Laus et jubilatio.'

Now I entered the little church that was quite empty, and where no
sound would have been heard if the two voices in the tower had not
continued to ring out over the dovecotes, where the white pigeons
rested and wondered, and over the broad fields where the bending
grasses and listening flowers stood in the afternoon sunshine, 'Laus
et jubilatio,' in the language of the bells.

The church was Romanesque, probably of the twelfth century. The nave
was flanked by narrow aisles. Upon the very tall bases of the columns
were carved, together with foliage, fantastic heads of demons, or
satyrs of such expressive ugliness that they held me fascinated. Some
were bearded, others were beardless, some were grinning and showing
frightful teeth, others had thick-lipped, pouting mouths hideously
debased. A few were really _bons diables_, who seemed determined to be
gay, and to joke under the most trying circumstances; but the greater
number had morose faces, puckered by the long agony of bearing up the
church. Such variety of expression in ugliness was a triumph of art in
the far-off age, when the chisel of an unremembered man with a teeming
imagination made these heads take life from the inanimate stone.

The road from Autoire to St. Céré soon led me into the valley of the
Bave, a beautiful trout-stream, galloping towards the Dordogne through
flowery meadows, on this last day of May, and under leaning trees,
whose imaged leaves danced upon the ripples in the green shade. As I
had no need to hurry, I loitered to pick ragged-robins upon the banks,
flowers dear to me from old associations. Very common in England, they
are comparatively rare in France.