I gained the top of the central tower, which is not of equal altitude with those of the western extremity, and from hence surveyed the town, as well as the drizzling rain would permit.  I saw enough, however, to convince me that the site of this abbey is fine and commanding.  Indeed, it stands nearly upon the highest ground in the town.  Ducarel had not the glorious ambition to mount to the top of the tower; nor did he even possess that most commendable of all species of architectural curiosity, a wish to visit the crypt.  Thus, in either extremity, I evinced a more laudable spirit of enterprise than did my old-fashioned predecessor.  Accordingly, from the summit, you must accompany me to the lowest depth of the building.  I descended by the same somewhat intricate route, and I took especial care to avoid all “temporary wooden staircase.”  The crypt, beneath the choir, is perhaps of yet greater interest and beauty than the choir itself.  Within an old, very old, stone coffin—­at the further circular end—­are the pulverized remains of one of the earliest abbesses.  I gazed around with mixed sensations of veneration and awe, and threw myself back into centuries past, fancying that the shrouded figure of Maltilda herself glided by, with a look as if to approve of my antiquarian enthusiasm!

Having gratified my curiosity by a careful survey of the subterranean abode, I revisited the regions of daylight, and made toward the large building, now a manufactory, which in Ducarel’s time had been a nunnery.  The revolution has swept away every human being in the character of a nun; but the director of the manufactory showed me, with great civility, some relics of old crosses, rings, veils, lacrimatories, etc., which had been taken from the crypt I had recently visited.  These relics savored of considerable antiquity.  Tom Hearne would have set about proving that they must have belonged to Matilda herself; but I will have neither the presumption nor the merit of attempting this proof.  They seemed, indeed, to have undergone half a dozen decompositions.  Upon the whole, if our Antiquarian Society, after having exhausted the cathedrals of their own country, should ever think of perpetuating the principal ecclesiastical edifices of Normandy, by means of the art of engraving, let them begin their labors with the Abbey aux Dames at Caen.

DOWN THE RIVER TO BORDEAUX[A]

[Footnote A:  From “A Tour Through the Pyrenees.”  By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co.  Copyright, 1873.]

BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

The river is so fine that, before going to Bayonne, I have come down as far as Royan.  Ships heavy with white sails ascend slowly on both sides of the boat.  At each gust of wind they incline like idle birds, lifting their long wings and showing their black bellies.  They run slantwise, then come back; one would say that they felt the better for being in this great fresh-water harbor; they loiter in it and enjoy its peace after leaving the wrath and inclemency of the ocean.