Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 1).djvu/111

 and pass an hour in prayer and solemn meditation; and here a priest (belonging to the community that had once inhabited it, and for whom her father had procured another habitation) officiated at stated periods. The chapel was still in tolerable preservation; but all beside, except a flight of stairs that led to the dormitory above, was in irreparable decay. The numerous religious devices and heavy gothic windows of the chapel, were of themselves almost sufficient to have inspired a holy awe: relics of saints and departed warriors covered great part of the walls; and banners presented by knights crusaders on their return from the Holy Land, as grateful offerings to heaven for its protecting care, still hung from some of the pillars, waving, as if in sullen dignity, o'er the sculptured marble that covered their remains. For religious retirement, no place could have been better adapted than the valley; its towering mountains excluded every prospect that could have allured the heart to wish to stray beyond it; and the gloom of the