subsequent to the death of the Conqueror, a Roman cardinal, attended by an
archbishop and bishop, visited the town of Caen, and that his eminence
having expressed a wish to see the body of the duke, the monks yielded to
his curiosity, the tomb was opened, and the corpse discovered in so
perfect a state that the cardinal caused a portrait to be taken from the
lifeless features. It is not worth while now to inquire into the truth of
this story, or the fidelity of the resemblance. The painting has
disappeared in the course of time: it hung for awhile against the walls of
the church, opposite to the monument, but it was stolen during the tumults
caused by the Huguenots, and was broken into two pieces, in which state De
Bourgueville saw it a few years afterwards, in the hands of a Calvinist,
one Peter Hode, the gaoler at Caen, who used it in the double capacity of
a table and a door. The worthy magistrate states, that he kept the picture,
"because the abbey-church was demolished."

He was himself present at the second violation of the royal tomb, in 1572;
and he gives a piteous account of the transaction. The monument raised to
the memory of the Conqueror, by his son. William Rufus, under the
superintendance of Lanfrane, was a production of much costly and elaborate
workmanship; the shrine, which was placed upon the mausoleum, glittered
with gold and silver and precious stones. To complete the whole, the
effigy of the king had been added to the tomb at some period subsequent to
its original erection. A monument like this naturally excited the rapacity
of a lawless banditti, unrestrained by civil or military force, and
inveterate against every thing that might be regarded as connected with
the Catholic worship. The Calvinists were masters of Caen, and, incited by
the information of what had taken place at Rouen, they resolved to repeat
the same outrages. Under the specious pretext of abolishing idolatrous
worship, they pillaged and ransacked every church and monastery: they
broke the windows and organs, destroyed the images, stole the