So great an attraction was not to go without attempted rivalry or imitators; hence we find in the "Dictionary of Moreri," edition of 1715, in the third volume, at page 108, that several other establishments claim the honor of a like relic,--namely, the Cathedral of Puy, in Velay; the collegial church of Antwerp; the Abbey of our Saviour, of Charroux; and the Church of St. John Lateran, in Rome. All of these have had very adventurous histories. The Abbey of Charroux was founded by Charlemagne in 788, and among the relics with which that monarch endowed the abbey the principal one was a fragment of the holy prepuce. This abbey enjoyed great reputation, and indulgences were granted by Papal bull to all those who assisted at the adoration of the relics. In the internecine wars of the sixteenth century the abbey fell into the hands of the godless and heretical Huguenots and the holy relic disappeared. In 1856, while some workmen were at work demolishing an ancient wall on the abbey site, they discovered some relic cases. The bishop was at once notified, who immediately proceeded to investigate, when, lo and behold! there, sure enough, was a piece of desiccated flesh, with marks of coagulated blood; nothing more or less than the lost prepuce--long lost, but now found. It was placed in charge of the Ursuline Sisterhood, where it has remained ever since undisturbed, except by a controversy in regard to the propriety of the relic, in which the good bishop ambled about in the most ambiguous manner, the only clearly defined portion of his dissertation being the one wherein he laments "the decadence of that truly Christian spirit which animated the laity of the middle ages with a radiant zeal. A piety also pervaded those gentle Christians of former times, who were possessed of a religious instruction which determined for them the tenets of the creed and its practices,--a happy state or condition of affairs, which prevented the intelligence of the faithful from wandering into the sloughs of unprofitable skepticism." This settled the question as to the propriety of the prepuce being converted into a miracle-working relic; at least, as far as the good bishop was concerned.