occasionally into disputes with the bailiff and viscount of
Caen: her rights were repeatedly called in question, and she was obliged
to have recourse to legal tribunals to establish them. The following
very extraordinary suit is at once illustrative of the fact, and of the
character of the times:--In the year 1480, an infant was eaten up in its
cradle, by a _bestia porcina_, within the precincts of the parish of St.
Giles. The abbess' officers seized the delinquent, and instituted a
process for its condemnation before the seneschal of the convent. During
the time, however, that the question was pending, the king's
attorney-general interfered. He summoned the abbess before the
high-bailiff, and, maintaining that the crime had been committed within
the cognizance of the bailiwick, he claimed the beast, and demanded that
its trial should take place before one of the royal tribunals. Debates
immediately arose as to the limits of their respective jurisdictions:
inquiries were set on foot; memorials and counter-memorials were
presented; and the abbess finally succeeded in carrying her point, only
by dint of proving that she had, some years previously, burned a young
woman in the _Place aux Campions_, for having murdered a man in the
self-same house where the hog devoured the child.

Among the obligations originally imposed upon this convent, was that of
giving a dinner annually, on Trinity Sunday, to such of the inhabitants
of the parish of Vaux-sur-Saulles and their domestics, as had resided
there a year and a day. The repast was served up within the abbey walls,
and in the following manner:--After the guests had washed their hands in
a tub of water, they seated themselves on the ground, and a cloth was
spread before them. A loaf, of the weight of twenty-one ounces, was
then given to each individual, and with it a slice of boiled bacon, six
inches square. To this was added a rasher of bacon, fried; and the feast
concluded with a basin of bread and milk for every person, all of them
having likewise as much beer and cider as they could drink. The dinner,
as may naturally be supposed, lasted from three to four hours; and it
will also not be difficult to imagine, that the entertaining of such a
motley throng on such a day, could not fail to be attended with great
annoyance to the nuns, and with various inconveniences. The convent had
therefore, from a very early date, endeavored to free themselves from
the obligation, by the paym