From the ancient refuge of his monks, the land on which their feudal justice was administered, from the slopes above Bihorel, Marc d'Argent looked down and watched the first walls and buttresses of his Abbey rise from the soil. In that valley the quarries from which he drew his stone could still be seen scarce twenty years ago, with huge blocks of stone, rough-hewn nearly five centuries before, still resting upon mouldering rollers. He gathered funds from the Abbey Forests (which gave their timbers too) and from the generous donations of the pious. After twenty-one years of work, in which all his monks assisted the masons, he had spent about five million francs (in modern values), and by 1339 had finished the choir and chapels, the huge pillars beneath the central tower, and part of the transept. Of the first real "Maitre d'oeuvre," as so often happens in the tale of the Cathedrals, nothing is known. But the monks carved the clear keen features of his face upon the funeral stone, 7-1/2 feet high and 4 feet broad, that is in the Chapelle St. Cecile, and beside it is a detailed drawing of one of the arches of the choir. Jean de Bayeux went on with the work from 1378 to 1398, and his son Jean was Master Architect from 1411 to 1421. How intensely enthusiastic the monks were to complete their Abbey may be seen from their quarrel with the Town Authorities in 1412 and 1415, when every workman and every penny in the town was gathered to help strengthen the fortifications against the English. But the monks of St. Ouen refused assistance in money or in kind, lest by so doing they should cripple their beloved building. And their confidence was perhaps justified in that Alexandre de Berneval, who was the architect from 1422 to 1441, worked under the deliberate encouragement of the English garrison. His tomb is near that of the first unknown Master, and the plan of his famous Rose window for the south transept is carved as his most fitting epitaph.