This crypt-like appearance is explained
by the absence even of a single window in the apse, which is covered by a
semi-dome. The Romanesque tower is very low and broad, with a broach spire
roofed with stones.
What a contrast to the deep shadow of the church was the brilliant white
light that I met outside, and to the grave-like silence the sawing sound of
the cicadas, drunk with sunshine, in the neighbouring tree-tops!
I set out from Riberac to cross that tract of country between the Dronne
and the Isle which is known as the Double. It is still one of the most
forlorn wildernesses in all France; but, like the Camargue, it has been
much changed of late years by drainage and cultivation, and is destined
to become productive and prosperous. For incalculable centuries it had
remained a baneful solitude, overgrown with virgin forest, except in
the hollows between the low hills, which succeed one another like the
undulations of the sea; and here, almost hidden in summer by tall reeds
and sedges, lay the pools and bogs that poisoned the air and rendered
the climate abominable. In the midst of this marshy, cretaceous desert,
stretching between the Isle and its tributary, the Dronne, and close to a
wretched fever-stricken village called Echourgnac, a small community of
Trappist monks established themselves in 1868.
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