The present parish church of Vernon was collegiate. It was founded about the year 1052, by William of Vernon, and was endowed by him, at the time of its dedication, with the property called, La Couture du Pré de Giverny, and with a fourth part of the forest of Vernon, all which the dean and canons continued to enjoy till the revolution. This William appears to have been the first of the family who adopted the surname of Vernon. His son, Richard, by whom the foundation was formally confirmed, attended the Conqueror to England, and obtained there considerable grants. One of their descendants ceded the town in 1190 to the King of France, accepting in return other lands, according to a treaty still preserved in the royal library at Paris. The tombs of the founder, and of his namesake, Sir William de Vernon, constable of England, who died in 1467, and of many others of the family, among the rest the stately mausoleum of the Maréchal de Belle Isle, were destroyed during the reign of jacobinism and terror. The portraits, however, of the Marshal and of the Duc de Penthièvre, both of them very indifferent performances, were saved, and are now kept in the sacristy. The only monument left to the church is that of Marie Maignard, whose husband, Charles Maignard, was Lord of Bernières and president of the parliament of Normandy. She died in 1610. Her effigy in white marble, praying before a fald-stool, has also been spared.
The church itself is a spacious building, consisting of a nave and two aisles, with chapels beyond, separated by lofty pointed arches, supported on clustered pillars, to each of which is still attached a tabernacle; but the statues have been destroyed. The choir is altogether in a different style of architecture: that portion of it which immediately surrounds the altar, is early Norman, and most probably belonged to the original structure. Its arches vary remarkably in width. The most narrow among them are more decidedly horseshoe-shaped, than any others which I recollect to have seen.--The west front, though much mutilated, is still handsome. It is flanked by two small, very short turrets, richly ornamented.--The square central tower, capped by a conical roof, does not even equal the height of the nave, which is greatly superior to that of the choir.--Upon an eminence in the immediate vicinity of Vernon, are the remains of a Roman encampment.
With Vernon we quitted ancient Normandy: our ride thence to Mantes has been delightful; and this town, for the excellence of its buildings, for neatness, and for a general air of comfort, far excels any other which we have seen in the north of France. The name of Mantes also recals the memory of the Duc de Sully, and recals that of the Conqueror, whose life fell a sacrifice to the barbarous outrage of which he was here guilty.--But, I now lay down my pen, and take my leave of Normandy, happy, if by my correspondence during this short tour, I have been able to impart to you a portion of the gratification which I have myself experienced, while tracing the ancient history, and surveying the monuments of that wonderful nation, who, issuing from the frozen regions of the north, here fixed the seat of their permanent government, became powerful rivals of the sovereigns of France, saw Sicily and the fairest portion of Italy subject to their sway, and, at the same time that they possessed themselves of our own island, by right of conquest, imported amongst us their customs, their arts, and their institutions, and laid the basis of that happy constitution, under which, by the blessing of God, Britain is at this moment the pride and envy of the world!
Footnotes:
[96] Antiquités Nationales, IV. No. 48.
[97] Antiquités Nationales, II. No. 17.
[98] Histoire de la Haute Normandie, II. p. 332.