limits of the Norman dominion; his ability, which had elevated the nation
to the highest pitch of glory; his equity in the administration of justice;
his firmness in correcting abuses; and his liberality towards the monks
and clergy; then finally addressing the people, he besought them to
intercede with the Almighty for the soul of their prince. At this moment,
one Asselin, an obscure individual, starting from the crowd, exclaimed
with a loud voice, "the ground upon which you are standing was the site of
my father's dwelling. This man, for whom you ask our prayers, took it by
force from my parent; by violence he seized, by violence he retained it;
and, contrary to all law and justice, he built upon it this church,
wherein we are assembled. Publicly, therefore, in the sight of God and man,
do I claim my inheritance, and protest against the body of the plunderer
being covered with my turf." The appeal was attended with instant effect:
bishops and nobles united in their entreaties with Asselin; they admitted
the justice of his claim; they pacified him; they paid him sixty shillings
on the spot by way of recompense for the place of sepulture; and, finally,
they satisfied him for the rest of the land.

But the remarkable incidents doomed to attend upon this burial were not
yet at an end; for at the time when they were laying the corpse in the
sarcophagus, and were bending it with some force, which they were
compelled to do, in consequence of the coffin having been made too short,
the body, which was extremely corpulent, burst, and so intolerable a
stench issued from the grave, that all the perfumes which arose from all
the censers of the priests and acolytes were of no avail; and the rites
were concluded in haste, and the assembly, struck with horror, returned to
their homes.

The latter part of this story accords but ill with what De Bourgueville
relates. We learn from this author, that four hundred and thirty years