crossbelts, and foot gear.[86] Some of these stone coffins may be seen at the Hôtel Carnavalet, which, besides having been the dwelling-place of Madame de Sevigné, is most interesting on account of its unique collection of curiosities. But we have been anticipating. When the abbey was finished, S. Germain sent to its namesake, S. Symphorien at Autun, for some monks to serve it. At first they followed the rules of S. Anthony and S. Basil; but shortly after the foundation, they joined the order of the great legislator of the monks of the west, S. Benedict. In the 17th century a second reform took place, and they adopted the rule of S. Maur; and it was after this return to primitive discipline that the monks of S. Germain became famous throughout Europe by the works of Jean Mabillon, Bernard de Montfaucon, and other members of their order. The abbots were formerly all-powerful, exercising spiritual and temporal jurisdiction over the whole Faubourg S. Germain; but jealousies occurring there as elsewhere, between the ecclesiastical and the lay element, and squabbles arising between the bishops and the mitred abbots, it came about that the kings, uniting their forces with those of the bishops, were enabled to restrict the power of the abbots to the immediate precincts of their abbey. Among the famous persons who bore the dignity of abbot of S. Germain were Hugues Capet, Jean Casimir, King of Poland, several princes of the House of Bourbon, and many cardinals. When the Normans swooped down upon France, Paris was their goal, and the monasteries and churches their desire. Over and over again they came; pillaging, burning and destroying all they could not carry off. Once in, or near Paris, S. Germain lay at their feet; its fame, its riches, its magnificence, made it a mark for attack; and upon one occasion, when King Eudes had driven out the barbarians, all that was left of church and monastery was a heap of ruins. But Morard, the twenty-ninth abbot, who ruled the community from 990 to 1014, undertook the entire restoration, or rather the rebuilding of the abbey; and it is to him that we owe the oldest portions of the nave of the actual church. Whether Morard left the work unfinished, or whether the monks resolved to improve upon his design, we know not; but about a hundred and fifty years later we find the choir being rebuilt upon a plan of great magnificence.