Nor is the Church without its claim to right of place in history as well as art. For the old Abbey of St. Ouen was one of the most considerable in Normandy. It held fiefs not only in the city, but in the Foret Verte outside, and lands all over the province, with the right of nomination to very many livings. From the Pope himself the Abbot held, since 1256, certain valuable privileges in conferring minor dignities, and in the list of those who held that splendid post after the uncle of the Conqueror, are the names of d'Estouteville, de Lorraine, de Bourbon, de Vendome, de la Tour d'Auvergne, and lastly Etienne Charles de Lomenie de Brienne, who was found dead in his bed when the warrant had gone out for his arrest in 1794. In 1602 only was the ceremony of the "Oison bride" given up, which commemorated the old privileges of the Abbot's Mills. Even longer lasted the ancient ceremony by which the monks received every archbishop on his entrance into Rouen, and on his death watched for the first night by his bier in their own abbey. In their cemetery you have already seen Jeanne d'Arc go through her mockery of "abjuration." Within it, too, her memory was "rehabilitated." In this church young Talbot was laid to rest, who fell in the English wars. In its cemetery was received James II. of Gt. Britain, who was escorted, on his flight from England, by armed citizens of Rouen from the Chartreuse of St. Julien to the Abbey. [Illustration: THE NAVE OF ST. OUEN] And it may be that the old Sacristan, for your good fortune, will be living still to tell you of the greatest Englishman he has ever heard of, John Ruskin, who often looked into that quaint mirror of Holy Water, and watched the strange reflection of the arches soaring upwards in the nave. It was in the Abbey of St. Ouen that on a May Day of 1485, Charles VIII. held a great assembly to deliberate over the concessions to the town after his famous entry into Rouen. To welcome him, poets, machinists, actors, tableaux vivants, marionettes, songs, comedies, and "mysteries," were gathered together regardless of expense. The Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon had arrived before him, and on the twelfth of April they were presented by the Chapterhouse with six gallons of wine of two sorts, and with loaves of the famous bread,[57] in return for which each gave a golden crown to the Cathedral Offertory. Two days afterwards arrived the King himself from Pont de l'Arche with a large and brilliant suite, including the second Louis de la Tremouille, who fought on every battlefield from St. Aubin du Cormier to Pavia, Philippe de Commines the historian, the "Comte de Richemont," soon to be King of England, and many others. [Footnote 57: Perhaps it was in honour of these legendary loaves that the acrostic of SAC BLE was composed from the six dioceses dependent on the archbishopric of Rouen; Seez, Alencon, Coutances, Bayeux, Lisieux, Evreux.]