Observe, then, the structures which he compares are altogether different; one being _square_, and the other round. Nor, in the whole _compass_ of _possible analogies_, is there a single feature in which the two _classes_ of edifices could be _said_ to correspond, but that they both have their doors--which, by the way, are different in their form--at a distance from the ground. The _Pyramids_ of Egypt bear the same correspondence,--their entrance being one-third of the height from the surface,--and why does not the Colonel bestow _them_ also upon the monks? No; those poor, denuded, inoffensive, exemplary, _unearthly_ victims of maceration were incapable of, either the masonic acme, or--at the era which Montmorency particularises--of the corporate influence and pecuniary or equivalent supplies indispensable for the erection of either “pyramid” or “tower”;--contenting themselves rather with their _lowly cells_, whence they issued out, at all seasons, to diffuse the word of “life,” than in raising _maypoles_ of stone, within which to garrison their _inexpressible_ treasures. But to reconcile this discrepancy in exterior outfit, he has recourse to a miracle, which he thus conjures up. “Doubtless, in the _beginning_, when first those Cœnobites settled in the desert, the convent-tower was round;” then, by a single word, _præsto_,--or “doubtless,”--right-about face, takes place a metamorphosis, from round to square!--the more miraculous, in that the _former round_ ones left behind them no vestiges! Upon which, again, a counter miracle is effected: “The square ones having subsequently fallen into disuse, the round tower, in after ages,” he says, “appears to have acquired a degree of increased celebrity, especially in _Europe_, during the preponderance of the feudal system, when every baronial castle in Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, France, etc., was furnished with one or more.” Now, has he not before told us, and told us _truly, by chance_, that the Pillar Tower _scorns_ all kind of affinity with those “_barbarians_”; whereupon I shall merely observe with the poet, that “If people contradict themselves, can _I_ Help contradicting them?”[54]