e with him, and the whole force of
the land of Exmes. They hold their councils in the castle of Exmes; they
did what they could against the tyrant; but he was too strong for them.
He defeated the Duke in battle, and got possession of the castle of
Exmes.

Meanwhile Abbess Emma and her Sisterhood had to go whither they could.
"Tener virginum conventus misere dispersus est." Some sought shelter
with kinsfolk and friends. The Abbess herself and three nuns went to
Saint-Evroul, where Orderic, who tells the story, dwelled as the monk
Vital. They found a shelter and a place of worship in an ancient chapel
where Saint Evroul himself had dwelled--"coelesti theoriae intentus
solitarie degebat." There they abode six months, till in the next year
they were able to go back to Almeneches and to begin to set up their
ruined home again. For ten years Abbess Emma laboured at gathering the
sisterhood together and rebuilding the church. Then she died, and, by as
near an approach to hereditary succession as could be in the case of
abbesses, her staff passed to her niece Matilda, daughter of her brother
Philip. She, too, had to rebuild church and monastery after another
fire. We are not told how it was kindled: but by that time her uncle
Robert was safe in prison in England, shorn of all power of burning
anything or of gouging out anybody's eyes.[54]

Our present business is to see the sites of all these events. We hardly
dared to hope that we may see any ecclesiastical work of Abbess Emma or
Abbess Matilda. Still less do we hope to see the castles which Arnulf
and Robert of Belleme seized on standing up as they were in their day.
Both Exmes and Almeneches, in the present state of their military works,
are among the places which most fully bear out the doctrine with which
we started in speaking of Hauteville, that a site is often better when
there is nothing on it. The site of the castle of Exmes is not exactly
in an ideal state. The best case of all would be if it still bore a
castle of the right date; the second best would be if there were only a
green hill and its ditch, with full power of walking freely over them as
one thought good. The castle-hill of Exmes is not in so happy a case as
either of these; but it is much better off than if it were surmounted by
a barrack or a prison. The hill is there; the ditch, as we suppose we
must call it, is there; there is no building on the hill save a small
modern chapel; the only bad thing about