ns in writing. I can only
observe, that it has made an impression on my mind
never to be effaced! If these worthy and pious people
have abandoned the world for the solitude and austerities
of La Trappe, they have not forgotten, in their own self-denial,
the benevolence and benignity due to strangers.
May their self-devotion meet with its reward!"

I now took my leave of the Convent with feelings which I will not
pretend to describe, but which, together with the impressions I
received when I first entered it, and the whole circumstances of my
visit, I am conscious of retaining while "Memory holds her seat". The
following lines, by P. Mandard, on quitting La Trappe, convey a very
faithful and poetical picture of this extraordinary solitude:

--Saint desert, sejour pur et paisible,
Solitude profonde, au vice inaccessible;
Impetueux torrens, et vous sombres forets,
Recevez mes adieux, comme aussi mes regrets!
Toujours epris de vous, respectable retraite,
Puisse-je, dans le cours d'une vie inquiete,
Dans ce flux eternel de folie et d'erreur,
Ou flotte tristement notre malheureux coeur;
Puisse-je, pour charmer mes ennuis et mes peines,
Souvent fuir en esprit au bord de vos fontaines,
Egarer ma pensee au milieu de vos bois,
Par un doux souvenir rappeler mille fois
De vos Saints habitans les touchantes images,
Penetrer, sur leurs pas, dans vos grottes sauvages,
Me placer sur vos monts, et la, prennant l'essort,
Aller chercher en Dieu ma joie, et mon tresor!

CHAP. II.

VAL-DIEU.--RUINS OF THE CONVENT OF THE CHARTREUSE.--FORESTS OF LE
PERCHE, MORTAGNE.

I quitted _La Trappe_ in the afternoon of the third day after my
arrival there, for the Val-Dieu, which lies three leagues to the east
of Mortagne, taking the villages of Rinrolles and Prepotin in my way;
the latter stands in the midst of a forest. By this road, so bad that
it scarcely deserves the name, a great distance is saved, but the
romantic scenery of the approach to La Trappe is lost. The one we took
through the forest of Bellegarde more than doubles the distance;
but the Abbey is seen as in the centre of a lake beneath, and
the continual beauty and wildness of the landscape render it far
preferable. Until the Revolution this was the only road, the other
having been made when the lands became national property, and were
sold to the peasantry.

After passing through the above villages, we came round by Tourou