"But ... but ..." thought Durtal, "we must at any rate come to an
understanding; the abbé wearies me with his quiet assumptions, his
receptacle in which he must place me. He does not, I suppose, think of
making me a seminarist or a monk; the seminary, at my age, is devoid of
interest, and as to the convent, it is attractive from the mystical
point of view, and even enticing from the artistic standpoint, but I
have not the physical aptitudes, still less the spiritual
predispositions to shut myself up for ever in a cloister; but putting
that aside, what does he mean?
"On the other hand he has insisted on lending me the works of Saint John
of the Cross, and has made me read them; he has then an aim, for he is
not a man to feel his way as he walks, he knows what he wishes and where
he is going; does he imagine that I am intended for the perfect life,
and does he intend to put me on my guard by this course of reading
against the disillusions which, according to him, beginners experience?
His scent seems to fail him there. I have a very horror of bigotry, and
pious polish, but though I admire, I do not feel at all drawn towards
the phenomena of Mysticism. No, I am interested in seeing them in
others, I like to see it all from my window, but will not go downstairs,
I have no pretension to become a saint, all that I desire is to attain
the intermediate state, between goody-goodiness and sanctity. This is a
frightfully low ideal, perhaps, but in practice it is the only one I am
capable of attaining, and yet!
"Then these questions have to be faced! If I am mistaken and am obeying
false impulses, I am, as I advance, on the verge of madness. How, except
by a special grace, am I to know whether I am in the right way, or
walking in the dark towards the abyss? Here, for instance, are those
conversations between God and the soul so common in the mystical life;
how can one be sure that this interior voice, these distinct words not
heard with bodily ears, but perceived by the soul in a clearer fashion
than if they came by the channels of sense, are true, how be sure that
they emanate from God, not from our imagination or from the devil
himself?
"I know, indeed, that Saint Teresa treats this matter at length in her
'Castles of the Soul,' and that she points out the signs by which we can
recognize the origin of the words, but her proofs do not seem to me
always as easy to discern as she thinks.
"'If these expressions come from God,' she says, 'they are always
accompanied by an effect, and bring with them an authority which nothing
can resist; thus a soul is in affliction, and the Lord simply suggests
the words "trouble not thyself," and at once the whirlwind passes, and
joy revives. In the second place, these words leave an indissoluble
peace of mind, they engrave themselves on the memory, and often cannot
be effaced.'
"'In the other case,' she continues, 'if these words proceed from
imagination or from the demon, none of these effects are produced, a
kind of uneasiness, anguish and doubt torments you, moreover the
expressions evaporate in part, and fatigue the soul which endeavours in
vain to recall them in their entirety.'
"In spite of these tokens, we are, in fact, standing on shifting ground
in which we may sink at every step, but in his turn Saint John of the
Cross intervenes, and tells you not to move. What then is to be done?
"'No one,' he says, 'ought to aspire to these supernatural
communications and rest there, for two motives; first, humility, the
perfect abnegation of refusing to believe in them; the second, that in
acting thus, we deliver ourselves from the labour necessary to assure
ourselves whether these vocal visions are true or false, and so we are
dispensed from an examination which has no other profit for the soul
than loss of time and anxiety.'
"Good--but if these words are really pronounced by God, we rebel against
His will if we remain deaf to them. And then, as Saint Teresa declares,
it is not in our power not to listen to them, and the soul can only
think of what it hears when Jesus speaks to it. Moreover, all the
discussions on this subject are uncertain, for one does not enter of
one's own will into the strait way, as the Church calls it, we are led,
and even thrown into it often against the will, and resistance is
impossible, phenomena occur, and nothing in the world has power to check
them; witness Saint Teresa, who, resist as she would by humility, fell
into ecstasy under the divine breath, and was raised from the ground.
