and commanding.
Indeed, it stands nearly upon the highest ground in the town. Ducarel
had not the glorious ambition to mount to the top of the tower;
nor did he even possess that most commendable of all species of
architectural curiosity, a wish to visit the crypt. Thus, in either
extremity, I evinced a more laudable spirit of enterprise than did
my old-fashioned predecessor. Accordingly, from the summit, you must
accompany me to the lowest depth of the building. I descended by the
same somewhat intricate route, and I took especial care to avoid all
"temporary wooden staircase." The crypt, beneath the choir, is perhaps
of yet greater interest and beauty than the choir itself. Within an
old, very old, stone coffin--at the further circular end--are the
pulverized remains of one of the earliest abbesses. I gazed around
with mixed sensations of veneration and awe, and threw myself back
into centuries past, fancying that the shrouded figure of Maltilda
herself glided by, with a look as if to approve of my antiquarian
enthusiasm!

Having gratified my curiosity by a careful survey of the subterranean
abode, I revisited the regions of daylight, and made toward the large
building, now a manufactory, which in Ducarel's time had been a
nunnery. The revolution has swept away every human being in the
character of a nun; but the director of the manufactory showed me,
with great civility, some relics of old crosses, rings, veils,
lacrimatories, etc., which had been taken from the crypt I had
recently visited. These relics savored of considerable antiquity. Tom
Hearne would have set about proving that they must have belonged to
Matilda herself; but I will have neither the presumption nor the merit
of attempting this proof. They seemed, indeed, to have undergone half
a dozen decompositions. Upon the whole, if our Antiquarian Society,
after having exhausted the cathedrals of their own country, should
ever think of perpetuating the principal ecclesiastical edifices of
Normandy, by means of the art of engraving, let them begin their
labors with the Abbey aux Dames at Caen.

DOWN THE RIVER TO BORDEAUX[A]

[Footnote A: From "A Tour Through the Pyrenees." By special
arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt &
Co. Copyright, 1873.]

BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

The river is so fine that, before going to Bayonne, I have come down
as far as Royan. Ships heavy with white sails ascend slowly on both
sides o