on either hand, decked with the corbel towers which result from the
weathering of the rock. It was the Jura in softer as well as smaller
type, for all the desolate wildness which characterises the more rocky
part of that range was gone, and there were no signs of the grand
pine-scenery, or needle-foliage, as the Germans call it; the trees were
all oak and ash and beech, and the rocks were much more neat and
orderly, and of course less grand, than their contorted kindred farther
south. The valley speedily became very narrow, and a final bend brought
us face-to-face with the buildings of the Abbaye de Grâce-Dieu, striking
from their position--filling, as they do, the breadth of the
valley,--but in no way remarkable architecturally. The journey had been
so long that it was now ten o'clock; and as we were due in Besançon at
five in the evening, we put the horse up as quickly as possible, in a
shed provided by the Brothers, and set off on foot for the glacière,
half an hour distant. About a mile and a half from the convent, the
valley comes to an end, the rocks on the opposite sides approaching so
close to each other as only to leave room for a large flour-mill,
belonging to the Brothers, and for the escape-channel of the stream
which works the mill. This building is quite new, and might almost be
taken for a fortification against inroads by the head of the valley,
especially as the words _Posuerunt me custodem_ appear on the face,
applying, however, to an image of the Virgin, which presides over the
establishment. The monks have expended their superfluous time and
energies upon the erection of crosses of all sizes on every projecting
peak and point of rock, one cross more sombre than the rest marking the
scene of a recent death. As I had no means of determining the elevation
of this district above the sea,[36] I made enquiries as to the climate
in winter; and one of the Brothers told me, that it was an unusual thing
with them to have a fall of snow amounting to two joints of a remarkably
dirty finger.