The old lady mounts to the lower battlements and begins her story. Her French is so distinct and so slowly spoken that all must understand her. She should command a high salary in some school at home. One could not help but learn even without studying. So she rolls out the history of the celebrated spot until we reach the portals of the fortress, a lofty donjon flanked by two projecting turrets. There she must consign us to its custodian, cheerily housed with his family in the great guard-room, and under his guidance we mount the wide and stately staircase of the Abbots, and for another hour wander through gallery after gallery, crypt over crypt, here in a donjon in the rock, and there in a prison spacious and cheerful. From every casement glimpses of the beautiful panorama without greet one's eyes, but the full glory of that is reserved until, having mounted five hundred steps, we emerge upon a platform where stands the Cathedral, lifted far above the sins of the earth, a fitting place for the worship of God. Gazing downward one sees the fair land of Normandy to the left, while Brittany stretches away to the right and the glistening waters of the English Channel are behind one. The sunlight comes in long rays through the cloud rifts and the land sparkles and the sea dances where it strikes far out towards England. High above us rise the pinnacles of the Cathedral, while on the topmost point of its Gothic spire the gilded statue of St. Michael seems to shout his hosannas upwards far towards the blue of heaven. The wind is strong and fresh and full of life, for this is spring, and the world rejoices; this is Holy Week with its divine resurrection and its hope for all men! Lilies and apple blossoms deck these altars, while in far off New Zealand autumn leaves will crown this festival. How strange a circumstance! There may be those in Europe and America who do not know the history of this famous spot, but it has been so often described that there can be but few so uninformed, and I fancy that its picture is certainly known to all.--A conical rock rising from the sands close to the sea and covered by houses, abbeys, and fortresses with the whole capped by a great Cathedral, which flings its gilded statue of St. Michael five hundred feet into the air where, on the apex of the delicate spire, it seems, especially on a cloudy day when the support is invisible, to float in the air. The Holy Monks of the Order of St. Benedict founded the abbey here in the year 709, and until the Revolution of 1793 it flourished and was a prime factor in most political events from the Norman conquest downward.