The tomb of this redoubted prince was opened in 1822, and the body found quite perfect; as this circumstance, which is by no means unusual, was in former times always considered as a proof of the sanctity of the person interred, it is to be hoped all the stories of Count William's vagaries are mere scandals, invented by evil-disposed persons; and that the history of his having established a convent, all the nuns of which were persons of more than suspected propriety, and having placed a female favourite of his own at their head, had no foundation in truth. Something similar is told of several powerful princes, so it may well be a fable altogether. The botanical garden of Poitiers now occupies the place where the abbey of St. Cyprian stood, with all its dependencies; we sat on some reversed capitals, which now form seats in a flowery nook, and climbed a stair of a tower where seeds are dried,--the only morsel of the great convent now existing. Bouchet tells one of his strange stories of a monk of this monastery, which is curious, as it relates to that dangerous and powerful subject of the harassed King of England, Henry II., who must have had enough to do to circumvent the art and cunning of the wily archbishop who was always working for his ruin and the exaltation of the Church. The annalist relates that-- "At this period, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, in England, was a fugitive from his country, because the English princes desired to kill _and_ put him to death: for that he would not agree to certain constitutions, statutes, and ordinances, that Henry II. and the princes of England had made against the liberties and privileges of the Church, and the holy canons thereof. For they wished to confer dignities and other benefices and take the fruits, thereby profaning the sanctuary of God. And the said archbishop was seven years, or thereabouts, in France, which land is the refuge of popes and holy personages; and he had great communication and familiarity with the said Pope Alexander, he being in the town of Sens, where he chiefly staid while in France. And the archbishop was sometimes at the abbey of Pontigny, and sometimes at the monastery of St. Columbe. Now, I read what follows in an ancient _pancarte_ of the abbey of St. Cyprian of Poitiers, brought there by a monk of the said, called Babilonius, who, for some grudge owed him by his abbot, was driven from his abbey, and went to complain of his wrong to Pope Alexander at Sens, while the Archbishop Thomas sojourned there; from whom this monk received a holy vial to place in the church of St. Gregory, where reposes the body of the blessed Saint Loubette. I have translated the said writing from Latin into the vulgar tongue, seeing that it contains some curious things. It begins, 'Quando ego Thomas Archiepiscopus,' &c.