An Etcher s Voyage of Discovery. 303 



ness, completion, and solidity on a most unpretendingly 

 small scale. A little Romanesque church never seems 

 to need any thing more ; but a very plain, tall, lanky, 

 modern, Gothic church, with its invariable gawky tower 

 at the west end, looks hungry and uncomfortable, as if 

 the architect had been pinched in his financial condi- 

 tions, which he very generally is, and at the same time 

 obliged to give as many square yards of wall as possible 

 for the money.* 



The church of this little village of St. Nizier had been 

 closed at the Revolution, and never opened since. The 

 inside was full of straw, and my canine companion rolled 

 his wet hide upon it in a manner which appeared to 

 indicate that he would consider it very eligible bedding 

 if we stayed all night there. Seeing no sign of any 

 thing like an inn amongst the half-dozen cottages which 

 constituted the whole burgh, I felt greatly inclined to 

 accept the dog's suggestion ; but, although the church 

 was an ample and sufficiently comfortable bedroom, one 

 could not hope to find any dinner there, and I looked 

 about the small cottages if haply there might dwell 

 therein some man or woman skilled in the preparation 

 of food. Now a certain observant villager, seeing me 

 thus in quest of something which I had not found, came 



♦One of these churches was erected lately in a certain commune, 

 and when the plans had been made I asked the priest what sort of 

 architecture had been determined upon ; but neither the priest, nor the 

 maire, nor any other notable of the place, could tell me, the fact being 

 that, though the plans had been presented for their august approval 

 and honored therewith, they did not know the difference between one 

 sort of architecture and another. 