"No, these superhuman conditions alarm me, and I do not hold to knowing
them by experience. As to Saint John of the Cross, the abbé is not wrong
in calling him unique, but though he sounds the lowest strata of the
soul, and reaches where human auger has never penetrated, he wearies me
all the same in my admiration, for his work is full of nightmares which
repel me; I am not certain that his hell is correct, and some of his
assertions do not convince me. What he calls the 'night obscure' is
incomprehensible; 'The sufferings of that darkness surpass what is
possible,' he cries on each page. Here I lose foothold. I can imagine,
though I have not experienced them, the moral and terrible pangs, of the
deaths of friends and relations, love betrayed, hopes which failed,
spiritual sorrows of all kinds, but such a martyrdom as he proclaims as
superior to all others, is beyond me, for it is outside our human
interests, beyond our affections; he moves in an inaccessible sphere, in
an unknown world very far off.
"I am certainly afraid that this terrible saint, a true man of the
south, abuses metaphor, and is full of Spanish affectation.
"Moreover I am astonished at the abbé on another point. He, who is so
gentle, shows a certain leaning to the dry bread of Mysticism; the
effusions of Ruysbröck, of Saint Angela, of Saint Catherine of Genoa,
touch him less than the arguments of saints who are hard reasoners; yet
by the side of these he has advised me to read Marie d'Agreda, whom he
ought not to fancy, for she has none of those qualities which are
admired in the works of Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross.
"Ah! he may flatter himself that he has inflicted on me a complete
disillusion, by lending me her 'Cité Mystique.'
"From the renown of this Spanish woman, I expected the breath of
prophecy, wide outlooks, extraordinary visions. Not at all; her book is
simply strange and pompous, wearisome and cold. Then the phraseology of
her book is intolerable. All the expressions which swarm in those
ponderous volumes, 'my divine princess,' 'my great queen,' when she
addresses Our Lady, who in her turn speaks to her as 'my dearest,' just
as Christ calls her 'my spouse,' 'my well-beloved,' and speaks of her
continually as 'the object of my pleasure and delight,' the way in which
she speaks of the angels as 'the courtiers of the great King,' set my
nerves on edge and weary me.
"They smell of perriwigs and ruffles, bows and dances like Versailles, a
sort of court mysticism in which Christ pontificates, attired in the
costume of Louis XIV.
"Moreover Marie d'Agreda enters into most extravagant details. She tells
us of the milk of Our Lady which cannot grow sour, of female complaints
from which she was exempt, she explains the mystery of the conception by
three drops of blood which fell from the heart into the womb of Mary,
and which the Holy Ghost used to form the child; lastly, she declares
that Saint Michael and Saint Gabriel played the part of midwives, and
stood living, under human forms, at the lying-in of the Virgin.
"This is too strong. I know well that the abbé would say that we need
not concern ourselves with these singularities and these errors, but
that the 'Cité Mystique' is to be read in relation to the inner life of
the Blessed Virgin. Yes, but then the book of M. Ollier, which treats of
the same subject, seems to me curious and trustworthy in quite a
different way."
Was the priest forcing the note, playing a part? Durtal asked himself
this, when he saw how determined he was not to avoid the same questions
during a certain time. He tried now and then, in order to see how the
matter was, to turn the conversation, but the abbé smiled, and brought
it back to the point he wished.
When he thought that he had saturated Durtal with mystical works, he
spoke of them less, and seemed to attach himself mainly to the religious
Orders, and especially to that of Saint Benedict. He very cleverly
induced Durtal to become interested in this institution, and to ask him
about it, and when once he had entered on this ground, he did not depart
from it.
It began one day when Durtal was talking with him about plain chant.
"You have reason to like it," said the abbé, "for even independently of
the liturgy and of art, this chant, if I may believe Saint Justin,
appeases the desires and concupiscences of the flesh, 'affectiones et
concupiscentias carnis sedat,' but let me assure you, you only know it
by hearsay, there is no longer any true plain chant in the churches,
these are like the products of therapeutics, only more or less audacious
adulterations presented to you.
"None of the chants which are to some extent respected by choirs, the
'Tantum ergo,' for example, are now exact. It is given almost faithfully
till the verse 'Præstet fides,' and then it runs off the rails, taking
no account of the shades, which are, however, quite perceptible, that
the Gregorian melody introduces when the text declares the impotence of
reason and the powerful aid of Faith; these adulterations are still more
apparent, if you listen to the 'Salve Regina' after Compline. This is
abridged more than half, is enervated, blanched, half its pauses are
taken away, it is reduced to a mere stump of ignoble music, if you had
even heard this magnificent chant among the Trappists, you would weep
with disgust at hearing it bawled in the churches at Paris.
