c'est le Connétable, dont les titres de l'Abbaïe de Facan nous ont appris le nom: _Signum Turoldi Constabularii_. Mais le Nain est très-mal habillé, il a son bonnet sur la tête, et tourne le dos au Comte de Ponthieu, pendant que les deux Ambassadeurs noblement vêtus regardent ce Prince en face, et lui parlent découverts: trois circonstances qui ne peuvent convenir, ni au Connétable du Duc, ni à toute autre personne de distinction qui auroit tenu compagnie, ou fait cortege aux Ambassadeurs."] [Footnote 56: This tower is figured, but very inaccurately, by Gough, in his _Alien Priories_, I. p. 22.--The cupola which then surmounted it is now gone; and the cap to the turret, which served as the staircase, has strangely changed its shape.] [Footnote 57: _Alien Priories_, I. p. 24.] [Footnote 58: "Nam antea, sub tempore sex ducum vix ullus Normannorum liberalibus studiis adhæsit; nec doctor inveniebatur, donec provisor omnium, Deus, Normannicis oris Lanfrancum appulit. Fama peritiæ illius in totâ ubertim innotuit Europâ, unde ad magisterium ejus multi convenerunt de Franciâ, de Wasconiâ, de Britanniâ, necne Flandriâ."--_Duchesne, Scriptores Normanni_, p. 519.] [Footnote 59: A question always existed, whether the Empress was really buried here, or at the abbey of Ste Marie des Prés, at Rouen. Hoveden expressly says, that she was interred at Rouen: the chronicle of Bec, on the other hand, is equally positive in the assertion that her body was brought to Bec, and entombed with honor before the altar of the Virgin. The same chronicle adds that, in the year 1273, her remains were discovered before the high altar, sewed up in an ox's hide.--Still farther to substantiate their claim, the monks of Bec maintained that, in 1684, upon the occasion of some repairs being done to this altar, the bones of the empress were again found immediately under the lamp (which, in Catholic churches, is kept constantly burning before the holy sacrament,) and that they were deposited once more in the ground in a wooden chest, covered with lead.--The Empress was a munificent endower of monasteries, and was at all times most liberal towards Bec. William of Jumieges says, that it would be tedious to enumerate the presents she made to the abbey, but that the sight of them gave pleasure to those strangers who have seen the treasures of the most noble churches. His remarks on this matter, and his account of her arguments with her father, on the subject of her choice of Bec, as a place of her interment, deserve to be transcribed.--"Transiret illac hospes Græcus aut Arabs, voluptate traheretur eadem. Credimus autem, et credere fas est, æquissimum judicem omnium non solùm in futuro, verumetiam in præsenti seculo, illi centuplum redditurum, quod seruis suis manu sicut larga, ita devota gratantèr impendit. Ad remunerationem verò instantis temporis pertinere non dubium est, quòd, miserante Deo, sopita adversa valetudine, sanctitatem refouit, et Monachos suos, Monachos Beccenses,