Fécamp appeared desolate and decaying to its visitors, but they
recollected that its very desolation was a voucher of the antiquity from
which it derives its interest. It claims an origin as high as the days
of Cæsar, when it was called _Fisci Campus_, being the station where
the tribute was collected.

It is in vain, however, to expect concord amongst etymologists; and, of
course, there are other right learned wights who protest against this
derivation. They shake their heads and say, "no; you must trace the
name, Fécamp, to _Fici Campus_;" and they strengthen their assertion by
a sort of _argumentum ad ecclesiam_, maintaining that the _precious
blood_, for which Fécamp was long celebrated, corroborates and confirms
their tale. A chapel in the abbey church attests the sanctity of this
relic. The legend states that Nicodemus, at the time of the entombment
of our Saviour, collected in a phial the blood from his wounds, and
bequeathed it to his nephew, Isaac; who afterwards, making a tour
through Gaul, stopped in the Pays de Caux, and buried the phial at the
root of a fig-tree[30].

Nor is this the only miracle connected with the church. The monkish
historians descant with florid eloquence upon the white stag, which
pointed out to Duke Ansegirus the spot where the edifice was to be
erected; the mystic knife, inscribed "in nomine sanctæ et individuæ
trinitatis," thus declaring to whom the building should be dedicated;
and the roof, which, though prepared for a distant edifice, felt that it
would be best at Fécamp, and actually, of its own accord, undertook a
voyage by sea, and landed, without the displacing of a single nail, upon
the sea-coast near the town. All these _contes dévots_, 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