The parish of St. Stephen, at Caen, is generally distinguished by the epithet of _the old_, whence an opinion has commonly prevailed, that its church was one of those founded by St. Regnobert, in the middle of the fourth century; and that the present edifice, if not actually in part the same, is at least raised upon its foundations, and is certainly one of the most ancient in Caen. This belief has been, in a measure, countenanced by De Bourgueville and Huet, relying upon what appears to have been an inaccurate translation from Robert Cenalis[30] But, on the contrary, it appears from the Abbé De la Rue, that the author in question makes no mention whatever of this parish, and that the appellation was first given it by the Conqueror, by way of distinguishing its church from the more sumptuous one erected by himself, and also dedicated to the protomartyr; a circumstance, from which the Abbé justly observes, that nothing more is to be deduced, than that a church existed here anterior to his time; but by no means necessarily of great antiquity. The present building is of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; a medley of debased Gothic and corrupted Roman. NOTES: [28] _Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 174. [29] See plate 11, of this work, right-hand figures in the upper line; see also _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 11, with a figure. [30] _Essais Historiques sur Caen_, I. p. 225. PLATES XXI.--XXIII. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. STEPHEN. (WEST FRONT, AND ELEVATION OF COMPARTMENTS OF THE NAVE.) [Illustration: Plates 21-22. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. ETIENNE, CAEN.] The two royal Abbeys of Caen, long the pride of the town, while France, not yet revolutionized, suffered them to exist in their glory, and while her sons felt honored by the monuments of the piety and greatness of their ancestors, are still, in their present state of degradation, among the most interesting edifices which the province or the kingdom can boast The building and the endowment of them are often mentioned with admiration by the monastic historians of Normandy, one of whom, William of Jumieges, gives the following account of their origin.