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 aera 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 a