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St. Exuperius lived in the third century, and his efforts towards the
propagation of the gospel were attended with so great success, that his
successor, St. Regnobert, was obliged to take down the edifice thus
recently raised, and to re-construct it on a more enlarged scale, for
the purpose of accommodating the increasing congregation. Regnobert is
likewise reported to have built the celebrated chapel on the sea-coast,
dedicated to our Lady de la Delivrande; and the people believe that a
portion at least, of both the one and the other of these original
edifices, exists to the present day. The Abbe Beziers, however, in his
_History of Bayeux_, maintains, and with truth, that St. Regnobert's
cathedral was destroyed by the Normans; and he adds that, immediately
after the conversion of Rollo, another was raised in its stead on the
same spot, and that this latter was one of those which the chieftain
most enriched by his endowments at the period of his baptism.
A dreadful fire, in the year 1046, reduced the Norman cathedral to
ashes; but the episcopal throne was then filled by a prelate who wanted
neither disposition nor abilities to repair the damage. Hugh, the third
bishop of that name, son to Ralph, Count of the Bessin, who, by the
mother's side, was brother to Duke Richard Ist, presided at that time
over the see of Bayeux.
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