The next day the Class was overtaken, while travelling in the French coach, by a pouring rain. Tommy, as usual, was on the seat with the driver. He became very impatient, saying, every few minutes, "I wish it would stop raining, I wish--" this, that, and the other thing. "Tommy," said Master Lewis, from within the coach, "are you _sure_?" After a time the sunlight overspread the landscape, making the watery leaves shine like the multitudinous wavelets of the sea. Tommy's merry voice was heard again, talking bad French. "Contentment and happiness," said Master Lewis to Frank, "have evidently returned again." From Avranches the Class visited that wonderful castle, church, and village of the sea, Mont St. Michel. The journey from the mainland was by a tramway across the Grève, or sands, at low tide. At neap tides the Mount is not surrounded by water at any time, but at spring tides it is washed by the sea twice a day, and sometimes seems like a partly sunken hill in the sea. The fortress is girt about the base with feudal walls and towers colored by the sea; above these rises a little town, the houses being set on broken ledges of rock; above the town stand the fortifications, and a church and its tower crown all. It is one of the most curious places in the world. Pagan priests here worshipped the god of high places; monks succeeded them; Henry II held court here, then it became a place to which saints made yearly pilgrimages. The Revolution drove out the monks, and turned it into a prison. In an iron cage called the Cage of St. Michel, a torturous contrivance, state prisoners used to be confined. The Class next went to St. Malo, by the way of Dol; a breezy journey, with the sea in view. "St. Malo," said Master Lewis, "was the birthplace of Chateaubriand, who visited our country after the American Revolution, and in 1801 wrote an Indian romance, 'Atala,' a prose Hiawatha, if I may so call it, which charmed all Europe. He published a political work on America, which had great influence in France. He was in early life a sceptic, but the memory of a good mother made him a Christian, and he published a book on religion which arrested the infidel tendencies of the times. Louis XVIII. declared that one of his pamphlets was worth an army of one hundred thousand men. He was one of the most brilliant writers France ever produced. You should read on your return 'Atala' in French. You will find an edition, I think, illustrated by Doré, in which the pictures will compel you to read the story." "I have read 'Atala,'" said Frank. "Would you like to visit Chateaubriand's birthplace with me?" asked Master Lewis. Frank was very desirous to see the place at once, and Master Lewis and he went to the house, now a hotel, immediately on their arrival in the town. From the windows of the house could be seen the tomb of Chateaubriand, which is on a little island in the harbor. When Master Lewis returned to the hotel he was alone.