in parte debita faciet et supportabit, et ulterius de uberiori gracia dedimus et concessimus...... in cujus rei testimonium has litteras nostras fieri fecimus patentes.--Teste meipso apd civitatem nram de Bayeux, XIII. die Martii, anno regni nri quinto. L. S. Per ipsum regem STORGEON." PLATE LXXI. CHURCH OF ST. STEPHEN, AT FÉCAMP. [Illustration: Plate 71. CHURCH OF ST. STEPHEN, AT FÉCAMP. _Southern entrance._] Fécamp, like many other towns in Normandy, has fallen from its original greatness to a state of extreme poverty. The sun of its prosperity has set, to rise no more. Neglect immediately followed upon the removal of the ducal throne to England: the annexation of Normandy to the crown of France, completed the ruin of the town; and the great change in the habits of mankind, from warlike to commercial, leaves no hopes for the restoration of the importance of a place, whose situation holds out no advantages for trade. Hence, Fécamp at present appears desolate and decayed; and, though the official account of the population of France still allows the number of its inhabitants to amount to seven thousand, the great quantity of deserted houses, calculated to amount to more than a third of all those in the town, impress the beholder with a strong feeling of depopulation and ruin.[160] But, in the earliest periods of French history, long before the foundation of the Norman throne, Fécamp was honored as a regal residence. The palace is said to have been rebuilt by William Longue-Epée, with extraordinary magnificence. That prince took great pleasure in the chace; and he and his immediate successors frequently lived here. He also selected the castle as a place of retirement for his duchess, during her pregnancy with Richard. His choice, in this respect, was probably not altogether guided by his partiality for the place; but, threatened at that time with a dangerous war, he was desirous of fixing his wife and infant heir in a situation, whence they might, in case of necessity, be with ease removed to the friendly shores of England.--Richard, born at Fécamp, preserved through life an attachment to the town, and omitted no opportunity of benefiting it. He rebuilt, endowed, and enriched the abbatial church at vast expense; and he finally ordered it to be the resting-place for his bones, which, however, he would not permit to be interred in any spot whatever within the structure, but, with his dying breath, expressly enjoined his son to deposit them on the outside, immediately beneath the eaves, in order that, to use the words put by the monastic historians into his mouth upon the occasion, "stillantium guttarum sacro tecto diffluens infusio abluat jacentis ossa, quæ omnium peccatorum tabe foedavit et maculavit negligens et neglecta vita mea."--A curious question might be raised, whether the monarch, in this injunction, was solely impressed with the feeling of his own unworthiness, or whether he had also in view, the