e great hall, the place in which the States of Normandy used to
assemble, as often as they were convened at Caen; and where the
Exchequer repeatedly held its sittings, after the recapture of Normandy,
by the kings of France, from its ancient dukes. This hall even escaped
the fury of revolutionists as well as Calvinists; but it was in the year
1802 altered by General Caffarelli, the then prefect, into rooms for the
college; and its superb painted windows were destroyed, together with
its pavement of glazed tiles, charged with heraldic bearings. The tiles
have long afforded scope for the learning and ingenuity of antiquaries,
some of whom have believed them coeval with the Conqueror; while others,
who hesitate about going quite so far, have regarded them as bearing the
arms of his companions. In the _Gallia Christiana_, the placing of them
is attributed to Robert de Chambray, who is there stated to have been
abbot from 1385 to 1393, a fact which the Abbe De la Rue utterly
disbelieves. He, however, is of opinion, that the tiles are of nearly
the same date, or a little earlier; and he considers them as belonging
to the families who had supplied abbots and monks to the convent.

NOTES:

[31] _Duchesne, Scriptores Normanni_, pp. 277 and 282.

[32] So says Huet, in his _Origines de Caen_, p. 175, upon the authority
of the Chronicle of the _Abbey of Bec_; and no attempt was made to
controvert this fact, till the recent publication of the Abbe De la
Rue's _Essais Historiques_, in which it is attempted to be proved, from
various indirect testimonies, that the building could not have been
finished till after the year 1070; indeed, that it could not even have
been begun at the time fixed by Huet for its completion, inasmuch as the
foundation charter, which must be of a date posterior to 1066, uses the
following expression.--"Ego Guillelmus, Anglorum Rex, Normannorum et
Coenomanorum princeps, Coenobium in honorem Dei ac Beatissimi
prothomartyris Stephani, intra Burgum, quem vulgari nomine vocant,
Cadomum, pro salute animae meae, uxoris, filiorum ac parentum meorum,
_disposui construendum_."

[33] See _Neustria Pia_, p. 639.

[34] Dom Blanchard, a Benedictine Monk, who left an unpublished history
of this monastery, says, "that the Conqueror obtained about the same
time from Constantinople, St. Stephen's skull; and that the translation
of it into the abbatial church was celebrated by an annual festival on
the eighth of October.