order of the day, but since the days of Louis XI. part of the sub-structure
of the abbey buildings had been converted into fearful dungeons, and the
day came when the abbey became simply a most remarkable prison. In the time
of Louis XV., a Frenchman named Dubourg--a person who has often been spoken
of as though he had been a victim of his religious convictions, but who
seems to have been really a most reprehensible character--was placed in a
wooden cage in one of the damp and gruesome vaults beneath the abbey.
Dubourg had been arrested for his libellous writings concerning the king
and many important persons in the French court. He existed for a little
over a year in the fearful wooden cage, and just before he died he went
quite mad, being discovered during the next morning half-eaten by rats. A
realistic representation of his ghastly end is given in the museum, but one
must not imagine that the grating filling the semi-circular arch is at all
like the actual spot where the wretched man lay. The cage itself was
composed of bars of wood placed so closely together that Dubourg was not
able to put more than his fingers between them. The space inside was only
about eight feet high and the width was scarcely greater. The cage itself
was placed in a position where moisture dripped on to the miserable
prisoner's body, and we can only marvel that he survived this fearful
torture for so many months. During the French Revolution the abbey was
nothing more than a jail, and it continued to be devoted to this base use
until about forty years ago. Since that time, restoration has continued
almost unceasingly, for in the prison period nothing was done to maintain
the buildings, and there is still much work in hand which the French
government who are now in control are most successfully carrying out.

These are a few of the thrilling phases of the history of the rock. But
what has been written scarcely does the smallest justice to its crowded
pages. The only way of being fair to a spot so richly endowed with
enthralling events seems to be in stirring the imagination by a preliminary