ept ignominiously from the Boy such crumbs as he had collected from
a guide-book larder. What was it to us, I contended, that the
monastery was said to have been built in 1125? What did it matter that
it had originally been the home of Cistercians? Why clog one's mind
with such details, since it was enough for all purposes of romance to
know that the old building had weathered many wars and many centuries,
and that a special clause had protected the monks when Savoie was
ceded by Italy to France? The great charm of the place for me, apart
from its natural beauty, lay in the thought that it was the last home
of dead kings, the vanished Princes of Savoie; I did not want to know
the facts of its restoration at different dates, and would indeed
shut my eyes upon all such traces if I could.

Though the Abbey and its double in the lake had remained a picture in
my mind, through the years since I had seen them, I was struck anew
with the peaceful loveliness of the place as we approached the little
landing-stage. The Kings of Savoie had chosen well in choosing to
sleep their last sleep at Hautecombe.

The Boy and I slowly ascended the deeply shadowed road which led up
the hill to the Abbey, but leisurely as we walked, we soon outpaced
the Germans. For this we were not sorry, since it gave us the silent
grey church to ourselves--and the sleeping Kings. We bestowed money
for his charities upon the white-robed monk who would have shown us
the tombs and the chapels, conscientiously gabbling history the while;
and then, with compliments, we freed him from the duty. His hard facts
would have been like dogs yapping at our heels, and, as the Boy said,
we would not have been able to hear ourselves think.

We whispered as if fearing to wake the sleepers, as we wandered from
one bed of marble in its dim niche, to another. Never, perhaps, did so
many crowned heads lie under the same roof as at peaceful Hautecombe,
sleeping longer, more soundly far, than the Princess in her enchanted
Palace in the Wood. For centuries the convent bells have rung, calling
the monks to prayer; and sometimes the walls have trembled with the
thunder of cannon: yet the sleepers have not stirred. There they have
lain, those stately, royal figures, with hands folded placidly on
placid bosoms, resting well after stress and storm.

It was difficult to keep in mind that the real kings and queens had
mouldered into dust under the stone where reposed their counterfei