tored. Mad people were brought here for cure, and placed in a recess
which still remains; the opening was covered over by an iron grating. Dol
was formerly the ecclesiastical metropolis of Brittany; the see was
founded by Samson, one of those British monks, who, with a whole
population of men and women, emigrated from England to escape the Saxon
slavery. They crossed the Channel in barks made of skins sewn together,
singing, as they went, the Lamentations of the Psalmist. This emigration
lasted more than a century (from 450 to 550), and poured a Christian
population into a Celtic country where paganism was longest preserved. St.
Samson and his six suffragans--all monks, missionaries, and bishops, like
himself--were called the "Seven Saints of Brittany;" St. Samson was what
was termed an "eveque portatif," meaning a bishop without a diocese, until
he founded that of Dol. Telio, also a British monk, with the assistance of
St. Samson, planted near Dol an orchard three miles in length, and to him
is attributed the first introduction of the apple-tree into Brittany.
Wherever the monks went, they cultivated the soil; all had in their mouths
the words of the Apostle, "If any would not work, neither should he eat."
The people admired the industry of the new comers, and, from admiration
they passed to imitation; the peasants joined the monks in tilling the
ground, and even the brigands became agriculturists. "The Cross and the
plough, labour and prayer," was the motto of these early missionaries.

"Sur que le Ciel maudit l'arbre sterile,
Le sage passe en operant le bien:
Vivre et mourir a l'univers utile,
C'est la devise et l'esprit du chretien."
_Chants de Piete_, MALO DE GARABY.

The monks of Dol were great bee-farmers, as we learn from an anecdote told
by Count Montalembert in his 'Moines de l'Occident.' One day when St.
Samson of Dol and St. Germain, Bishop of Paris, were conversing on the
respective merits of their monasteries, St. Samson said that his monks
were such good and careful preservers of their bees that, besides the
honey which they yielded in abundance, they furnished more wax than was
used in the churches during the year, but that, their climate not being
fit for the growth of vines, they had great scarcity of wine. Upon hearing
this, St. Germain replied, "We, on the contrary, produce more wine than we
can consume, but we have to buy wax; so, if you will furnish us with w