At the present time, Rouen can shew scarcely any remains of Roman antiquity: "the wide waste of all-devouring years," has effaced those vestiges which that powerful people seldom failed to have impressed, wherever their dominion had once been firmly established. The small church of St. Gervais, derives therefore a peculiar interest, as exhibiting proofs, sufficiently decided, though far from important, of a connection with Italy. These proofs rest principally upon the Roman bricks and other _débris_, some of them rudely sculptured, which have been employed in the construction of the piers of the crypt, and upon the sculpture of the capitals of some columns on the exterior of the apsis. The church of St. Gervais is situated at a short distance without the walls of Rouen, upon a slight eminence, adjoining the Roman road to Lillebonne, and near a rising ground, commonly called the _Mont aux Malades_, as having been, in the eleventh century, the site of a monastery, destined for the reception of lepers. According to Farin,[106] the church was originally an abbey, and is expressly recognized as such in a charter of Duke Richard II. dated A.D. 1020; in which, among other donations to his favorite monastery at Fécamp, he enumerates, "item _Abbatiam_ Sancti Gervasii, quæ est juxta civitatem Rothomagum, et quicquid ad ipsam pertinet." The authors of the _Gallia Christiana_[107] add that, "at the time when this abbey was conferred upon Fécamp, it was taken from the monks of St. Peter at Chartres." Two centuries subsequently, St. Gervais appears to have sunk into the rank of a simple priory, under the immediate control of the monks of Fécamp, who assumed the title of its priors. In process of time, the still humbler name and dignity of a parochial church were alone left; but the period at which this last change took place, is not recorded. The abbot of Fécamp continued, however, till the period of the revolution, to exercise spiritual jurisdiction over what was termed the barony of St. Gervais; including not only this single parish; but some others dependent upon it. He nominated to the livings, directed the religious establishments, had entire control over the prisons, and was entitled to all privileges arising from the fair of St. Gervais, which was annually held at Rouen, in the Fauxbourg Cauchoise, on the twentieth of June. It is even on record, that in the year 1400, the abbot ventured upon the bold experiment of forbidding William de Vienne, then archbishop of Rouen, either to carry his cross, or to give his benediction within the precincts of his jurisdiction; but so daring an assumption of power was not to be tolerated, and the matter was accordingly referred to the parliament of Paris, who decided in this instance against the abbot. [Illustration: Plate 53. CRYPT IN THE CHURCH OF ST. GERVAIS AT ROUEN.]