which there are several. The earliest mention of the Vendôme relic is late in the twelfth century. No matter ; we need no testimony where we have prescription : "Ce principe peut bien servir pour prouver un point de dogme, de morale, ou de discipline : mais d'en vouloir faire dépendre la vérification des reliques, c'est réduire presque toutes les Eglises à l'impossibilité d'en montrer de véritables." The silence of authors is no objection, for Fulbert nowhere mentions the similar relic of Chartres, which is known to have existed in his time : "Nous en avons une preuve indubitable sur la fin du neuvième siècle, lorsque Rollon, chef des Normans, ayant assiégé la ville de Chartres, l'evesque ayant fait une sortie et porté la chemise de Notre Dame, Camisiam S. Mariæ in manibus ferens, mit en fuite Rollon et son armée."
That such reasoning as this can have been seriously meant and published by the supreme scholar of the age of Lewis XIV. is not absolutely impossible, because nothing is impossible to historians ; but it is hard to believe. Mabillon was not his own master. He had to consider the credit of two hundred French monasteries, the feelings and the interests of the studious body among whom he lived. To be checked and winnowed by Sammarthanus, Coustant, and Massuet is a servitude we all should envy ; but it is not conducive to originality or to integrity, which imply isolation. And there were other ordeals, civil and ecclesiastical, to pass before honest manuscript could get into deceitful type. Thuillier gives a cue when he says of Mabillon, "que souvent il faut deviner son sentiment, ct qu'il ne l'insinue d'ordinaire que par un peut-être, pourraît-on dire." But our author's admiration extends generally to the group of which Mabillon is the centre. One of the ablest of these men wrote in defence of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. When it was doubted whether Innocent XI., who was labouring as no pontiff had done before him for conciliation and reunion, would approve that measure, the Benedictines grew impatient. Durand expresses their inner mind when he writes : "On a d'autant plus de sujet d'espérer que le Pape fera quelque
