SEES  , a

town of north-western France, in the department of Orne, on the river Orne 3 M. from its source and 13 M . N.N.E. of Alencon by rail . Pop . (1906) town, 2612; commune, 3982 . The town is a bishop's see and has a Gothic cathedral remarkable for the boldness of its architecture . The church dates from the 13th and 14th centuries and occupies the site of three earlier churches . The west front, which is disfigured by the buttresses projecting beyond it, has two stately spires of open work 230 ft. high . The nave was built towards the end of the 13th century . The choir, built soon afterwards, is remarkable for the lightness of its construction . In the choir are four bas-reliefs of great beauty representing scenes in the life of the Virgin; and the altar is adorned with another depicting the removal of the relics of St Gervais and St Protais . The church has constantly been the object of restoration and reconstruction . Other noteworthy buildings are the episcopal palace (1778), with a pretty chapel; the higher seminary, located in the old abbey of St Martin (sup-posed to be one of the fourteen or fifteen monasteries founded in the 6th century by St Evroult); and the sumptuous modern chapel of the Immaculate Conception, a resort of pilgrims .

The first bishop of Sees (Saium, Sagium) was St Lain, who lived about the 4th century . In the 9th century Sees was a fortified town and

fell a prey to the Normans . At that period Sees consisted of two distinct parts, separated by the Orne—the bishop's burgh, and to the south, the new or count's burgh (Bourg le Comte) . From 1356 the counts of Alencon were its possessors . It was captured and recaptured in the wars between Henry "II. of England and his sons . In the Hundred Years' War it was one of the first towns of Normandy to fall into the hands of the English (1418) . Pillaged by the Protestants during the Wars of Religion, Sees attached itself to the League in 1589, but voluntarily surrendered to Henry IV. in 1590 .