the valley.

The highest of these is called the Rocher de Corneille. Round this
and up its steep sides the town stands. On its highest summit there
was an old castle; and there now is, or will be before these pages
are printed, a colossal figure in bronze of the Virgin Mary, made
from the cannon taken at Sebastopol. Half-way down the hill the
cathedral is built, a singularly gloomy edifice,--Romanesque, as it
is called, in its style, but extremely similar in its mode of
architecture to what we know of Byzantine structures. But there has
been no surface on the rock side large enough to form a resting-
place for the church, which has therefore been built out on huge
supporting piles, which form a porch below the west front; so that
the approach is by numerous steps laid along the side of the wall
below the church, forming a wondrous flight of stairs. Let all men
who may find themselves stopping at Le Puy visit the top of these
stairs at the time of the setting sun, and look down from thence
through the framework of the porch on the town beneath, and at the
hill-side beyond.

Behind the church is the seminary of the priests, with its beautiful
walks stretching round the Rocher de Corneille, and overlooking the
town and valley below.

Next to this rock, and within a quarter of a mile of it, is the
second peak, called the Rock of the Needle. It rises narrow, sharp,
and abrupt from the valley, allowing of no buildings on its sides.
But on its very point has been erected a church sacred to St.
Michael, that lover of rock summits, accessible by stairs cut from
the stone. This, perhaps--this rock, I mean--is the most wonderful