But passing from the domains of conjecture to those of history, we know that the second lighthouse was built in the fourteenth century (1362-70), by the order of Edward the Black Prince. This lighthouse was 48 feet in height. It terminated in a platform, where was kindled a fire of wood under the charge of a holy hermit, who received in reward of his labours a toll from each vessel of two groats sterling. It is generally believed that the rock on which the lighthouse stood was, at that epoch, still united to the Médoc coast. The configuration of the soil, the distance, the depth of the channel, the ravages still effected by the sea at Soulac and at the Point de Grave, are arguments in favour of this opinion. The lighthouse built by the Black Prince did not stand alone upon its rock. As a companion it had a chapel, raised in honour of the Virgin Mary, and several houses, constructed in this sacred locality, gradually formed a kind of village. Here dwelt the hermit, his assistants, and, probably, a small number of pilots and fishermen. An engraving of the date of the fifteenth century represents this ancient tower as an octagonal building, with elongated quadrangular openings. It is doubled, so to speak, up to its first story, with an exterior casing of stone, forming an additional protection. Some of the houses which formerly occupied this particular site were existing at the epoch when the drawing was executed. [Illustration: ANCIENT TOWER OF CORDOUAN.] The lighthouse, which at the present time so justly extorts the admiration of all its visitors, was constructed, not on the ruins, but by the side of its predecessor. Begun in 1584 by Louis de Foix, a Parisian architect, to whom Philip II. confided at a later date the building of the Escorial, it was not completed until 1600, and then by his son. Including the solid mass of the platform or base, the tower was 60 feet high, and including the stone lantern, 70 feet. At the date of its erection, the ground was, as undoubtedly it for a long time had been, completely separated from the mainland, and formed an island of a certain extent—the “Isle of Cordouan,” says Louis de Foix himself, in the contract signed with the authorities of Guienne for the construction of the tower. This island has since disappeared, as well as the houses and chapel of which we have spoken; and now, at the foot of the monument, are only the bare rock and some tongues of sand completely covered at high water.