"But besides the textual alteration of the melody as we now have it, the
way in which the plain chant is bellowed is everywhere absurd. One of
the first conditions for rendering it well, is that the voices should go
together, that they should all chant in the same time syllable for
syllable and note for note, in one word it must be in unison.
"Now, you can verify it yourself, the Gregorian melody is not thus
treated; every voice takes its own part, and is isolated. Next, plain
music allows no accompaniment, it must be chanted alone, without organ,
it bears at most that the instrument should give the intonation and
accompany it very softly, just enough if need be to sustain the pitch
taken by the voices; it is not so that you will hear it given in the
churches."
"Yes, I know it well," said Durtal. "When I hear it at St. Sulpice, St.
Severin, or Notre Dame des Victoires, I am aware that it is
sophisticated, but you must admit that it is even then superb. I do not
defend the tricks, the addition of fiorituri, the falseness of the
musical pauses, the felonious accompaniment, the concert-room tone
inflicted on you at Saint Sulpice, but what can I do? in default of the
original I must be content with a more or less worthless copy, and I
repeat, even executed in that fashion the music is so admirable that I
am enchanted by it."
"But," said the abbé quietly, "nothing obliges you to listen to the
false plain chant, when you can hear the true, for saving your presence,
there exists, even in Paris, a chapel where it is intact, and given
according to the rules of which I have spoken."
"Indeed, and where is that?"
"At the Benedictine nuns of the Blessed Sacrament in the Rue Monsieur."
"And can anyone enter the convent and be present at the offices?"
"Anyone. Every day in the week, Vespers are sung at three o'clock, and
on Sundays High Mass is said at nine."
"Ah, had I but known this chapel earlier," said Durtal, the first time
he came out.
In fact it combined all the conditions he could wish. Situated in a
solitary street, it had the completest privacy. The architect who built
it had introduced no innovations or pretentiousness, had built a Gothic
church, and introduced no fancies of his own.
It was cruciform, but one of the arms was scarcely the full length, for
want of room, while the other was prolonged into a hall, separated from
the choir by an iron grating above which the Blessed Sacrament was
adored by two kneeling angels, whose lilac wings were folded over thin
rose-coloured backs. Except these two figures, of which the execution
was truly sinful, the rest was at least veiled by shadow, and was not
too afflicting to the eyes. The chapel was dim, and always at the time
of the offices, a young sacristan-sister, tall and pale, and rather
bent, entered like a shadow, and each time that she passed before the
altar she fell on one knee and bowed her head profoundly.
She seemed strange and scarcely human, gliding noiselessly over the
pavement, her head bowed, with a band as low as her eyebrows, and she
seemed to fly like a large bat when standing before the tabernacle she
turned her back, moving her large black sleeves as she lighted the
tapers. Durtal one day saw her features, sickly but charming, her
eyelids dark, her eyes of a tired blue, and he guessed that her body was
wasted by prayers, under her black robe drawn together by a leathern
girdle ornamented by a little medal of the Blessed Sacrament of gilt
metal, under the trimming, near her heart.
The grating of the enclosure, on the left of the altar, was large, and
well lighted from behind, so that even when the curtains were drawn it
was possible to see the whole chapter drawn up in file in their oaken
stalls surmounted at the end by a higher stall in which the abbess sat.
A lighted taper stood in the middle of the hall, and before it a nun
prayed day and night, a cord round her neck, to expiate the insults
offered to Jesus under His Eucharistic form.
The first time Durtal had visited the chapel, he had gone there on
Sunday a little before the time of Mass, and he had been thus able to be
present at the entry of the Benedictine nuns, behind the iron screen.
They advanced two and two, stopped in the middle of the grating, turned
to the altar and genuflected, then each bowed to her neighbour, and so
to the end of this procession of women in black, only brightened by the
whiteness of the head-band and the collar, and the gilt spot of the
little monstrance on the breast. The novices came last, to be recognized
by the white veils which covered their heads.
