The Abbey Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés likewise owes its existence to the Merovingian Childebert. In the sixth century Childebert went on an expedition against the Visigoths in Spain, and returned triumphant with a number of sainted relics, among them the tunic of Saint Vincent and a magnificent gold cross; and in honour of these trophies and for their safe keeping he built in the fields outside Paris a monastery, which was consecrated by Saint Germain, so the legend says, the very day of its royal founder’s death. The abbey was originally dedicated, in memory of the relics which it guarded, to Saint Vincent and the Holy Cross; but after the death of its first abbot, Saint Germain, in 576, it became known by his name. Before the building of the Abbey of Saint Denis, Saint-Germain-des-Prés was the burial place of the royal house, and a long line of Childeberts, Chilperics, and Chlothars lie at rest beneath its stones. It was pillaged and burnt by the Normans no less than five times, and therefore, when the Abbot Morard set about rebuilding it in the eleventh century, very little was left of Childebert’s old foundation. Part of Morard’s work may still be seen in the present nave of the church; the choir and apse were built later, and date from the second half of the twelfth century, the church being finally consecrated by Pope Alexander III. in 1163. [Illustration: ST. GERMAIN DES PRÉS, PARIS] The wealth of the monastery even so late as the eighteenth century may be gauged by the indignation of Arthur Young, who in his travels through France in 1786-7 of course visited the capital and its many churches, but looked upon everything with the eye of an agriculturist, and only saw in the rich meadows of the Benedictines so much wasted material for a prosperous farm. “It is the richest abbey in France; the abbot has 300,000 liv. a year. I lose my patience at seeing such revenues thus bestowed, consistent with the spirit of the tenth century, but not with that of the eighteenth. What a noble farm would a fourth of this income establish! What turnips, what cabbages, what potatoes, what clover, what sheep, what wool! Are not these things better than a fat ecclesiastic?”