[105] This appears from the following inscription now upon a silver tablet placed near it.—­“Ce tableau est celui qui fut donne par Louis XII, en 1499, a l’Exchiquier, lorsqu’il le rendit permanent.  C’est le seul de tous les ornemens de ce palais qui ait echappe aux ravages de la revolution:  il a ete conserve par les soins de M. Gouel, graveur, et par lui remis a la cour royale de Rouen qui l’a fait placer ici, comme un monument de la piete d’un roi, a qui sa bonte merita le surnom de pere du peuple, et dont les vertus se reproduisent aujourd’hui dans la personne non moins cherie que sacree de sa majeste tres chretienne, Louis XVIII, 15 Janvier, 1816.”

[106] Du Cange, (I. p. 24.) quoting from a book printed at Rouen, in 1587, under the title of Les Triomphes de l’Abbaye des Conards, &c. gives the following curious mock patent from the abbot of this confraternity, addressed to somebody of the name of De Montalinos.—­

   “Provisio Cardinalatus Rothomagensis Julianensis, &c.

   “Paticherptissime Pater, &c.

“Abbas Conardorum et inconardorum ex quacumque Natione, vel genitatione sint aut fuerint:  Dilecto nostro filio naturali et illegitimo Jacobo a Montalinasio salutem et sinistram benedictionem.  Tua talis qualis vita et sancta reputatio cum bonis servitiis ... et quod diffidimus quod postea facies secundum indolem adolescentiae ac sapientiae tuae in Conardicis actibus, induxenunt nos, &c.  Quocirca mandamus ad amicos, inimicos et benefactores nostros qui ex hoc saeculo transierunt vel transituri sunt ... quatenus habeant te ponere, statuere, instalare et investire tam in choro, chordis et organo, quam in cymbalis bene sonantibus, faciantque te jocundari et ludere de libertatibus franchisiis, &c....  Voenundatum in tentorio nostro prope sanctum Julianum sub annulo peccatoris anno pontificatus nostri, 6.  Kalend. fabacearum, hora vero noctis 17. more Conardorum computando, &c.”

[107] The music of this hymn, or prose, as it is termed in the Catholic Rituals, is given in the Atlas to Millin’s Travels through the Southern Departments of France, plate 4.

[108] See under the article Abbas Conardorum, I. p. 24.

[109] Antiquites Nationales, III.  No. 36.

[110] Vol.  II.  No. 9.

[111] Vol.  IV. t. 29, 30, 31.

[112] Antiquites Nationales, III.  No. 30.

[113] This ceased to be the case almost immediately after this remark was made; for, on my return to France, in 1819, I observed on the whole road from Dieppe to Paris, the letters P A C I, or others, equally meaning pour assurance contre l’incendie, painted upon the fronts of the houses.

[114] Antiquites Nationales, III. article 30, p. 26.—­(In the figure, however, which accompanies this article, the summit is mutilated, as I saw it.)

[115] Peuchet, Description Topographique et Statistique de la France, Departement de la Seine Inferieure, p. 33.