And when an old priest, assisted by a sacristan, began the mass softly
at the end of the chapter, a small organ gave the tone to the voices.
Then Durtal might well wonder, for he had never before heard a sole and
only voice made up of perhaps some thirty, of a tone so strange, a
superterrestrial voice, which burnt upon itself, in the air, and
intertwined its soft cooings.
This bore no resemblance to the icy and obstinate lament of the
Carmelites, nor was it like the unsexed tone, the child's voice,
squeaking, rounded off at the end of the Franciscan nuns, but quite
another thing.
At La Glacière in fact those raw voices, though softened and watered by
prayers, kept somewhat of the drawling, almost vulgar, inflexion of the
people from whom they came; they were greatly purified, but remained
none the less human. Here the tenderness of tones was rendered angelic,
that voice with no defined origin long bolted through the divine sieve,
patiently modelled for the liturgical chant, caught fire as it unfolded,
blazed in virginal clusters of white sound, died down, flowered out
again in pale pleadings, distant, seraphic at the end of certain chants.
Thus interpreted the Mass gave a special accent to the sense of the
sequences.
Standing, behind the grating, the convent answered the priest.
Durtal had then heard, after a mournful and solemn "Kyrie Eleison,"
sharp and almost tragic, the decided cry, so loving and so grave, of the
"Gloria in Excelsis," to the true plain chant; he had listened to the
Credo, slow and bare, solemn and pensive, and he was able to affirm that
these chants were totally different from those which were sung
everywhere in the churches. St. Severin and St. Sulpice now seemed to
him profane; in the place of their gentle warmth, their curls and their
fringes, the angles of their polished melodies, their modern endings,
their incoherent accompaniments arranged for the organ, he found himself
in the presence of a chant, thin, sharp and nervous, like the work of an
early master, and saw the ascetic severity of its lines, its sonorous
colouring, the brightness of its metal hammered out with the rude yet
charming art of Gothic jewels, he heard under the woven robe of sound,
the beating of a simple heart, the ingenuous love of ages, and he
noticed that curious shade in Benedictine music; it ended all cries of
adoration, all tender cooings in a timid murmur, cut short, as though
shrinking in humility, effacing itself modestly as though asking pardon
of God for daring to love Him.
"Ah, you were very right to send me there," said Durtal to the abbé when
next he saw him.
"I had no choice," answered the priest, smiling, "for the plain chant is
respected only in convents under the Benedictine rule. That grand Order
has restored it. Dom Pothier has done for it what Dom Guéranger has done
for the liturgy.
"Moreover, beyond the authenticity of the vocal text, and the manner of
rendering it, there are still two essential conditions for restoring the
special life of these melodies, and they are hardly found except in
cloisters, first Faith, and next the understanding the meaning of the
words sung."
"But," interrupted Durtal, "I do not suppose that the Benedictine nuns
know Latin."
"I beg your pardon, among the nuns of Saint Benedict, and even among the
cloistered sisters of other Orders there are a certain number who study
the language enough to understand the Breviary and the Psalms. That is a
serious advantage which they have over the choirs, composed for the most
part of artisans without instruction and without piety, only simple
workers with their voices.
"Now without wishing to abate your enthusiasm for the musical honesty of
these nuns, I am bound to say, that in order to understand this
magnificent chant in its height and breadth, you must hear it, not
winnowed by the mouths of virgins, even if unsexed, but as it issues,
unsmoothed, untrimmed from the lips of men. Unfortunately, though there
are at Paris, in the Rue Monsieur and the Rue Tournefort, two
communities of Benedictine nuns, there is not on the other hand a single
monastery of Benedictine monks."
"At the Rue Monsieur do they absolutely follow the rule of Saint
Benedict?"
"Yes; but over and above the usual vows of poverty, chastity, remaining
in the cloister, obedience, they make a further vow of separation and
adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, as formulated by Saint Mechtilde.
