of Anthony Mallet[65] but it obtained general credence till within the
last three years, when a very well-informed writer, in the _Mercure de
France_, and subsequently in the article _Hennuyer_ in the
_Bibliographie Universelle_, espoused, and has apparently established,
the opposite opinion.

We visited only one other of the churches in Lisieux, that of St.
Jacques, a large edifice, in a bad style of pointed architecture, and
full of gaudy altars and ordinary pictures. On the outside of the stalls
of the choir towards the north is some curious carving; but I should
scarcely have been induced to have spoken of the building, were it not
for one of the paintings, which, however uninteresting as a piece of
art, appears to possess some historical value. It represents how the
bones of St. Ursinus were miraculously translated to Lisieux, under the
auspices of Hugh the Bishop, in 1055; and it professes, and apparently
with truth, to be a copy, made in the seventeenth century, from an
original of great antiquity. The legend relating to the relics of this
saint, is noticed by no author with whom I am acquainted, nor do I find
him mentioned any where in conjunction with the church of Lisieux, or
with any other Norman diocese.--But the extraordinary privilege granted
to the canons of the cathedral, of being Earls of Lisieux, and of
exercising all civil and criminal jurisdiction within the earldom, upon
the vigil and feast-day of St. Ursinus, in every year, is most probably
connected with the tradition commemorated by the picture. The actual
existence of the privilege, in modern times, we learn from Ducarel; who
also details at length the curious ceremonies with which the claim of it
was accompanied. The exercise of these rights was confirmed by a compact
between the canons and the bishop, who, prior to the revolution, united
the secular coronet of an earl with the episcopal mitre, and bore
supreme sway in all civil and ecclesiastical polity, during the