Alone, in the midst of ocean, the lighthouse of the Héaux of Bréhat acquires, by its very isolation, a character of severe grandeur which profoundly impresses the voyager. As Michelet says, it has the sublime simplicity of a gigantic sea-plant. Enormous, immovable, silent, it seems, in truth, a defiance flung by the genius of man in the teeth of the spirit of the storm. Sometimes, says M. de Quatrefages, you would say that, sensible of the outrage, the heavens and the sea league together against the enemy who braves them by its impassability. The impetuous winds of the north-west roar around the lantern, and hurl torrents of rain and whirlwinds of hail and snow against its solid crystal. Under the impulse of their irresistible breath gigantic billows hurry up from the open sea, and sometimes reach as high as the first gallery; but these fluent masses glide over the round polished surface of the granite, which does not offer them any holding-place; they even fling long streams of foam above the cupola, and dash down with a groan on the rocks of Stallio-Bras or the shingly beach of the Sillon. But without a quiver the lighthouse supports these terrible attacks. Yet it bends towards them as if to render homage to the power of its adversaries. The keepers have assured me that during a violent tempest, the oil vessels, placed in one of the highest chambers, show a variation in level of upwards of an inch, which supposes that the summit of the tower describes an arc of more than a yard in extent. For the rest, this very pliancy may be regarded as a pledge of durability. At least, we find it in numerous monuments which have braved for centuries the inclemencies of the season. The spire of Strasburg Cathedral, for instance, curves, under the breath of the winds, its long ogives, and its graceful little columns, and balances its four-armed cross, elevated 440 feet above the soil. The keepers of the lighthouse of the Héaux did not deceive M. de Quatrefages. Observations made in other lighthouses, erected in the open sea, confirm the statement they made to him. If these monuments of human skill and industry are 130 feet in height and upwards, their agitation becomes sufficiently perceptible to spill any liquids in uncovered vessels, to shake the movable weights of the mechanism, rattle against the sides of the descending tubes, and, in a word, to suggest to visitors a vivid idea of the roll of a ship. Towers built after this fashion are, in fact, reeds of stone which bend before the wind; but, like the reeds, they raise their heads again as soon as the hurricane has passed. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER IV. THE GRAND BARGE D’OLONNE. A.D. 1861.