but it is sufficiently known with how little accuracy
the early historians are wont to express themselves on these subjects.
The term, "to rebuild," often means no more than to repair; so that it
is in many cases more safe to judge from the style of a building itself,
than from the records preserved to us respecting it. The architecture of
the church of St. Hildebert would lead to the supposition, that a
considerable portion of it was standing in its present state, at least
one hundred years anterior to the time of Hugh; and, even admitting such
to have been the case, there is still sufficient discrepancy in the rest
of the edifice to account for the well attested circumstance, that, at
the close of the thirteenth century, the church yet remained incomplete.
The imperfect state of the building did not prevent its receiving the
honor of a dedication: this ceremony was performed in one of the last
years of the twelfth century, by Walter, Archbishop of Rouen, in person,
attended, as commonly happened, by a great concourse of the nobles and
clergy of the province; and, in the first year of the following century,
Herbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, passed over from England for the
express purpose of doing honor by his presence to the translation of the
reliques of St. Hildebert. The banishment of Hugh de Gournay and
confiscation of his property, which took place shortly after these
events, deprived the canons of their liberal and powerful benefactor.
Poverty caused the progress of the building to be suspended; and it was
only by the aid of repeated indulgences, granted by the popes and
archbishops,[70] that it was finally brought to a state of completion.
The two western towers are of a considerably more recent period: they
were erected in their present state, of wood, roofed with slate, in the
middle of the seventeenth century. The timber was supplied by the
Duchess of Longueville, whose husband was at that time Count of Gournay;
and the rest of the charge was defrayed by the sale of the materials of
a ruined chapel, dedicated to St. Julian, and of a small central tower,
the only one originally attached to the building.

The church is in the form of a cross; consisting of a nave with aisles,
choir, and transepts. The west front (_plate thirty-eight_) is in the
earliest style of pointed architecture, and evidently of the period of
the same Hugh de Gournay, by whom the whole edifice is said to be
raised. If compared with the s