Our friend's conjecture is, that it had originally
served for an altar: perhaps it might, with equal probability, be
supposed to have been a tomb.--The corbels on the exterior of this
building are strange and fanciful.
[Illustration: Sculpture, supposed Roman, in the Church of St. Paul, at Rouen ]
St. Gervais also stands without the walls of Rouen; but at the opposite
end of the town, upon a hill adjoining the Roman road to Lillebonne, and
near the Mont aux Malades, a place so called, as having been selected in
the eleventh century, on account of the salubrity of its air, for the
situation of a monastery, destined for the reception of lepers. Upon
this eminence, the Norman Dukes had likewise originally a palace; and,
it was to this, that William the Conqueror caused himself to be
conveyed, when attacked with his mortal illness, after having wantonly
reduced the town of Mantes to ashes. Here, too, this mighty monarch
breathed his last, and left a sad warning to future conquerors, deserted
by his friends and physicians the moment he was no more; while his
menials plundered his property, and his body lay naked and neglected in
the hall[66].
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