The gate-way remains perfect, excepting only that the images over the side doors have been mutilated. The one in the centre (over the great entrance) is still in excellent preservation, and appears to be finely executed: it is the figure of the Virgin Mary in gray marble, the size of life, seated, with the infant Jesus in her arms. On a scroll beneath are these letters:--
Several old chesnut trees and elms still remain, which once formed a fine avenue in front of the building, from whence the prospect is strikingly beautiful. The eye passes over rocks, rugged, broken, and abrupt towards their summits, crowned and darkened with wood; and the narrow road winding between the trees, until it loses itself in the forest, forms a feature very gratifying to the traveller. The solitude of the place, as I viewed it at the close of day, occasioned mingled sensations of pleasure and pain. It was impossible to resist the imposing power of a situation, where every natural object was deeply tinged with the poetical character, and every remnant of architecture associated with the romance of religious feeling. I recalled and dwelt upon various passages of the poets inspired by similar scenes, and thought of the holy and enthusiastic minds which had here devoted themselves to the sublimest duties and severest sacrifices of the altar; and felt, that had I lived in those days, I, perhaps, could have become an inmate of walls which seem to have been erected to exclude the evils of life, and to nurture only the enchanting abstractions of unpolluted virtue and happiness: but the present day has brought with it a general philosophy and knowledge of human nature, which lessen the delight of contemplating the calm repose of such a seclusion, and have taught that these retreats from the world were not always retreats from vice; that the sacrifices of monkish privacy were not always those of selfish feelings; and that the austerities once practised here, as now at La Trappe, might perhaps arise more frequently from disappointed pride and ambition, than from the pure feelings of pious resignation. In the overthrow of the monarchy and that of the priesthood, this venerable pile became the object of popular vengeance; and had the Revolution done no more than effected the dissolution of the different orders of monks and nuns, every reflecting mind must have been pleased: the removal of those abuses, like the division of landed property into smaller portions, (whereby the country in general became more cultivated and productive,) was serviceable to France; and, if any circumstance can restore permanent tranquillity, it will be the interest which the different landholders have in the soil and the representative system, which will serve to check the ambition of its future governors. Already the good effects of these are to be perceived; and the excessive abuses, insolence, and profligacy, of ancient ministerial oppression, which paved the way for the downfall of the monarchy, and, like a pestilence, destroyed that which was good with that which was evil, will be prevented in future.