We stopped at the Grand Soleil—a hostel of the ancient time, with an immense kitchen that would have delighted Jan Steen, with beams black with the smoke of a thousand fires, hung with smoked hams, and gourds, and strings of onions, and bright copper kettles—the very place for roistering villagers such as he loved to paint. It looked ancient enough to have been frequented by King Henry’s soldiers. It had a very cavern for a fireplace, with seats at the yawning sides beneath the crook, with which M. Michelet says the sanctity of the fireside was identified in the middle ages far more than with the hearth, and curious old andirons, such as are to be seen at Paris in the Hôtel de Cluny, with a succession of hooks for the spits to rest on, and circular tops for braziers and chafing-dishes. Stairs led from the kitchen to the story above, well enough to mount, but perilous in descent, owing to their steepness. Everything is rather in the perpendicular style at Roc Amadour. An invocation to _Marie conçue sans péché_ was pasted on the door of our chamber, and a statuette of the Blessed Virgin stood on the mantel. The windows looked out on a little terrace dignified with the name of Square, where children were playing around the great stone cross. At table we found the sacrifice of Abraham and other sacred subjects depicted on our plates, and a cross on the salt-cellar. Roast kid and goat’s milk were set before us with various adjuncts, after which patriarchal fare we issued forth to visit the celebrated chapel of Our Lady of Roc Amadour. We found we had done well in fortifying the outer man for such an ascent, particularly as the day was far advanced, and the morning supplies at Albi had been of the most unsubstantial nature. We passed several houses with old archways of the thirteenth century, but the most imposing house in the place is a seigneurial mansion of the sixteenth century, now occupied by the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine. We soon came to the foot of the staircase leading up the side of the cliff to the sanctuaries. It consists of about two hundred and forty steps, partly hewn out of the rock, and is generally ascended by the devout pilgrim on his knees and with prayer—an enterprise of no trifling nature, as we are prepared to vouch. On great festivals this sacred ladder is crowded with people ascending and descending. Their murmured prayer is a gradual Psalm indeed. The first flight of one hundred and forty steps leads to a platform around which stood formerly the dwellings of the fourteen canons consecrated to the service of Mary. A Gothic portal, with a stout oaken door covered with fine old scroll-work of iron, leads by another flight of seventy-six steps to the collegiate church of Saint-Sauveur, one of the six remaining sanctuaries. Formerly there were twelve chapels built among the rocks in honor of the twelve apostles, but these all disappeared in the time of the unsparing Huguenots.