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Two Summers in Guyenne by Edward Harrison Barker
page 50 of 305 (16%)
settle in the plain, give the husbandmen a chance of growing something more
profitable than buckwheat.

Beaulieu was once the seat of a powerful Benedictine abbey. The original
monastery was founded in 858 by Charles le Chauve, who placed it under
his protection. Although the territory was included in the viscounty of
Turenne, the Viscount Raymond II., before he went crusading, made over
his suzerain rights with regard to the abbey and its dependencies to the
abbots, who thus became temporal lords. There is nothing left of the
monastery; but much of the abbey church, which dates from the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, has been fortunately preserved. The interior is not
remarkable, but the large and elaborate bas-relief of the Last Judgment
which fills the tympanum of the portal is considered the most precious
example of mediaeval sculpture in the Bas-Limousin. The face of the
Saviour, expressive of something above all human passions and motives,
shows a really God-like combination of serenity and severity. The fantastic
spirit of the age is well set forth in the tortured forms of the horrid
reptiles and fabulous beasts carved in relief upon the massive lintel, and
filling also the broad border at the base of the tympanum. The same
spirit finds even stronger expression in the demon figure, so grotesquely
long-drawn out, carved upon the scalloped pillar that supports the lintel.
The abbey was pillaged by the Huguenots, who lit a fire in the choir, which
destroyed much of the woodwork. Notwithstanding the religious wars and
the revolutionary convulsions of the eighteenth century, the church has
preserved some of its ancient treasure, of which the most precious object
is a silver statue of the Virgin of very curious workmanship, dating from
the twelfth century.

[Illustration: TURENNE.]

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