er Orderic, "tenellus exsul" in his Norman
monastery, like Joseph in Egypt hearing a strange language, ever
stopped to think of the true meaning of his patron's name, how the
softened _Ebrulfus_ and _Evroul_ disguised the two fierce beasts which
went to make up the name of _Eoforwulf_. Perhaps, indeed, Orderic the
Englishman, and all other Englishmen, had some right to see a kinsman,
however distant, in the saint who bore so terrible a name. For Ebrulfus
came of the city or land of Bayeux, and in Chlotocher's day, and long
after, the land of Bayeux was still the _Otlingua Saxonica_, an abiding
trace of those harryings and settlements of Sidonius's times, which
planted the Saxon on both sides of the Channel. Still, to us Orderic is
more than Evroul, even in the form of Eoforwulf. It is for his sake that
we take our journey through the wood of Ouche till we come to the little
stream of the Charenton, where the hermit chose out his solitary cell,
where the monastery twice arose in his honour, and where now the
glass-works are thought to be a greater attraction than the monastery.

The remains of the abbey soon catch our eye, as we draw near from the
east side, the side of Laigle. They are not placed quite at the bottom
of the valley; they gently climb up the hill to the west, the hill up
which the small low street of Saint-Evroul leads to the highest point,
where we find another sign of our own day in the railway station. The
church of the monastery is a mere ruin; but it at least stands open to
the sky; it is not desecrated and disfigured by being put to any profane
use. Quite enough is left to put together the whole plan of the
building. There is perhaps a slight feeling of disappointment at finding
that here at Saint-Evroul there is nothing directly to remind us of the
man for whose sake we have come thither. We would fain see something
that had met the eyes of the island-born child in the first years of his
coming to his foreign home. We would fain see even the church of Robert
of Grantmesnil, much more the elder church from which the High
Chancellor of Duke Hugh the Great carried away the body of Saint Evroul
himself, as a piece of holy spoil which Normandy had to yield to
France.[57] We would fain see the cloister where in Orderic's day, King
Henry of England, victor of Tinchebray, sat a long time in thought, and
the chapter-house where the Lion of Justice conferred with the brethren,
where he praised their good order