caps; between each mitred ogive is a cut-out rose; this gallery is
the place where the prisoners take the air.

The cap of the _garde-chiourme_ now passes along these walls where, in
olden times, passed the shaved heads of industrious friars; and the
wooden shoes of the prisoners click on the slabs that used to be swept
by the trailing robes of monks and trodden by their heavy leather
sandals.

The church has a Gothic choir and a Romance nave, and the two
architectures seem to vie with each other in majesty and elegance. In
the choir, the arches of the windows are pointed, and are as lofty as
the aspirations of love; in the nave, the arcades open their semi-circles
roundly, and columns as straight as the trunk of a palm-tree mount along
the walls. They rest on square pedestals, are crowned with acanthus
leaves, and continue in powerful mouldings that curve beneath the
ceiling and help support it.

It was noon. The bright daylight poured in through the open door and
rippled over the dark sides of the building.

The nave, which is separated from the choir by a green curtain, is
filled with tables and benches, for it is used also as a dining-hall.
When mass is celebrated, the curtain is drawn and the condemned men may
be present at divine service without removing their elbows from the
table. It is a novel idea.

In order to enlarge the platform by twelve yards on the western side of
the church, the latter itself has been curtailed; but as it was
necessary to reconstruct some sort of entrance, one architect closed the
nave by a facade in Greek style; then, perhaps, feeling remorseful, or
desiring (a presumption which will be accepted more readily), to
embellish his work still further, he afterwards added some columns
"which imitate fairly well the architecture of the eleventh century,"
says the notice. Let us be silent and bow our heads. Each of the arts
has its own particular leprosy, its mortal ignominy that eats its face
away. Painting has the family group, music the ballad, literature the
criticism, and architecture the architect.

The prisoners were walking around the platform, one after another,
silent, with folded arms, and in the beautiful order we had the
opportunity to admire at Fontevrault. They were the patients of the
hospital ward taking the air.

Tottering along with the file was one who lifted his feet higher than
the rest and clung to the coat of the man ahead of him. He was blind.
Poor, miserable