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The "Salve Regina," which he heard perhaps for the last time thus sung by male voices; that airy chapel built of sound, and evaporating with the close of the antiphon, in the smoke of the tapers, stirred him to the bottom of his soul; the Trappist monastery showed itself truly charming this evening.
"... put it to the touch To gain or lose it all." He saw it coming: before long he and that Italian would be at each other's throats. "Come in!" he called, in response to a sudden thunder on the door. The door opened and a short, energetic old man, purple-visaged and hawk-eyed, came in. "Why the devil don't you join the Trappist monks, Abbott?
I sought to dissuade him from such a project, which could only be the cause of grief and consternation to his relatives. He pretended to yield to my entreaties, but the next night he left home and disappeared. At length he came back. Luckily, the Trappist Abbe de Ranch wished to take away from him the portrait on enamel of Henrietta of England, so as to break it in pieces before his eyes.
A drive from thence of about four miles brings a visitor to Marionhill. The monks, as is well known, are under a vow of strict silence. I was met by one of them at the station, who drove me in a waggonette to the Trappist farm. Here I was met by, and presented to, the Abbot. He is the real leader and director of this remarkable establishment.
The retreat chosen by the Trappist was of those innumerable mendicant societies which France supported at that time. Though its rules were ostensibly most austere, this monastery was rich and devoted to pleasure.
An ex-cabinet officer in America or in England remains a valuable critic, but an ex-chancellor in Germany becomes a social recluse, a political Trappist. Even the leading political figures are after all merely shadowy servants of the Emperor.
I sought to dissuade him from such a project, which could only be the cause of grief and consternation to his relatives. He pretended to yield to my entreaties, but the next night he left home and disappeared. At length he came back. Luckily, the Trappist Abbe de Ranch wished to take away from him the portrait on enamel of Henrietta of England, so as to break it in pieces before his eyes.
"But then," he said to God: "since Thou dost implant this idea in me so violently that I cannot even discuss it, in spite of its entire common sense for after all it is not necessary to immure myself in a Trappist monastery in order to reconcile myself to Thee then let me go!" And he spoke to God quietly.
"Please stoop, mesdames," resumed the Trappist. "In this compartment here is a skeleton which has not been touched. It has been lying here for sixteen or seventeen hundred years, and will show you how the bodies were laid out. Savants say that it is the skeleton of a female, probably a young girl. It was still quite perfect last spring; but the skull, as you can see, is now split open.
She glanced, it appeared involuntarily, at the sparkling liqueur in her little glass. "My dear son's history is soon told," she said, still smiling. "He has been a Carthusian monk, a Trappist, since his youth. He never had the least inclination for the life of the world. He is the abbot of the monastery of San Juan del Monte, near Valoro."
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