"You see, thanks to good Peyraque and his desire to show me the marvels of Velay, thanks also to my impenetrable hood, I have ventured into the city and its suburbs. The city is everywhere picturesque; it is still a mediæval town, closely studded with churches and convents. The cathedral is flanked by a whole world of ancient structures, where, under mysterious arcades, and in the turns and twists of the rock they stand on, you can see cloisters, gardens, staircases, and mute shadows gliding by, hidden beneath veil and cassock. A strange silence reigns there, and a certain odor of the past, I know not what, which makes one shiver with fear, not of our God, the source of all confidence and spiritual freedom, but of everything that, in the name of God, breaks up forever the ties and duties of our common humanity. In our convent, I remember a religious life seemed cheerful; here, it is sombre enough to make one tremble. "From the cathedral you must keep going down hill for an hour to reach the Faubourg d'Aiguilhe, where another monument rears its head, which is natural and historic, at one and the same time, and, indeed, the most curious thing in the world. It is a volcanic sugar-loaf three hundred feet in height, which you mount by a spiral stairway until you reach a Byzantine chapel, necessarily quite small, but charming, and built, it is said, on the site and from the fragments of a temple to Diana. "A legend is current here, which struck me forcibly. A young girl, a Christian virgin, pursued by some miscreant, flung herself to escape him down from the top of the terrace; she arose at once; she was unharmed. The miracle was noised abroad. She was declared a saint. Pride grew strong in her heart; she promised to hurl herself down again, to show she was under the protection of angels; but this time Heaven deserted her, and she was crushed like a vain silly creature as she was. "Pride! yes, God leaves the proud to themselves, and without him what can they do? But do not tell me that I am proud. No, it is not pride. I have no desire to prove anything to any one. I ask to be forgotten, and that there should be no suffering on my account. "There is near Le Puy, forming a part of its magnificent landscape, a village that also crowns one of those singular, isolated rocks, which break through the soil here at every step. It is called Espaly, and this rock also bears up the ruins of a feudal castle and of Celtic grottos. One of these caves is inhabited by two persons, aged and poor, whose squalid misery is heart-rending. This couple live here in the solid rock, with a single hole for chimney and window. At night they block up the door, in winter with straw; in summer, with the old woman's petticoat. A small, rude bed without coverlids or mattress, two stools, a little iron lamp, a spinning-wheel, and two or three earthen pots,--these are all the furniture.