hird was a
kind of housekeeper who, for the love of God and out of neighbourly
friendship, offered her help to new-comers, and, if it was accepted, did
not fail to levy heavy contributions.

The monastery was a complex of strongly-constructed, buildings without
any architectural beauty, and such was, its circumference and mass of
stones that it would have been easy to house an army corps. Besides the
dwelling of the superior, the cells of the lay-brothers, the lodgings
for visitors, the stables, and other structures, there were three
cloisters, each consisting of twelve cells and twelve chapels. The most
ancient of these cloisters, which is also the smallest, dates from the
15th century.

It presents a charming coup d'oeil. The court which it
encloses with its broken-down walls is the ancient cemetery of
the monks. No inscription distinguishes these tombs...The
graves are scarcely indicated by the swellings of the turf.

In the cells were stored up the remains of all sorts of fine old
furniture and sculpture, but these could only be seen through the
chinks, for the cells were carefully locked, and the sacristan would not
open them to anyone. The second cloister, although of more recent date,
was likewise in a dilapidated state, which, however, gave it character.
In stormy weather it was not at all safe to pass through it on account
of the falling fragments of walls and vaults.

I never heard the wind sound so like mournful voices and utter
such despairing howls as in these empty and sonorous
galleries. The noise of the torrents, the swift motion of the
clouds, the grand, monotonous sound of the sea, interrupted by
the whistling of the storm and the plaintive cries of sea-
birds which passed, quite terrified and bewildered, in the
squalls; then thick fogs which fell suddenly like a shroud and
which, penetrating into the cloisters through the broken
arcades, rendered us invisible, and made the little lamp we
carried to guide us appear like a will-o'-the-wisp wandering
under the galleries; and a thousand other details of this
monastic life which crowd all at once into my memory: all
combined made indeed this monastery the most romantic abode in
the world.

I was not sorry to see for once fully and in reality what I
had seen only in a dream, or in the fashionable ballads, and
in the nuns' scene in Robert le Diable at the Opera. Even
fantastic apparitions were not wanting t