acrato."

The author goes on to add, that the king

...... "ne fiat eis deinceps injuria talis,
Praecipit ut pereat munitio toto Johannis;
Et sua militiae coelesti castra resignans,
Humanis bonus excubiis locra sacra resignat,
Largifluaque manu monachos juvat in renovando
Sarta tecta, libros, et caetera quae furor ignis
Solverat in cinerem, quae nobiliore paratu
Quam prius extiterant jam restaurata videmus."

_Phillip._ lib. 8, l. 114.

[217] In the preamble of the statutes of this order, the monarch
expresses himself in the following terms--"Nous, a la gloire de Dieu,
notre createur Tout-puissant, et reverence de glorieuse Vierge Marie, et
en l'honneur de Monseigneur St.-Michel Archange, premier Chevalier, qui
pour la querelle de Dieu, d'estoc et de taille, se battit contre
l'ennemi dangereux de l'humain lignage, et du Ciel le trebucha, et qui
en son lieu et oratoire appelle Mont-St. Michel a toujours
particulierement garde, preserve et defendu, sans etre pris, subjugue,
ni mis es mains des anciens ennemis de notre royaume, et afin que tous
bons et nobles courages soient excites et plus particulierement emus a
toutes vertueuses oeuvres; le 1er. jour d'Aout de l'an 1469 avons cree,
institue et ordonne, et par ces presentes creons, constituons et
ordonnons un Ordre de fraternite ou amiable compagnie de certain nombre
de Chevaliers, jusqu'a trente six, lequel nous voulons etre nomme
l'Ordre de Saint-Michel."

PLATE XCVII.

ABBEY CHURCH OF CERISY.

[Illustration: Plate 97. ABBEY CHURCH OF CERISY.
_Interior of the Choir._]

Cerisy, a small market-town, upon the road leading from Bayeux to St.
Lo, and equally distant about four leagues from each of those places, is
wholly indebted to its abbey for the celebrity it has enjoyed. In the
secular history of the duchy, its name occurs upon only two occasions.
The lord of Cerisy is enumerated among the companions in arms of Robert,
son of the Conqueror, in his expedition to the Holy Land, in 1009; and
the abbot of Cerisy was one of the twenty-one ecclesiastics from the
bailiwick of Caen, cited by Philip le Bel to the Norman exchequer, in
the beginning of the fourteenth century.

The convent, which was at all times of the Benedictine order, is said to
have been founded as early as the year 560. It was under the invocation
of St. Vigor, ninth bishop of Bayeux; and, according to some