s formed numerous caverns in its rocks. They are composed
chiefly of quartz, and are covered to a great height with innumerable
small mussels. The tide was too high to admit of our entering into any of
the grottoes, but the piles of dark rocks beaten into every form by the
violence of the waves, rising sometimes to the height of sixty feet, are
very imposing. St. Gildas, in the twelfth century, had Abelard for
superior, who, on his appointment, made over to Eloise the celebrated
abbey he had founded at Nogent, near Troyes, which he called the Paraclete
or Comforter, because he there found comfort and refreshment after his
troubles, but his peace soon ended on his arrival in Brittany. His gentle
nature was unable to contend against these coarse, ferocious, unruly,
Breton monks. As he writes in his well-known letter to Eloise, setting
forth his griefs:--

"J'habite un pays barbare, dont la langue m'est inconnue et en horreur:
je n'ai de commerce qu'avec des peuples feroces; mes promenades sont les
bords inaccessibles d'une mer agitee; mes moines n'ont d'autre regle que
n'en point avoir. Je voudrais que vous vissiez ma maison, vous ne la
prendriez jamais pour une abbaye: les portes ne sont ornees que de pieds
de biche, de loups et d'ours, de sangliers, des depouilles hideuses des
hiboux. J'eprouve chaque jour de nouveaux perils; je crois a tout moment
voir sur ma tete un glaive suspendu."

But if Abelard hated the monks, they equally detested him, and one day
tried to poison him, but he escaped through a gate in the garden wall,
still pointed out, to the sea shore, where his friend and protector, the
Count de Rhuys, awaited him in a boat.

The abbey is now in the occupation of twelve sisters of the "Charite de
St. Louis," who have a school for poor girls, and, in the summer, take in
families to board who come here for the benefit of the bracing air of this
fine wild coast. There is a kind of establishment for bathing in the
little bay below the abbey. The board and lodging is moderate, three
francs and a half a day, wine, tea, and sugar, not included. Boys are
admitted up to thirteen, but the men are sent into the town.

Part of the abbey church is Romanesque: a semi-circular choir, with three
round chapels and the transepts. The nave and tower are of modern date.
The pavement is covered with tumulary stones. Four children of Duke John
III. le Roux are buried here, and one of Joan of Navarre and John IV.