t
colours are interspersed between the two plain tints.

The post-chaise drove ahead of us and we followed it, guiding ourselves
by the tracks of the wheels; finally it disappeared in the distance, and
we could distinguish only its hood, which looked like some big crab
crawling over the sand.

Here and there a swift current of water compelled us to move farther up
the beach. Or we would suddenly come upon pools of slime with ragged
edges framed in sand.

Beside us walked two priests who were also going to the Mont Saint-Michel.
As they were afraid of soiling their new cassocks, they gathered them
up around their legs when they jumped over the little streams. Their
silver buckles were grey with mud, and their wet shoes gaped and threw
water at every step they took.

Meantime the Mount was growing larger. With one sweep of the eye we were
able to take in the whole panorama, and could see distinctly the tiles
on the roofs, the bunches of nettles on the rocks, and, a little higher,
the green shutters of a small window that looks out into the governor's
garden.

The first door, which is narrow and pointed, opens on a sort of pebble
road leading to the ocean; on the worn shield over the second door,
undulating lines carved in the stone seem to represent water; on both
sides of the doors are enormous cannons composed of iron bars connected
by similar circular bands. One of them has retained a cannon-ball in its
mouth; they were taken from the English in 1423, by Louis d'Estouteville,
and have remained here four hundred years.

Five or six houses built opposite one another compose the street; then
the line breaks, and they continue down the slopes and stairs leading to
the castle, in a sort of haphazard fashion.

In order to reach the castle, you first go up to the curtain, the wall
of which shuts out the view of the ocean from the houses below. Grass
grows between the cracked stones and the battlements. The rampart
continues around the whole island and is elevated by successive
platforms. When you have passed the watch-house, which is situated
between the two towers, you see a little straight flight of steps; when
you climb them, the roofs of the houses, with their dilapidated
chimneys, gradually grow lower and lower. You can see the washing hung
out to dry on poles fastened to the garret-windows, or a tiny garden
baking in the sun between the roof of one house and the ground-floor of
another, with its parched leeks d