aft of the cloven
foot. Old Nick had put a little cunning young devil under the balance,
who, following the dictates of his senior, kept clinging to the scale,
and swaying it down with all his might and main. The saint sent the imp
to his proper place in a moment; and instantly the burthen of
transgression was seen to kick the beam.--Painters and sculptors also
often introduced this ancient allegory of the balance of good and evil,
in their representations of the last judgment: it was even employed by
Lucas Kranach."

NOTES:

[187] _Description de la Haute Normandie_, II. p. 108.

[188] _Tour in Normandy_, I. p. 69.

PLATE LXXXIII.

CHURCH OF ST. SANSON SUR RILLE.

[Illustration: Plate 83. CHURCH OF ST. SANSON SUR RILLE.
_Remains of & capitals._]

Normandy, throughout the whole of its extent, can scarcely boast a
lovelier stream than the Rille. Originating in the southern part of the
duchy, this little river advances in a northerly direction, rolling its
sparkling waters in rapid course, through a valley of the most brilliant
verdure, till they mingle with the British Channel, at a very short
distance from the west of the mouth of the Seine. The Rille, in every
part of its current, is varied by an infinity of islands, formed by the
division of its waters. Hence its principal beauty, and hence also
considerable benefit for the purpose of manufacture; but the same
circumstance is fatal to the more important objects of commerce; for it
is in a great measure owing to this multiplicity of channels, that the
river is navigable to only a very short way above Pont Audemer; a
distance scarcely exceeding ten miles from its confluence with the
ocean.

The small village of St. Sanson is situated upon the right bank of the
Rille, within a league of its mouth. Its church, the same most probably
as is figured in this plate, is enumerated among the possessions
confirmed to the Benedictine monastery of St. Martin, at Troarn, by a
bull of Pope Innocent III. dated in the year 1210. In after-times, the
presentation to the living was in the hands of the bishops of Dol, in
Brittany, who likewise continued till the revolution to be both temporal
and spiritual lords of the parish, in right, as they alledged, of the
ancient barony of St. Sanson, which was annexed to their see.[189] Other
writers asserted, that the bishops held their authority here, as
successors to the superiors of an abbey, founded upon this spot in th