Of domestic buildings there are but few traces in Soissons. The best are: a building near the west front of the cathedral, with stepped gables, central buttresses in the end, and good simple three-light windows in each bay;--a house in the Cloître S. Gervais, near the north transept of the cathedral, with a steep unpierced gable and three two-light windows in the stage just below it, and an unpierced ground story;--and an old hospital near the cathedral, of good early-pointed work, without groining, but with transverse arches from column to column,--the capitals being carved, and the arches quite square in section. From Soissons, an excursion ought to be made to the abbey of Longpont.[25] I was not aware at the time I was there that it was in this neighbourhood, but I believe that it is only some eight or ten miles distant, and that the church is of rare interest and grandeur. I regret extremely my inability to give any notes of it. A walk of a mile across meadows took me to the remains of the great abbey of S. Médard. These are very slight and consist of some remains of crypts, in which are preserved portions of buildings or monuments which have been dug up from time to time. An old view of S. Médard shows it surrounded by fortified walls, enclosing a vast range of buildings and two or three churches. Of all this nothing now remains, beyond a modern house, converted into an asylum for deaf and dumb, in one portion of which remains an old vaulted apartment, now used as the chapel of the institution.