that these gems were placed upon it to symbolize the victory of Christian purity over the impurity of the ancient religions of Greece and Rome is more ingenious than conclusive.  This statue of gold (repousse), with regal crown enriched with precious stones and enamels on which may be distinguished Jupiter, Mars, Apollo and Diana, among the more respectable of the divinities; if it was originally intended to represent the virgin Fides, martyred at Agen, was certainly one of the most fantastic achievements of ecclesiastical art.  But whether this was its origin or not, the style of its workmanship is considered by competent judges to be sufficient proof that it is at least nine hundred years old.

In favour of the opinion that the statue was made at Conques, there is the fact that the cult of St. Foy at this place dates from the early Middle Ages.  The ancient seal of the abbey bears the motto: 

    ’Duc nos quo resides,
    Inclyta Virgo Fides.’

Historians of the abbey state that the relics of the saint were brought from Agen to Conques about the year 874, and that Etienne, Bishop of Clermont, caused a basilica to be raised here in her honour between the years 942 and 984.  It was under the direction of Ololric, Abbot of Conques, that the existing church was built between the years 1030 and 1062.  Throughout the Middle Ages the relics drew large numbers of pilgrims to the spot.  In the dialect of the country they were called Roumious, because the pilgrimage to Conques was one of those which enjoyed the privilege of conferring under certain conditions the same advantages as were to be gained by the great pilgrimage to Rome.  The pilgrims kept the ’holy vigil’—­that is to say, they passed an entire night in prayer before the relics with a lighted taper either fixed at their side or carried in the hand.  The pilgrimage and the ancient association of St. Foy were revived in 1874.

The darkness of night drove me to take shelter in an inn which, like everything else here, is dedicated to St. Foy.  The pilgrims’ money had not made it pretentious, nor the people who kept it dishonest —­changes which ‘filthy lucre’ is very apt to bring about in the holiest places.  But the pilgrims who come to Conques are, for the most part, peasants who look well before they leap, and who so contrive matters as never to spend more upon anything than they have set aside for it.

Having completed the next morning my impressions of Conques, noting among other things the curious and richly decorated enfeux in the exterior walls of the church, I returned to the bottom of the ravine, and having crossed the old Gothic bridge over the Dourdou, began the ascent of the rocky chestnut forest on the other side of the valley.  Small white crosses planted at intervals amidst the broom and heather of the open wood marked the way to St. Foy’s Chapel for the guidance of pilgrims.  According to the legend, it was near this spot that, the relics