Beneath the tower of St. Michel is a _caveau_, around which are ranged ninety mummies in a state of preservation said to be owing to the nature of the soil. Why is it that every one is enticed down to witness so horrid a spectacle? Dust to dust and ashes to ashes is far preferable to these withered bodies, and a quiet resting-place, deep, deep in the bosom of mother earth till the resurrection. Edmond About says the twelfth century would have embroidered many a charming legend to throw around these bodies, but the moderns have less imagination, and the guardian of the tower, who displays them by the light of his poor candle, is totally deficient in poesy. Had this writer been at Bordeaux on the eve of All Souls' day, he would have been invited at the midnight hour, "when spirits have power," to listen to the lugubrious cries and chants that come up from the _caveau_, where, as the popular voice declares, these ninety forms are having their yearly dance--the dance of death! I wonder if the mummy next the door, as you gladly pass out into the upper air, has his hand still extended like an _au revoir_.... Yes, there is one place where we shall meet, but not in this repulsive form. May we all be found there with glorified bodies! The church of St. Michel is older than the tower, having been built in the twelfth century. It is of the Gothic style, and one of those antique churches that speak so loudly to the heart of the traveller from the New World--one in which we are penetrated with "An inward stillness, That perfect silence when the lips and heart Are still, and we no longer entertain Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions, But God alone speaks in us, and we wait In singleness of heart that we may know His will, and in the silence of our spirits That he may do his will, and do that only." The ancients had a deep meaning when they represented the veiled Isis with her finger on her hushed lips. The soul profoundly impressed by the Divine Presence is speechless. In one of the side chapels is the tomb of an old bishop of the middle ages, in a niche of the wall. On it he lies carven in stone, with the mitre on his head, and clad in his pontifical vestments, and his hands folded in prayer. "Still praying in thy sleep With lifted hands and face supine, Meet attitude of calm and reverence deep, Keeping thy marble watch in hallowed shrine."