"And so they lead the most austere existence of any nuns. They scarcely
taste flesh; they rise at two in the morning to sing Matins and Lauds,
night and day, summer and winter, they take turns before the taper of
reparation, and before the altar. It need not be said," continued the
abbé after a pause, "that woman is stronger and braver than man; no male
ascetic could live and lead such a life, especially in the enervating
atmosphere of Paris."
"What perhaps astounds me still more," said Durtal, "is the kind of
obedience exacted of them. How can a creature endowed with free will
annihilate herself to such an extent?"
"Oh," said the abbé, "the obedience is the same in all the great
Orders, absolute, without reserve; its formula is well summed up by
Saint Augustine. Listen to this sentence which I remember to have read
in a commentary on his rule:
"'We must enter into the feelings of a beast of burthen, and allow
ourselves to be led like a horse or a mule, which have no understanding;
or rather, that obedience may be still more perfect, since these animals
kick against the spur, we must be in the hands of a superior like a
block, or the stock of a tree, which has neither life, nor movement, nor
action, nor will, nor judgment.' Is that clear?"
"It is most frightful! I quite admit," said Durtal, "that in exchange
for such abnegation, the nuns must be powerfully aided from on high, but
are there not some moments of falling away, some cases of despair, some
instants in which they pine for a natural life in the open air, in which
they lament that death in life which they have made for themselves; are
there not days in which their senses wake and cry aloud?"
"No doubt; in the cloistered life the age of twenty-nine is terrible to
pass, then a passionate crisis arises; if a woman doubles that cape, and
she almost always does so, she is safe.
"But carnal emotions are not, to speak correctly, the most troublesome
assault they have to undergo. The real punishment they endure in those
hours of sorrow is the ardent, wild regret for that maternity of which
they are ignorant; the desolate womb of woman revolts, and full of God
though she be, her heart is breaking. The child Jesus whom they have
loved so well then appears so far off and so inaccessible, and His very
sight would hardly satisfy them, for they have dreamed of holding Him in
their arms, of swathing and rocking Him, of giving Him suck, in one
word, of being mothers.
"Other nuns undergo no precise attack, no assault to which a name can be
given, but without any definite reason they languish and die suddenly,
like a taper, blown out. The torpor of the cloister kills them."
"But indeed, Monsieur l'abbé, these details are far from encouraging."
The priest shrugged his shoulders. "It is the poor reverse of a splendid
stuff," he said, "wonderful recompenses are granted, even in this
world, to souls in convents."
"Nor do I suppose that if a nun fall, stricken in the flesh, she is
abandoned. What does the Mother abbess in such a case?"
"She acts according to the bodily temperament and state of the soul of
the sick person. Note that she has been able to follow her during the
years of her probation, that she has necessarily gained an influence
over her; at such times therefore she will watch her daughter very
closely, endeavour to turn the course of her ideas, breaking her by hard
work, and by occupying her mind; she must not leave her alone, must
diminish her prayers, if need be, restrict her hours of office, lessen
her fasts, give her, if the case demands it, better food. In other
cases, on the contrary, she will have recourse to more frequent
communions, lessen her food or cause her to be blooded, mix cooling
meats with her diet, and above all things she and all the community must
pray for her.
"An old Benedictine abbess, whom I knew at Saint-Omer, an incomparable
guide of souls, limited before all things the length of confessions. The
moment she saw the least symptoms arise she gave two minutes, watch in
hand, to the penitent, and when the time was up she sent her back from
the confessional, to mix with her companions."
"Why so?"
"Because in convents, even for souls which are well, confession is a
most dangerous relaxation, it is as it were too long and too warm a
bath. In it nuns go to excess, open their hearts uselessly, dwell upon
their troubles, accentuate them, and revel in them; they come out more
weakened and more ill than before. Two minutes ought indeed to be enough
for a nun in which to tell her little sins.
"Yet ... yet ... I must admit it, the confessor is a danger for a
convent, not that I suspect his honour, that is not at all what I mean,
but as he is generally chosen from among the bishop's favourites, there
are many chances that he may be a man who knows nothing, and quite
ignorant of how to deal with such souls, ends by unsettling them while
he consoles them. Again, if demoniac attacks, so common in nunneries,
occur, the poor man can only gape, gives all sorts of confused counsel,
and hinders the energy of the abbess, who in such matters knows far
better than he."
