r the town. All these _contes devots_, and many others,
you will find recorded in the _Neustria Pia_[31]. I will only detain you
with a few words more upon the subject of the _precious blood_, a matter
too important to be thus hastily dismissed. It was placed here by Duke
Richard I.; but was lost in the course of a long and turbulent period,
and was not found again till the year 1171, when it was discovered
within the substance of a column built in the wall. Two little tubes of
lead originally contained the treasure; but these were soon inclosed in
two others of a more precious metal, and the whole was laid at the
bottom of a box of gilt silver, placed in a beautiful pyramidical
shrine. Thus protected, it was, before the revolution, fastened to one
of the pillars of the choir, behind a trellis-work of copper, and was an
object of general adoration. I know not what has since become of it;
but, as they are now managing these matters better in France, we may
safely calculate upon the speedy reappearance of the relic. Nor must you
refer this legend to the many which protestant incredulity is too apt to
class with the idle tales of all ages, the

"... quicquid Graecia mendax
Audet in historia;"

for no less grave an authority than the faculty of theology at Paris
determined, by a formal decree of the 28th of May, 1448, that this
worship was very proper; for that, to use their words, "Non repugnat
pietati fidelium credere quod aliquid de sanguine Christi effuso tempore
passionis remanserit in terris."

The abbey, to which Fecamp was indebted for all its greatness and
celebrity, was founded in 664[32] for a community of nuns, by Waning,
the count or governor of the Pays de Caux, a nobleman who had already
contributed to the endowment of the Monastery of St. Wandrille. St.
Ouen, Bishop of Rouen, dedicated the church in the presence of King
Clotaire; and, so rapidly did the fame of the sanctity of the abbey
extend, that the number of its inmates amounted in a very short period
to three hundred or more. The arrival, however, of the Normans, under
Hastings, in 841, caused the dispersion of the nuns; and the same story
is related of the few who remained at Fecamp, as of many others under
similar circumstances, that they voluntarily cut off their noses and
their lips, rather than be an object of attraction to the lust of their
conquerors. The abbey, in return for their heroism, was levelled with
the ground, and it did no