I remembered Hautecombe, with its ancient Abbey, deep cream-coloured, like old ivory or the marbles of the Vatican, glimmering among dark trees, and mirrored in the lake so clearly that, gazing long at the reflection, one felt as if standing on one's head. I pointed it out to the Boy from a distance, on its jutting promontory, with the pride of the well-informed guide, and talked of the place with a superficial appearance of erudition. But after all, when he came to pin me down with questions, my bubble-reputation burst. Not a date could I pump up from the drained depths of my recollection, and in the end I had to accept ignominiously from the Boy such crumbs as he had collected from a guide-book larder. What was it to us, I contended, that the monastery was said to have been built in 1125? What did it matter that it had originally been the home of Cistercians? Why clog one's mind with such details, since it was enough for all purposes of romance to know that the old building had weathered many wars and many centuries, and that a special clause had protected the monks when Savoie was ceded by Italy to France? The great charm of the place for me, apart from its natural beauty, lay in the thought that it was the last home of dead kings, the vanished Princes of Savoie; I did not want to know the facts of its restoration at different dates, and would indeed shut my eyes upon all such traces if I could. Though the Abbey and its double in the lake had remained a picture in my mind, through the years since I had seen them, I was struck anew with the peaceful loveliness of the place as we approached the little landing-stage. The Kings of Savoie had chosen well in choosing to sleep their last sleep at Hautecombe. The Boy and I slowly ascended the deeply shadowed road which led up the hill to the Abbey, but leisurely as we walked, we soon outpaced the Germans. For this we were not sorry, since it gave us the silent grey church to ourselves--and the sleeping Kings. We bestowed money for his charities upon the white-robed monk who would have shown us the tombs and the chapels, conscientiously gabbling history the while; and then, with compliments, we freed him from the duty. His hard facts would have been like dogs yapping at our heels, and, as the Boy said, we would not have been able to hear ourselves think. We whispered as if fearing to wake the sleepers, as we wandered from one bed of marble in its dim niche, to another. Never, perhaps, did so many crowned heads lie under the same roof as at peaceful Hautecombe, sleeping longer, more soundly far, than the Princess in her enchanted Palace in the Wood. For centuries the convent bells have rung, calling the monks to prayer; and sometimes the walls have trembled with the thunder of cannon: yet the sleepers have not stirred. There they have lain, those stately, royal figures, with hands folded placidly on placid bosoms, resting well after stress and storm.