In 1562 the Calvinists rifled the tomb of Queen Matilda, consort of William the Conqueror, in the church of the Holy Trinity at Caen. One of the party observed a gold ring with a sapphire on one of the Queen’s fingers, and, taking it off, presented it to the Abbess of Montmorenci. The same custom of monarchs being buried with their rings prevailed in France during the early and middle ages. The gold ring of Childeric I., formerly in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, was found in the King’s tomb at Tournay. It bore the inscription ‘Childirici regis.’[70] ‘The ring was not set with a gem, but had an oval bezel in the gold, engraved with his bust in front face, holding a spear as in the type of the contemporary Byzantine aurei. He wore the long hair of the Merovingian line. Traces remained of the legend ‘Childirici Regis.’ The intaglio was very neatly cut, infinitely superior to the execution of the Merovingian coin-dies, and, in fact, so much in the style of Leo’s aurei, that it might reasonably be supposed a present sent, with other offerings, from Constantinople’ (the Rev. C. W. King, ‘Handbook of Engraved Gems’). The engraving is taken from J. J. Chiflet’s ‘Anastasis.’ In 1793, at the exhumation of the bodies buried at the Abbey of St. Denis, rings were found in several of the royal tombs. That of Jeanne de Bourbon, consort of Charles V., was of gold, with the remains of bracelets and chains. The ring of Philippe le Bel was also of gold; that of Jeanne de Bourgoyne, first wife of Philippe de Valois, was of silver, as also the ring of Charles le Bel. To the ancient custom of interring prelates with their rings I have alluded in the chapter on ‘Rings in Connection with Ecclesiastical Usages.’ In 1780 the tomb of the great German Emperor Frederic, who died in 1250, was opened, and the body discovered arrayed in embroidered robes, booted, spurred, and crowned. A costly emerald ring was on one of the fingers, and the ball and sceptre in the hands.