, singing the praises of
the Virgin in her chapel at Roc-Amadour to the accompaniment of his
_vielle_ (hurdy-gurdy), begged of her as a miraculous sign to let one
of her candles come down from her altar. According to the poem, the
candle came down, and stood upon the musical instrument, to the horror
and disgust of a monk who was looking on, and who saw no miracle in
the matter, but wicked enchantment. He put the candle back
indignantly, but when the minstrel sang and played it came down as
before. The movement was repeated again before the monk would believe
that the miracle was genuine. The poem, which is in the Northern
dialect, and is marked throughout by a charming _naivete_, commences
with a eulogium of the Virgin:

'La douce mere du Createur
A l'eglise a Rochemadour
Fait tants miracles, tants hauts faits,
C'uns moultes biax livres en est faits.'

The huge, inartistic, but imposing block of masonry that appears from
a little distance to be clinging, after the manner of a swallow's
nest, to the precipitous face of the rock, and which is reached from
below by more than 200 steps in venerable dilapidation[*], contains
the church of St. Sauveur, the chapel of the Virgin, called the
Miraculous Chapel, and the chapel of St. Amadour, all distinct. The
last-named is a little crypt, and the Miraculous Chapel conveys the
impression of being likewise one, for it is partly under the
overleaning rock, the rugged surface of which, blackened by the smoke
of the countless tapers which have been burnt there in the course of
ages, is seen without any facing of masonry.

[*] Since the foregoing was written the old slabs have been turned
round, and the steps been made to look quite new.

If by looking at certain details of this composite structure one could
shut off the surroundings from the eye, the mind might feed without
any hindrance upon the ideas of old piety and the fervour of souls
who, when Europe was like a troubled and forlorn sea, sought the
quietude and safety of these rocks, lifted far above the raging surf.
But the hindrance is found on every side. The sense of artistic
fitness is wounded by incongruities of architectural style, of ideas
which meet but do not marry. The brazen altar, in the Miraculous
Chapel was well enough at the Paris Exhibition of 1889, where it could
be admired as a piece of elaborate brass work, but at Roc-Amadour it
is a direct challenge to the spirit of the spot. The