A tour through the Pyrenees . CHAPTER V. SAINTS A VIN. I. Upon a hill, at the end of a road, are the re-mains of the abbey of Saint-Savin. The oldchurch was, they say, built by Charlemagne ; thestones, eaten and burned, are crumbling ; the dis-jointed flags are incrusted with moss ; from thegarden the eye takes in the valley, brown in theevening light; the winding Gave already lifts intothe air its trail of pale smoke. It was sweet here to be a monk; it is in suchplaces that the Imitation should be read ; in suchplaces was it written. For a sensitive and noblenature, a convent was then the sol
A tour through the Pyrenees . CHAPTER V. SAINTS A VIN. I. Upon a hill, at the end of a road, are the re-mains of the abbey of Saint-Savin. The oldchurch was, they say, built by Charlemagne ; thestones, eaten and burned, are crumbling ; the dis-jointed flags are incrusted with moss ; from thegarden the eye takes in the valley, brown in theevening light; the winding Gave already lifts intothe air its trail of pale smoke. It was sweet here to be a monk; it is in suchplaces that the Imitation should be read ; in suchplaces was it written. For a sensitive and noblenature, a convent was then the sole refuge; allaround wounded and repelled it. Around what a horrible world! Brigand lordswho plunder travellers and butcher each other; ar-tisans and soldiers who stuff themselves with meat :i6 THE VALLE Y OF L UZ. Book III. and yoke themselves together hke brutes ; pea-sants whose huts they burn, whose wives they iHllf™**™ ^ ^^ !I1^ ^™iJf. violate, who out of despair and hunger slip awayto tumult. No remembrance of good, nor hope ofbetter. How sweet it is to renounce action, compa-ny, speech, to hide ones self, forget outside things,and to listen, in security and solitude, to the divinevoices that, like collected springs, murmur peace-fully in the depths of the heart! How easy is it here to forget the world !Neither books, nor news, nor science; no onetravels and no one thinks. This valley is thewhole universe; from time to time a peasantpasses, or a man-at-arms. A moment more and heis gone; the mind has retained no more trace ofhim than the empty road. Every morning theeyes find again the great woods asleep upon C H AP. V. SAI NTS A VIN. 317 the mountains brow, and the layers of cloudsstretched out on the edge of the sky. The rockslight up, the summit of the forests trembles beneaththe risino- breeze, the shadow changes at the footof the oaks, and the mind takes on the calm andthe monotony of these slow sights by which
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