"And," said Durtal, who chose his words carefully, "tell me, I suppose
that tales like those which Diderot gives in his foolish volume 'La
Religieuse' are incorrect?"
"Unless a community is rotted by a superior given over to Satanism,
which, thank God, is rare, the filthy stories told by that writer are
false, and there is moreover a good reason why it should be so, for
there is a sin which is the very antidote of the other, the sin of
zeal."
"What?"
"Yes: the sin of zeal which causes the denunciation of our neighbour,
gives scope to jealousy, creates spying to satisfy hate, that is the
real sin of the cloister. Well, I assure you that if two sisters became
quite shameless they would be denounced at once."
"But I thought, Monsieur l'Abbé, that tale-bearing was allowed by the
rules of most orders?"
"It is, but perhaps there is a temptation to carry it somewhat to
excess, especially in convents of women; for you can imagine that if
nunneries contain pure mystics, real saints, they have in them also some
nuns less advanced in the way of perfection, and who even still retain
some faults...."
"Come, since we are in the chapter of minute details, dare I ask if
cleanliness is not just a little neglected by these good women?"
"I cannot say; all that I know is, that in the Benedictine abbeys I have
known, each nun was free to act as seemed good to her; in certain
Augustinian constitutions, the case was provided for in contrary
fashion, it was forbidden to wash the body, except once a month. On the
other hand, amongst the Carmelites cleanliness is exacted. Saint Teresa
hated dirt, and loved white linen, her daughters have even, I think, a
right to have a flask of Eau de Cologne in their cells. You see this
depends on the order, and probably also, when the rule does not
expressly mention it, on the ideas which the superior may have on the
subject. I will add that this question must not be looked at only from
the worldly point of view, for corporal dirt is for certain souls an
additional suffering and mortification which they impose on themselves,
as Benedict Labre."
"He who picked up vermin which left him, and put them piously in his
sleeve. I prefer mortifications of another kind."
"There are harder ones, believe me, and I think they would suit you
better. Would you like to imitate Suso, who, to subdue his passions,
bore on his naked shoulders, for eighteen years, an enormous cross set
with nails, whose points pierced his flesh? More than that, he
imprisoned his hands in leather gloves which also bristled with nails,
lest he should be tempted to dress his wounds. Saint Rose of Lima
treated herself no better, she bound a chain so tightly round her body
that it penetrated the skin, and hid itself under the bleeding pad of
flesh, she wore also a horsehair girdle set with pins, and lay on shards
of glass; but all these trials are nothing in comparison of those
inflicted on herself by a Capuchin nun, the venerable Mother Pasidée of
Siena.
"She scourged herself with branches of juniper and holly, then poured
vinegar into her wounds, and sprinkled them with salt, she slept in
winter on the snow, in summer on bunches of nettles, or pebbles, or
brushes, put drops of hot lead in her shoes, knelt upon thistles, thorns
and sticks. In January she broke the ice in a cask and plunged into it,
and she even half-stifled herself by hanging head downwards in a chimney
in which damp straw was lighted, but that is enough; indeed," said the
abbé laughing, "if you had to choose, you would like best the
mortifications which Benedict Labre imposed on himself."
"I would rather have none at all," answered Durtal.
There was a moment's pause.
Durtal's thoughts went back to the Benedictine nuns: "But," said he,
"why do they put in the 'Semaine religieuse,' after their title
Benedictine Nuns of the Blessed Sacrament, this further name, 'Convent
of Saint Louis du Temple?'"
"Because," said the abbé, "their first convent was founded on the actual
ruins of the Temple prison, given them by royal warrant, when Louis
XVIII. returned to France.
"Their foundress and superior was Louise Adélaïde de Bourbon Condé, an
unfortunate princess of many wanderings, almost the whole of whose life
was spent in exile. Expelled from France by the Revolution and the
Empire, hunted in almost every country in Europe, she wandered by
chance among convents seeking shelter, now among the nuns of the
Annunciation at Turin and the Capuchins in Piedmont, now among the
Trappistines in Switzerland and the Sisters of the Visitation at Vienna,
now among the Benedictines of Lithuania and Poland. At last she found
shelter among the Benedictines in Norfolk, till she could again enter
France.
