the chief door of entrance.
The inscription also testifies that in the same year, "there reigned
DEATH, WAR, and FAMINE." The _chancel of the choir_, with the
principal doors of entrance, &c. were constructed between the years
1520, and 1540. It may be worth remarking that the stalls of the choir
were brought from the Abbey of St. John--on the destruction of that
monastic establishment in 1729; and that, according to the _Gallia
Christiana_, vol. xi. p. 756, these stalls were carved at the desire
of Thomas II. de Mallebiche, abbot of that establishment in 1506-1516.
In a double niche of the south buttress are the statues of HERPIN and
his WIFE; rich citizens of Falaise, who, by their wealth, greatly
contributed to the building of the choir. (Their grandson, HERPIN
LACHENAYE, together with his mistress were killed, side by side, in
fighting at one of the gates of Falaise to repel the successful troops
of Henry IV.) The _Chapel of the Virgin_, behind the choir, was
completed about the year 1631. LANGEVIN, p. 81-128-131.

[171] We have of course nothing to do with the first erection of a place of
worship at Guibray in the VIIIth century. The story connected with the
earliest erection is this. The faubourg of Guibray, distant about 900
paces from Falaise, was formerly covered with chestnut and oak trees.
A sheep, scratching the earth, as if by natural instinct (I quote the
words of M. Langevin the historian of Falaise) indicated, by its
bleatings, that something was beneath. The shepherd approached, and
hollowing out the earth with his crook, discovered a statue of the
Virgin, with a child in its arms. The first church, dedicated to the
Virgin, under the reign of Charles Martel, called the Victorious, was
in consequence erected--on this very spot--in the centre of this
widely spreading wood of chestnut and oak. I hasten to the
construction of a second church, on the same site, under the auspices
of Mathilda, the wife of the Conqueror: with the statue of a woman
with a diadem upon her head--near one of the pillars: upon which
statue Langevin discourses learnedly in a note. But neither this
church nor the statue in question are now in existence. On the
contrary, the oldest portions of the church of Guibray, now
existing--according to the authors of the _Gallia Christiana_, vol.
xi. p. 878, and