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But we passed the prison doors one by one, and the jailer of the Wolfsberg went coughing and rasping by to another part of the prison. "'Tis an ill place for chills," he grumbled. "I have never been free of them since first I came to this place, no nor my wife neither. She has been dead these ten years, praises to the pyx! Ah, would you?"
A temporary altar was erected between the windows, and hung with the silk and embroidery belonging to that in the chapel: a crucifix was placed on it, with the shrine of the stone of Nicaea, one or two other relics brought on St. Ruprecht's cloister, and a beautiful mother-of-pearl and gold pyx also from the abbey, containing the host.
But to what country should he repair? All Europe was agitated by revolutionary troubles. The Holy Father was still undecided, when he received from the Bishop of Valence a letter of wise counsel, together with a precious gift—the Pyx which the venerable Pius VI. had borne on his person when an exile and the captive of an earlier revolution.
During this attack the church was respected; a man from Sornmieres, however, stole a pyx which he found in the sacristy, but as soon as his comrades perceived this he was arrested and sent to prison. In the monastery itself, however, the doors were broken in, the furniture smashed, the library and the dispensary wrecked.
These protestations did not, however, produce the salutary effect intended, some of those present saying aloud that such oaths smacked of sacrilege. Barre hearing the murmurs, hastened to begin the exorcisms, first advancing to the superior to offer her the holy sacrament: but as soon as she caught sight of him she became terribly convulsed, and attempted to drag the pyx from his hands.
We spent this heaviest of nights at the palace of Bishop Peter Dessauer with the prelate I, praise to the holy pyx, in the kitchen with the serving men and maids. Peter of the Pigs was there, but no more eager to fight.
Are you working hard, Amedee? What do you say? He was first and assisted at the feast of St. Charlemagne! So much the better! Jules, did you send the six chandeliers and the plated pyx and the Stations of the Cross, Number Two, to the Dames du Sacre-Coeur d'Alencons? What, not yet? But the order came three days ago! You must hurry, I tell you!
Just as they entered the room, where a large number of people were already gathered, the superior, catching sight of the pyx which Barre had brought with him, fell once more into convulsions.
But no air came in from the narrow courtyard into which the window opened; though black with night, it seemed like a well of fire. Having offered to act as server, Pierre repeated the "Confiteor." Then, after responding with the "Misereatur" and the "Indulgentiam," the chaplain, who wore his alb, raised the pyx, saying, "Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world."
The chapel, with its delicate windows, its oak rails, its scent of flowers and incense, its tiled floor, its single row of carved woodwork and the crosier by the Abbess's seat, was a place of silence instinct with a Divine Presence that radiated from the hanging pyx; it was these particular things, and not others like them, that had been the scene of her romance with God, her aspirations, tendernesses, tears and joys.
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