Perhaps, after receiving the children’s children of his loyal subjects, who may have crossed a certain wide ocean unknown to him to attend the great Court of History that William the Norman holds at Caen, the Shades of the Conqueror growing more familiar might conduct the musing cortége into the beautiful abbey near-by, which he built in expiation of the love-match he made in defiance of the church. I wonder here if the old king might not laughingly recall the story of his first meeting with Lanfranc. [Illustration: _William the Conqueror’s Old Fortress; the Chains are said to be the Originals._] Like other forceful men, William married upon his own responsibility. Accordingly, the Pope not only excommunicated him, but laid various bans upon his realm. Such bans were once marvelously inconvenient, to say the least. William fought the church valiantly for six years. It may have been then that he got his measure of the uses and abuses of that institution, which, in the long run, proved most valuable to England. Among others, Lanfranc, Prior of Bec, became a target for William’s displeasure and was ordered to leave his monastery. Lanfranc started forth forlornly enough on a lame horse. Thus caparisoned, he met the furious Duke William. Lanfranc had but one weapon at his command—tact. He approached the great duke, saying, “I am obeying your command as quickly as I can. I will obey faster if you will give me a better horse.” William was blessed with humor. He impressed Lanfranc into his service then and there, and made him his friend forever: the Conqueror could make good friends. Then he sent Lanfranc to make his peace with the Holy See. Understanding William’s passion for building, Lanfranc, the peacemaker, arranged that William and Mathilda should each build an abbey in expiation of their marriage. And William and Mathilda performed their contract so royally that France has lately restored their abbeys, line for line, as national monuments.[3] Thus a tableau of Caen, as the Conqueror saw it, actually lies before twentieth century eyes. Ah, put yourself in his place! I never knew a traveler to leave this old town without becoming attached to its founder. The strong, orderly, noble and logical Norman buildings express the old Conqueror at his best; at Caen one prefers his older, gentler, more unique title of William, the builder, for, indeed, many have conquered in England, but William I built up his conquest. In this interesting old Norman church, with its suspicion of the pointed arch (probably the earliest instance) pointing toward the unparalleled Gothic that developed in Normandy, one feels like congratulating the old Conqueror, both as lover and architect, and reinstating his old claim to romance, even though modern research has discovered that he was not a very gentle knight.