LETTER XIV.
DUCLER--ST. GEORGES DE BOCHERVILLE--M. LANGLOIS.
(_Ducler, July_, 1818.)
You will look in vain for Ducler in the _livre des postes_; yet this
little town, which is out of the common road of the traveller, becomes
an interesting station to the antiquary, it being situated nearly
mid-way between two of the most important remains of ancient
ecclesiastical architecture in Normandy--the abbeys of St. Georges de
Bocherville and of Jumieges.--The accommodation afforded by the inns at
Bocherville and Jumieges, is but a poor substitute for the hospitality
of the suppressed abbeys; and, as even the antiquary must eat and
perhaps sleep, he who visits either St. George or the holy Virgin, will
do well to take his _fricandeau_ and his bed, at the place whence I am
writing.
At a period when the right bank of the Seine from Harfleur to Rouen
displayed an almost uninterrupted line or monastic buildings, Ducler
also boasted of a convent[1], which must have been of some importance,
as early as the middle of the seventh century.--King Childeric IInd,
granted the forest of Jumieges to the convent of the same name and that
of St. Vandrille; and St. Ouen was directed by the monarch to divide the
endowment between the two foundations.
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