Avranches stands on the steep and towering extremity of a line of hills, commanding a most magnificent and varied view of land and sea, with Mont St. Michel in the distance. Its cathedral must have occupied a site as striking as the temple of Poseidon, on the headland of Sunium. But of that cathedral nothing is now left but a heap of fragments, and a stone, on which, fabling tradition says, Henry II. was reconciled to the Church after the murder of Becket. It was pulled down in consequence of the injuries it received at the time of the Revolution; and the bare area where it stood is typical of that devastating tornado which swept feudal and Catholic France out of existence. Where once the learned Huetius lived and wrote, the house of the _sous-prefet_ now stands. The building of churches, however, is going on actively in Avranches, and attests the reviving influence of the priests. And one should be glad to see the revival of any form of religion, however different from one's own, in France, if it were not that this Church is so intensely political, and that it presents Christianity as the ally of atheist and sensualist despotism, and the enemy of morality, liberty, justice, and the hopes of man. The French Caesars, Napoleon I. and Napoleon III., though themselves absolutely devoid of any faith but the self-idolatry which they call faith in their "star," find it politic, like the Roman Caesars, to have their official creed and their augurs. I went to the distribution of prizes at the school of the Christian Brothers. I had greatly admired the schools of the brotherhood in Ireland, and felt an interest in their system, notwithstanding their main object, like that of the famous Jesuit teachers of the sixteenth century, was rather to proselytize than to educate. The ceremony was thoroughly French, each boy being crowned with a tinsel wreath, and kissed by one of the company when he was presented with his prize. Everything, however, was arranged with the greatest taste and skill; and the recitations and dialogues, by which the endless distribution of prizes was relieved, were very cleverly and gracefully performed. Some of them were comic. The one which made us laugh most was a dialogue between a barber and a young gentleman who had come into his shop to be shaved. The barber pausing with the razor in his hand, the young gentleman asked him, angrily, why he did not begin. "I am waiting," replied the barber, "for your beard to grow." Specimens of writing were handed round, which were good; drawings, which, strange to say, were detestable. I praised the recitations and dialogues to the gentleman who sat next me. "Ah! oui," was his reply, "tout cela vient de Paris." So complete is the centralization of French intellect, even in such little matters as these! While I was in France, some leading politicians were attempting to set on foot a movement in favor of political decentralization. They must begin deeper, if they would hope to succeed.