and in the fury of the revolution it
was despoiled and desecrated--degraded at one time to a manufactory for
the forging of arms, and at another to a magazine for forage.--Different
accounts are given of the foundation of the convent: some writers
contend for its having taken place as early as the last year of the
fourth century, and having been the work of the piety of Saint Victrice,
then bishop of Rouen; others, and these the greater number, are content
with tracing it from the reign of Clothair. Those who adopt the latter
opinion are again divided, as to whether that prince himself was the
actual founder, or only ratified by his royal sanction what was really
the establishment of Archbishop Flavius. In either case, however, they
agree in dating the origin of the abbey from the year 535.

An historian, who lived as early as the middle of the tenth century,
speaks of the original church of St. Ouen, as an edifice deserving of
admiration:--"..... miro opere, quadris lapidibus, manu Gothica,.... olim
nobiliter constructa."[173]--The abbey was at first placed under the
invocation of the Holy Apostles generally: it was afterwards dedicated
to St. Peter alone; but, from the year 692, it has owned no other patron
than St. Ouen,[174] whose body was three years before interred in the
church, which he had protected with his especial favor while living, and
which derived still greater benefits from him after his death, owing to
the concourse of pilgrims attracted by the miracles that were wrought at
his tomb.

Upon the irruption of the Normans in the ninth century, this abbey
shared the common fate of the Neustrian convents; and, like the rest, it
rose from its ashes with greater magnificence, after the conversion of
these barbarians to Christianity. Nicholas, the fourth abbot of the
convent, son of Duke Richard II. and of Judith of Brittany, is said by
Ordericus Vitalis to have commenced "a new church of wonderful size and
elegance." But though he presided over the fraternity nearly sixty
years, he did not live to see the building finished: the bringing of the
task to perfection was reserved for William Balot, the next but one to
him in the succession; and even he died in the very year of the
dedication, which did not take place till 1126.

This church, which it had cost eighty years to build, was suffered to
exist but a short time after its completion: only ten years had elapsed
from its dedication, when it fell a prey to a