I had no intention of wearing out my life in lighting fires every morning to warm myself in the inhospitable island of Britain, and set out to France with the view of seeking some palace in the Riviera, Spain, or perhaps Algiers, there, for the present at least, to make my home.

I started from Calais toward the end of April, taking my things along, the first two days by train, and then determining that I was in no hurry, and a petrol motor easier, took one, and maintained a generally southern and somewhat eastern direction, ever-anew astonished at the wildness of the forest vegetation which, within so short a space since the disappearance of man, chokes this pleasant land, even before the definite advent of summer.

After three weeks of very slow travelling—­for though I know several countries very well, France with her pavered villages, hilly character, vines, forests, and primeval country-manner, is always new and charming to me—­after three weeks I came unexpectedly to a valley which had never entered my head; and the moment that I saw it, I said:  ’Here I will live,’ though I had no idea what it was, for the monastery which I saw did not look at all like a monastery, according to my ideas:  but when I searched the map, I discovered that it must be La Chartreuse de Vauclaire in Perigord.

It is my belief that this word ‘Vauclaire’ is nothing else than a corruption of the Latin Vallis Clara, or Bright Valley, for l’s and u’s did interchange about in this way, I remember:  cheval becoming chevau(x) in the plural, like ‘fool’ and ‘fou,’ and the rest:  which proves the dear laziness of French people, for the ‘l’ was too much trouble for them to sing, and when they came to two ‘l’s’ they quite succumbed, shying that vault, or vo_u_te, and calling it some y.  But at any rate, this Vauclaire, or Valclear, was well named:  for here, if anywhere, is Paradise, and if anyone knew how and where to build and brew liqueurs, it was those good old monks, who followed their Master with entrain in that Cana miracle, and in many other things, I fancy, but aesthetically shirked to say to any mountain:  ‘Be thou removed.’

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The general hue of the vale is a deep cerulean, resembling that blue of the robes of Albertinelli’s Madonnas; so, at least, it strikes the eye on a clear forenoon of spring or summer.  The monastery consists of an oblong space, or garth, around three sides of which stand sixteen small houses, with regular intervals between, all identical, the cells of the fathers; between the oblong space and the cells come the cloisters, with only one opening to the exterior; in the western part of the oblong is a little square of earth under a large cypress-shade, within which, as in a home of peace, it sleeps:  and there, straight and slanting, stand little plain black crosses over graves....

To the west of the quadrangle is the church, with the hostelry, and an asphalted court with some trees and a fountain; and beyond, the entrance-gate.