely any where to be seen in Normandy, much north of Gaillon.
[13] In a charter belonging to the monastery, granted by Henry IInd, in 1159, (see Neustria Pia, p. 323) he gives the convent, "integritatem aquæ ex parte terræ Monachorum, et Graspais, si fortè capiatur."--The word Graspais is explained by Ducange to be a corruption of crassus piscis. Noel (in his Essais sur le Département de la Seine Inférieure, II, p. 168) supposes that it refers particularly to porpoises, which he says are still found in such abundance in the Seine, nearer its mouth, that the river sometimes appears quite black with them.
[14] The following account of the destruction of the monastery is extracted from William of Jumieges. (See Duchesne's Scriptores Normanni, p. 219)--"Dehinc Sequanica ora aggrediuntur, et apud Gemmeticum classica statione obsidionein componunt.... In quo quamplurima multitudo Episcoporum, seu Clericorum, vel nobilium laïcorum, spretis secularibus pompis, collecta, Christo Regi militatura, propria colla saluberrimo iugo subegit. Cuius loci Monachi, sive incolæ, Paganorum adventum comperientes, fugâ lapsi quædam suarum rerum sub terra occulentes, quædam secum asportantes, Deo juvante evaserunt. Pagani locum vacuum reperientes, Monasterium sanctæ Mariæ sanctíque Petri, et cuncta ædificia igne iniecto adurunt, in solitudinem omnia redigentes. Hac itaque patrata eversione, locus, qui tauto honoris splendore diu viguerat, exturbatis omnibus ac subuersis domibus, cœpit esse cubile ferarum et volucrum: maceriis in sua soliditate in sublime porrectis, arbustisque densissimis; et arborum virgultis per triginta fermè annorum curricula ubique a terra productis."
[15] The following are the proportions of the building, in French feet:--
| Length of the church | 265 |
| Ditto of the nave | 134 |
| Width of ditto | 62 |
| Length of choir | 43½ |
| Width of ditto | 31 |
| Length of Lady-Chapel | 63 |
| Width of ditto | 27 |
| Height of central tower | 124 |
| Ditto of western towers | 150 |
[16] Mr. Cotman has figured this porch, (Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, t. 4) but has, by mistake, called it "An Arch on the West Front of the Abbey Church."
[17] See a paper by M. Le Prevost in the Précis Analitique des Travaux de l'Académie de Rouen, 1815, p. 131.
[18] Histoire de la Haute Normandie, II, p. 260.