"She was a woman singularly trained in monastic science and experienced
in the direction of souls.
"She desired that in her abbey every sister should offer herself to
heaven in reparation for crimes committed; and that she should accept
the most painful privations to make up for those which might be
committed; she instituted there the perpetual adoration, and introduced
the plain chant, in all its purity, to the exclusion of all others.
"It is, as you have been able to hear, there preserved intact; it is
true that since her time, her nuns have had lessons from Dom Schmitt,
one of the most learned monks in that matter.
"Then, after the death of the princess, which took place, I think, in
1824, it was perceived that her body exhaled the odour of sanctity, and
though she has not been canonized her intercession is invoked by her
daughters in certain cases. Thus, for example, the Benedictine nuns of
the Rue Monsieur ask her assistance when they lose anything, and their
experience shows that their prayer is never in vain, since the object
lost is found almost at once.
"But," continued the abbé, "since you like the convent so well, go
there, especially when it is lighted up."
The priest rose and took up a "Semaine religieuse," which lay upon the
table.
He turned over the leaves. "See," he said, and read, "'Sunday 3 o'clock,
Vespers chanted; ceremony of clothing, presided over by the Very
Reverend Father Dom Etienne, abbot of the Grande Trappe, and
Benediction.'"
"That is a ceremony which interests me much."
"I too shall probably be there."
"Then we can meet in the chapel?"
"Just so."
"These ceremonies of clothing have not now the gaiety they had in the
eighteenth century in certain Benedictine institutions, amongst others
the Abbey de Bourbourg in Flanders," said the abbé smiling, after a
silence.
And since Durtal looked at him questioningly--
"Yes, there was no sadness about it, or at least it had a special
sadness of its own; you shall judge. On the eve of the day that the
postulant was to take the habit, she was presented to the abbess of
Bourbourg by the governor of the town. Bread and wine were offered to
her, and she tasted them in the church itself. On the morrow she
appeared, magnificently dressed, at a ball which was attended by the
whole community of nuns, where she danced, then she asked her parents'
blessing, and was conducted, with violins playing, to the chapel, where
the abbess took possession of her. She had for the last time seen, at
the ball, the joys of the world, for she was immediately shut up, for
the rest of her days in the cloister."
"The joy of the Dance of Death," said Durtal, "monastic customs and
congregations were strange in old days."
"No doubt, but they are lost in the night of time. I remember, however,
that in the fifteenth century there existed under the rule of Saint
Augustine an order strange indeed, called the Order of the Daughters of
Saint Magloire, whose convent was in the Rue Saint Denys at Paris. The
conditions of admission were the reverse of those of all other charters.
The postulant had to swear on the holy Gospels that she had been
unchaste, and no one believed her oath; she was examined, and if her
oath were false, she was declared unworthy to be received. Nor might she
have brought about this condition expressly in order to enter the
convent, she must have well and truly given herself over to sin, before
she came to ask the shelter of the cloister.
"They were in fact a troop of penitent girls, and the rule of their
subjection was savage. They were whipped, locked up, subjected to the
most rigid fasts, made their confessions thrice in the week, rose at
midnight, were under the most unremitting surveillance, were even
attended in their most secret retirement; their mortifications were
incessant and their closure absolute. I need hardly add that this
nunnery is dead."
"Nor likely to revive," cried Durtal. "Well then, Monsieur l'Abbé, we
meet on Sunday in the Rue Monsieur?"
And on the assent of the abbé, Durtal went his way, with the strangest
ideas in his head about the monastic orders. The thing would be, he
thought, to found an abbey where one could work at ease in a good
library, there should be several monks, with decent meals, plenty of
tobacco, and permission to take a turn on the quays now and then. And he
laughed; but then that would not be a monastery! or only a Dominican
monastery, with monks who dine out, and have, at least, the amusement of
preaching.