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 wretch! God prevents him from seeing and his fellow-men
forbid him to speak!
The following day, when the tide had again receded from the beach, we
left the Mount under a broiling sun which heated the hood of the carriage
and made the horses sweat. They only walked; the harness creaked and the
wheels sank deep into the sand. At the end of the beach, when grass
appeared again, I put my eye to the little window that is in the back of
every carriage, and bade goodbye to Mont Saint-Michel.
CHAPTER XII.
COMBOURG.
A letter from the Viscount Vesin was to gain us entrance to the castle.
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