present population consists of about three thousand four hundred
inhabitants, whose only trade is a trifling manufactory of lace.

From as early a period as the year 1102, the title of Count was bestowed
by Richard I. Duke of Normandy, upon the lords of Eu, who, in 1458,
received the additional dignity of _Comtes et Pairs_; probably as some
recompense for the misery inflicted upon the place three years before.
In the number of these counts, was the celebrated Duc de Guise, commonly
known by the name of _Le Balafre_. His monument of black and white
marble, in the church of the Jesuits at Eu, was executed by Genoese
artists; as was that of his wife, the Duchess of Cleves. Both of them
have long been subjects of admiration.[165] The last of the line of
counts of Eu, was the Duc de Penthievre, a nobleman of the most
estimable character: the title was his at the breaking out of the
revolution; and it is not a little to his honor, that a writer of the
most decidedly republican principles could be found, in the midst of
that stormy period, to bear the following testimony in his favor:--"Ne
au milieu d'une cour, ou la corruption et les vices avoient pris le nom
de la sagesse et des vertus, il dedaigna leurs delices funestes; il
repoussa l'air empeste de Versailles; superieur a leurs prestiges, il
oublia sa naissance; il prouva enfin, par de longues annees consacrees a
faire le bien, qu'il etoit digne d'etre ne simple citoyen.[166]"--The
castle, the residence of the counts, is now converted into a military
hospital.

The abbey of Eu is said to have been founded in 1002,[167] by William,
first count of the place, natural son of Richard _Sans-peur_, Duke of
Normandy. It was at its origin dedicated to the Virgin; but, after a
lapse of somewhat more than two hundred years, was placed under the
invocation of St. Lawrence, archbishop of Dublin. That prelate had, in
the year 1181, crossed into Normandy, with the view of restoring a
friendly understanding between the King of Ireland, his brother, and the
King of England; and, at the moment of his approaching Eu, and beholding
the lofty towers of the abbey, he is said to have exclaimed in strains
of pious fervor, "Haec requies mea in seculum seculi: hic habitabo,
quoniam elegi eam." Having accomplished the object of his mission, he
died shortly after at the convent, and was there interred; and the fame
of his sanctity attracting crowds of devotees to his tomb, he was
canonized by a pap