--We omitted to inquire how far the same prohibitions still
continue in force.
At but a short distance from St. Germain de Blancherbe, stands the
ruined abbey of Ardennes, now the residence of a farmer; but still
preserving the features of a monastic building. The convent was founded
in 1138, for canons of the Praemonstratensian order. Its Celtic name
denotes its antiquity, as it also tends to prove that this part of the
country was covered with timber. The word, _arden_, signified a forest,
and was thence applied, with a slight variation in orthography, to the
largest forest in England, and to the more celebrated forest in the
vicinity of Liege. According to tradition, the Norman ardennes
consisted: of chesnut-trees. De Bourgueville tells us that timber of
this description is the principal material of most of the houses in the
town. John Evelyn relates the same of those in London; and in our own
counties wherever a village church has been so fortunate as to preserve
its ancient timber cieling, the clerk is almost sure to state that the
wood is chesnut. Either this tree therefore must formerly have abounded
in places where it has now almost ceased to exist, or oak timber must
have been commonly mistaken for it: and we may equally adopt both these
conjectures.
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