h of sand was red, the horizon was red, the whole boundless bay
was red. The rocky castle rising out there in the distance like a
weird, seignorial residence, like a dream palace, strange and
beautiful--this alone remained black in the crimson light of the dying
day.

The following morning at dawn I went toward it across the sands, my
eyes fastened on this gigantic jewel, as big as a mountain, cut like a
cameo, and as dainty as lace. The nearer I approached the greater my
admiration grew, for nothing in the world could be more wonderful or
more perfect.

As surprised as if I had discovered the habitation of a god, I
wandered through those halls supported by frail or massive columns,
raising my eyes in wonder to those spires which looked like rockets
starting for the sky, and to that marvellous assemblage of towers, of
gargoyles, of slender and charming ornaments, a regular fireworks of
stone, granite lace, a masterpiece of colossal and delicate
architecture.

As I was looking up in ecstasy a Lower Normandy peasant came up to me
and told me the story of the great quarrel between Saint Michael and
the devil.

A sceptical genius has said: "God made man in his image and man has
returned the compliment."

This saying is an eternal truth, and it would be very curious to write
the history of the local divinity of every continent, as well as the
history of the patron saints in each one of our provinces. The negro
has his ferocious man-eating idols; the polygamous Mahometan fills his
paradise with women; the Greeks, like a practical people, deified all
the passions.

Every village in France is under the influence of some protecting
saint, modelled according to the characteristics of the inhabitants.

Saint Michael watches over Lower Normandy, Saint Michael, the radiant
and victorious angel, the sword-carrier, the hero of Heaven, the
victorious, the conqueror of Satan.

But this is how the Lower Normandy peasant, cunning, deceitful and
tricky, understands and tells of the struggle between the great saint
and the devil.

To escape from the malice of his neighbour, the devil, Saint Michael
built himself, in the open ocean, this habitation worthy of an
archangel; and only such a saint could build a residence of such
magnificence.

But, as he still feared the approaches of the wicked one, he
surrounded his domains by quicksands, more treacherous even than the
sea.

The devil lived in a humble cottage on the hill, but