The Benedictines of Fontevrault.--The Head in the Basin.--The
Unfortunate Delivery.--The Baptism of the Monster.--The Courageous
Marriage.--Foundation of the Royal Abbey of Fontevrault.
Two or three days after our arrival at Fontevrault, the King, who loves
to know all the geographical details of important places, asked me of the
form and particulars of the celebrated abbey. I gave him a natural
description of it.
"They are two vast communities," I told him, "which the founder, for some
inexplicable whim, united in one domain, of an extent which astonishes
the imagination."
The Community of Benedictine Nuns is regarded as the first, because of
the abbotorial dignity it possesses. The Community of Benedictine Monks
is only second,--a fact which surprises greatly strangers and visitors.
Both in the monastery and the convent the buildings are huge and
magnificent, the courts spacious, the woods and streams well distributed
and well kept.
"Every morning you may see a hundred and fifty to two hundred ploughs
issue from both establishments; these spread over the plain and till an
immense expanse of land. Carts drawn by bullocks, big mules, or superb
horses are ceaselessly exporting the products of the fields, the meadows,
or the orchards. Innumerable cows cover the pastures, and legions of
women and herds are employed to look after these estates.
"The aspect of Fontevrault gives an exact idea of the ancient homes of
the Patriarchs, in their remote periods of early civilisation, which saw
the great proprietors delighting in their natal hearth, and finding their
glory, as well as their happiness, in fertilising or assisting nature.
"The abbess rules like a sovereign over her companion nuns, and over the
monks, her neighbours. She appoints their officers and their temporal
prince. It is she who admits postulants, who fixes the dates of
ordinations, pronounces interdictions, graces, and penances. They render
her an account of their administration and the employment of their
revenues, from which she subtracts carefully her third share, as the
essential right of her crosier of authority."
"Have you invited the Benedictine Fathers to your fete in the wood?" the
King asked me, smiling.
"We had no power, Sire," I answered. "There are many young ladies being
educated with the nuns of Fontevrault. The parents of these young ladies
respectful as they are to these monks, would have looked askance at the
innovation. The Fathers never go in there. They are to be seen at the
abbey church, where they sing and say their offices. Only the three
secular chaplains of the abbess penetrate into the house of the nuns; the
youngest of the three cannot be less than fifty.
"The night of the feast the monks draw near our cloister by means of a
wooden theatre, which forms a terrace, and from this elevation they
participate by the eye and ear in our amusements; that is enough."
"Has Madame de Mortemart ever related to you the origin of her abbey?"
resumed the King. "Perhaps she is ignorant of it. I am going to tell
you of it, for it is extremely curious; it is not as it is related in the
books, and I take the facts from good authority. You must hear of it,
and you will see.
"There was once a Comtesse de Poitiers, named Honorinde, to whom fate had
given for a husband the greatest hunter in the world. This man would
have willingly passed his life in the woods, where he hunted, night and
day, what we call, in hunter's parlance, 'big game.' Having won the
victory over a monstrous boar, he cut off the head himself, and this
quivering and bleeding mask he went to offer to his lady in a basin. The
young woman was in the first month of her pregnancy. She was filled with
repugnance and fright at the sight of this still-threatening head; it
troubled her to the prejudice of her fruit.
"Eight, or seven and a half, months afterwards, she brought into the
world a girl who was human in her whole body, but above had the horrible
head of a wild boar! Imagine what cries, what grief, what despair! The
cure of the place refused baptism, and the Count, broken down and
desolate, ordered the child to be drowned.
"Instead of throwing it into the water, his servant scrupulously went
straight to the monastery where your sister rules. He laid down his
closed packet in the church of the monks, and then returned to his lord,
who never had any other child.
"The religious Benedictines, not knowing whence this monster came,
believed there was some prodigy in it. They baptised in this little
person all that was not boar, and left the surplus to Providence. They
brought up the singular creature in the greatest secrecy; it drank and
lapped after the manner of its kind. As it grew up it walked on its
feet, and that without the least imperfection; it could sit down, go on
its knees, and even make a courtesy. But it never articulated any
distinct words, and it had always a harsh and rough voice which howled
and grunted. Its intelligence never reached the knowledge of reading or
writing; but it understood easily all that could be said to it, and the
proof was that it replied by its actions.
"The Comte de Poitiers having died whilst hunting, Honorinde learnt of
her old serving-man in what refuge, in what asylum, he had long ago
deposited the little one. This good mother proceeded there, and the
monks, after some hesitation, confessed what had become of it. She
wished to see it; they showed it her. At its aspect she felt the same
inward commotion which had, years before, perverted nature. She groaned,
fainted, burst into tears, and never had the courage and firmness to
embrace what she had seen.
"Her gratitude was not less lively and sincere; she handed a considerable
sum to the Benedictines of Fontevrault, charging them to continue their
good work and charity.
"The reverend Prior, reflecting that his hideous inmate came of a great
family, and of a family of great property, resolved to procure it as a
wife for his nephew. He sounded the young man, who looked fixedly at his
future bride, and avowed that he was satisfied.
"She is a good Christian," he replied to his uncle, since you have
baptised her here. She is of a good family, since Honorinde has
recognised her. There are many as ugly as she is to be seen who still
find husbands. I will put a pretty mask on her, and the mask will give
me sufficient illusion. Benedicte, so far as she goes, is well-made; I
hope to have fine children who will talk.
"The Prior commenced by marrying them; he then confided in Honorinde,
who, not daring to noise abroad this existence, was compelled to submit
to what had been done.
"The marriage of the young she-monster was not happy. She bit her
husband from morning to night. She did not know how to sit at table, and
would only eat out of a trough. She needed neither an armchair, a sofa,
nor a couch; she stretched herself out on the sand or on the pavement.
"Her husband, in despair, demanded the nullification of his marriage; and
as the courts did not proceed fast enough for his impatience, he killed
his companion, Benedicte, with a pistol-shot, at the moment when she was
biting and tearing him before witnesses.
"Honorinde had her buried at Fontevrault, and over her tomb, at the end
of the year, she built a convent, to which her immense property was
given, where she retired herself as a simple nun, and of which she was
appointed first abbess by the Pope who reigned at the time.
"There, madame," added the King, "is the somewhat singular origin of the
illustrious abbey which your sister rules with such eclat. You must have
remarked the boar's head, perfectly imitated in sculpture, in the dome;
that mask is the speaking history of the noble community of Fontevrault,
where more than a hundred Benedictine monks obey an abbess."