“Armis praecinctus, mentisque charactere cinctus,
    Dux fuit in bellis, Anglis virtute rebellis.”

The unfortunate Enguerrand de Marigni, brother of the archbishop, and lord treasurer under Philip the Fair, was the founder of this church.  At the instigation of the king’s uncle, Enguerrand was hanged without trial, and his family experienced the most bitter persecution.  His body, which had at first been interred in the convent of the Chartreux, at Paris, was removed hither in 1324; and his descendants obtained permission, in 1475, to erect a mausoleum to his memory.  But the king, at the same time that he acceded to their petition, added the express condition[32], that no allusion should be made to Marigni’s tragical end.  The monument was destroyed in the revolution; but the murder of the treasurer is one of those “damned spots,” which will never be washed out of the history of France.—­Charles de Valois soon felt the sting of remorse; and within a year from the wreaking of his vengeance, he caused alms to be publicly distributed in the streets of Paris, with an injunction to every one that received them, “to pray to God for the souls of Enguerrand de Marigni, and Charles de Valois, taking care to put the subject first[33].”—­In the church at Ecouis, was formerly the following epitaph, whose obscurity has given rise to a variety of traditions:—­

   “Ci gist le fils, ci gist la mere,
    Ci gist la soeur, ci gist le frere,
    Ci gist la femme, et le mari;
    Et ci ne sont que deux ici[34].”

Other inscriptions of the same nature are said to have existed in England.  Goube[35] supposes that this one is the record of an incestuous connection; but we may doubt whether a less sinful solution may not be given to the enigma.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 28:  Andelys is also called in old deeds Andeleium and Andeliacum.]

[Footnote 29:  “Seculo septimo, cum pauca essent in regione Anglorum monasteria, hunc morem in illa gente fuisse, ut multi ex Britannia, monastiae conversationis gratia, Francorum monasteria adirent, sed et filias suas eisdem erudiendas ac sponso coelesti copulandas mitterent, maxime in Brigensi seu S. Farae monasterio, et in Calensi et in Andilegum monasterio.”—­Bede, Hist. lib.  III. cap. 8.]

[Footnote 30:  Cotman’s Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, plate 15.—­In a future portion of his work, Mr. Cotman designs devoting a second plate exclusively to the oriel in the east front of this building.]

[Footnote 31:  Monstrelet, Johnes’ Translation, II. p. 242.]

[Footnote 32:  The letter of this stipulation appears to have been attended to much more than its spirit for at the top of the monument were five figures:—­Our Savior seated in the centre, as if in the act of pronouncing sentence; on either side of him, an angel; and below, Charles de Valois and Enguerrand de Marigni; the former on the right of Christ, crowned with the ducal coronet; the other, on the opposite side, in the guise and posture of a suppliant, imploring the divine vengeance for his unjust fate.—­Histoire de la Haute Normandie, II. p. 338.]