Louis, who
is said to have regarded this town with peculiar favor, and probably on
that account assigned it as a jointure to his queen, an honor which it
has received upon more than one other occasion.
The present parish church of Vernon was collegiate. It was founded about
the year 1052, by William of Vernon, and was endowed by him, at the time
of its dedication, with the property called, _La Couture du Pre de
Giverny_, and with a fourth part of the forest of Vernon, all which the
dean and canons continued to enjoy till the revolution. This William
appears to have been the first of the family who adopted the surname of
Vernon. His son, Richard, by whom the foundation was formally confirmed,
attended the Conqueror to England, and obtained there considerable
grants. One of their descendants ceded the town in 1190 to the King of
France, accepting in return other lands, according to a treaty still
preserved in the royal library at Paris. The tombs of the founder, and
of his namesake, Sir William de Vernon, constable of England, who died
in 1467, and of many others of the family, among the rest the stately
mausoleum of the Marechal de Belle Isle, were destroyed during the reign
of jacobinism and terror. The portraits, however, of the Marshal and of
the Duc de Penthievre, both of them very indifferent performances, were
saved, and are now kept in the sacristy.
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