night before, and I saw that wonderful abbey rise up before me as
I approached it. After several hours' walking, I reached the
enormous mass of rock which supports the little town, dominated
by the great church. Having climbed the steep and narrow street,
I entered the most wonderful Gothic building that has ever been
erected to God on earth, large as a town, and full of low rooms
which seem buried beneath vaulted roofs, and of lofty galleries
supported by delicate columns.

I entered this gigantic granite jewel, which is as light in its
effect as a bit of lace and is covered with towers, with slender
belfries to which spiral staircases ascend. The flying buttresses
raise strange heads that bristle with chimeras. with devils, with
fantastic ani-mals, with monstrous flowers, are joined together
by finely carved arches, to the blue sky by day, and to the black
sky by night.

When I had reached the summit. I said to the monk who accompanied
me: "Father, how happy you must be here!" And he replied: "It is
very windy, Monsieur"; and so we began to talk while watching the
rising tide, which ran over the sand and covered it with a steel
cuirass.

And then the monk told me stories, all the old stories belonging
to the place--legends, nothing but legends.

One of them struck me forcibly. The country people, those
belonging to the Mornet, declare that at night one can hear
talking going on in the sand, and also that two goats bleat, one
with a strong, the other with a weak voice. Incredulous people