By that church did the latter receive his death.
As they passed round the door they saw some peasants loitering on the sacred ground; and when they noted the delicate cheek of Gertrude they uttered their salutations with more than common respect.

Where they then were the building swept round in a circular form; and at its base it is supposed by tradition to retain something of the ancient Roman masonry.
Just before them rose the spire of a plain and unadorned church, singularly contrasting the pomp of the old with the simplicity of the innovating creed.
The church of St.Maria occupies the site of the Roman Capitol, and the place retains the Roman name; and still something in the aspect of the people betrays the hereditary blood.
Gertrude, whose nature was strongly impressed with _the venerating character_, was fond of visiting the old Gothic churches, which, with so eloquent a moral, unite the living with the dead.
"Pause for a moment," said Trevylyan, before they entered the church of St.Maria.

"What recollections crowd upon us! On the site of the Roman Capitol a Christian church and a convent are erected! By whom?
The mother of Charles Martel,--the Conqueror of the Saracen, the arch-hero of Christendom itself! And to these scenes and calm retreats, to the cloisters of the convent once belonging to this church, fled the bruised spirit of a royal sufferer,-the victim of Richelieu,--the unfortunate and ambitious Mary de Medicis.

Alas! the cell and the convent are but a vain emblem of that desire to fly to God which belongs to Distress; the solitude soothes, but the monotony recalls, regret.

And for my own part in my frequent tours through Catholic countries, I never saw the still walls in which monastic vanity hoped to shut out the world, but a melancholy came over me! What hearts at war with themselves! what unceasing regrets! what pinings after the past! what long and beautiful years devoted to a moral grave, by a momentary rashness, an impulse, a disappointment! But in these churches the lesson is more impressive and less sad.