But why bother about these things?  Let us not go so far back, and let us be satisfied with what is manufactured.  What is wanted nowadays is rather the opposite of nudity, simplicity and truth?  Fortune and success will fall to the lot of those who know how to dress and clothe facts!  The tailor is the king of the century and the fig-leaf is its symbol; laws, art, politics, all things, appear in tights!  Lying freedom, plated furniture, water-colour pictures, why! the public loves this sort of thing!  So let us give it all it wants and gorge the fool!

CHAPTER XI.

MONT SAINT-MICHEL.

The road from Pontorson to the Mont Saint-Michel is wearying on account of the sand.  Our post-chaise (for we also travel by post-chaise), was disturbed every now and then by a number of carts filled with the grey soil which is found in these parts and which is transported to some place and utilised as manure.  They became more numerous as we approached the sea, and defiled for several miles until we finally saw the deserted strand whence they came.  On this white surface, with its conical heaps of earth resembling huts, the fluctuating line of carts reminded us of an emigration of barbarians deserting their native heath.

The empty horizon stretches out, spreads, and finally mingles its greyish flats with the yellow sand of the beach.  The ground becomes firmer and a salt breeze fans your cheeks; it looks like a vast desert from which the waters have receded.  Long, flat strips of sand, superposed indefinitely in indistinct planes, ripple like shadows, and the wind playfully designs huge arabesques on their surfaces.  The sea lies far away, so far, in fact, that its roar cannot be heard, though we could distinguish a sort of vague, aerial, imperceptible murmur, like the voice of the solitude, which perhaps was only the effect produced by the intense silence.

Opposite us rose a large round rock with embattled walls and a church on its top; enormous counterparts resting on a steep slope support the sides of the edifice.  Rocks and wild shrubs are strewn over the incline.  Half-way up the slope are a few houses, which show above the white line of the wall and are dominated by the brown church; thus some bright colours are interspersed between the two plain tints.

The post-chaise drove ahead of us and we followed it, guiding ourselves by the tracks of the wheels; finally it disappeared in the distance, and we could distinguish only its hood, which looked like some big crab crawling over the sand.

Here and there a swift current of water compelled us to move farther up the beach.  Or we would suddenly come upon pools of slime with ragged edges framed in sand.

Beside us walked two priests who were also going to the Mont Saint-Michel.  As they were afraid of soiling their new cassocks, they gathered them up around their legs when they jumped over the little streams.  Their silver buckles were grey with mud, and their wet shoes gaped and threw water at every step they took.