Such is the tradition. There is a very able dissertation upon the subject, by the Abbé de Vertot[46], who endeavors to disprove the whole story: first by the silence of all contemporary authors; then by the fact, that Yvetot was not at that time under the dominion of Clothair; then by an anachronism, which the story involves as to Pope Agapetus; and finally by sundry other arguments of minor importance. Even he, however, admits, that in a royal decree, dated 1392, and preserved among the records of the Exchequer of Normandy, the title of _King_ is given to the Lord of Yvetot; and he is obliged to cut the knot, which he is unable to untie, by stating it as his opinion, that at or about this period Yvetot was really raised into a sovereignty, though, on what occasion, for what purpose, and with what privileges, no document remains to prove. As a parallel case, he instances the Peers of France, an order with whose existence every body is acquainted, while of the date of the establishment nothing is known. It is surprising, that so clear-sighted a writer did not perceive that he was doing nothing more than illustrating, as the logicians say, _obscurum per obscurius_, or, rather, making darkness more dark; as if it were not considerably more probable, that so strange a circumstance should have taken place in the sixth century, and have been left unrecorded, when society was unformed, anomalies frequent, and historians few, than that it should have happened in the fourteenth, a period when the government of France was completely settled in a regular form, under one monarch, when literature was generally diffused, and when every remarkable event was chronicled. Besides which, the inhabitants of the little kingdom continued, in some measure, independent of his Most Christian Majesty, even until the revolution. At least, they paid not a sou of taxes, neither _aides_, nor _tenth-penny_, nor _gabelle_. It was a sanctuary into which no farmer of the revenue dared to enter. And it is hardly to be doubted, but that there must have been some very singular cause for so singular and enviable a privilege. In our own days, M. Duputel[47], a member of the academy of Rouen, has entered the lists against the Abbé; and between them the matter is still undecided, and is likely so to continue. For myself, I have no means of throwing light upon it; but the impression left upon my mind, after reading both sides of the question, is, that the arguments are altogether in favor of Vertot, while the greater weight of probabilities is in the opposite scale. I shall leave you, however, to poise the balance, and I shall not attempt to cause either end of the beam to preponderate, by acting the part of Old Nick as before exhibited to you; though I decidedly believe that Gaguin had some authority for his tale, but, by neglecting to quote it, he has left the minds of his readers to uncertainty, and his own veracity to suspicion.