passed their resolution
authorizing an investigation out of pure gallantry. It is impossible for
me, however, not to concur in their opinion; the abbey has beautiful
eyes; she deserves to be classed--she shall be classed.

My decision was therefore settled, from that moment, but it was still
necessary to write it down and back it with some documentary evidence.
Unfortunately, the local archives and libraries do not abound in
traditions relative to my subject; after two days of conscientious
rummaging, I had collected but a few rare and insignificant documents,
which may be summed up in these two lines; "Rozel Abbey, in Rozel
township, was inhabited from time immemorial by monks, who left it when it
fell in ruins."

That is why I resolved to go, without further delay, and ask their secret
of these mysterious ruins, and to multiply, if need be, the artifices of
my pencil, to make up for the compulsory conciseness of my pen. I left
on Wednesday morning for the town of Vitry, which is only two or three
leagues distant from the abbey. A Norman coach, complemented with
a Norman coachman, jogged me about all day, like an indolent monarch,
along the Norman hedges. When night came, I had traveled twelve miles
and my coachman had taken twelve meals.

The country is fine, though of a character somewhat uniformly rustic.
Under everlasting groves is displayed an opulent and monotonous verdure,
in the thickness of which contented-looking oxen ruminate. I can
understand my coachman's twelve meals; the idea of eating must occur
frequently and almost exclusively to the imagination of any man who spends
his life in the midst of this rich nature, the very grass of which gives
an appetite.

Toward evening, however, the aspect of the landscape changed; we entered a
rolling prairie, quite low, marshy, bare as a Russian steppe, and
extending on both sides of the road; the sound of the wheels on the
causeway assumed a hollow and vibrating sonority; dark-colored reeds and
tall, unhealthy-looking grass covered, as far as the eye could reach, the
blackish surface of the marsh. I noticed in the distance, through the
deepening twilight, and behind a cloud of rain, two or three horsemen
running at full speed, and as if demented, through these boundless spaces;
they disappeared at intervals in the depressions of the meadows, and
suddenly came to sight again, still galloping with the same frenzy. I
could not imagine toward what imaginary goal thes