In the middle of the eighth century lived a hermit named Emilian, born of obscure parents at Vannes in Brittany. He became known to the Count of that place, who took him into his service, where he showed himself profusely charitable to the poor with his master's substance. This led to his ignominious dismissal, and he wandered into the Saintonge, entered the Benedictine Order, and became baker to the monastery. But he proved so objectionable there that he was turned out. So he wandered further south, and finding a rock in the forest above the Dordogne, wherein was a small cave, out of which flowed a spring, he took up his abode therein. His fame soon brought disciples to him, and gathered admirers about him; and after his death in 767, a monastery of Benedictine monks was settled there, and a town sprang up about it. The cave of S. Emilion still remains. In face of it rises a mass of rock with abrupt scarp towards the west and the market-place. Thence a street slopes up to the platform on the top of the rock. The front of the rock has an ambulatory before it pierced with windows and doors, and through these latter access is obtained to the interior of the rock, which is hollowed out into a stately church, dedicated to the three kings, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. This monolithic church has for its base a parallelogram measuring 120 feet by 60 feet. It is composed of two portions of unequal height. The anterior portion is a vestibule, narthex, or ambulatory to the church, and is only 21 feet high. The windows in this are of the flamboyant order, and the principal doorway is richly sculptured. The body of the church into which this vestibule opens is 95 feet long and 60 feet high. The body consists of a nave and side aisles, all excavated out of the living rock. Six windows light the interior, the three in the flamboyant style already mentioned, and above, set back the whole length of the narthex under circular-headed arches, are three plain, round-headed windows, like a clerestory, opening into the nave and aisles, one window in each. Looking from the market-place at the church the spectators would suppose that the nave ran parallel with the vestibule, but this is not the case, it is at right angles to it. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE MONOLITHIC CHURCH, AUBETERRE, CHARENTE. Showing the gallery of communication to the Seigneural pew, seen in face. The supports of the gallery vault have crumbled away within forty years, through neglect.]