Part 35 (1/2)

He gave his hand to Durtal and begged him to sit down.

Then he asked if the food seemed to be enough for him. And on receiving a reply in the affirmative from Durtal he inquired if the long silence did not weigh upon him too much.

”Not at all, this solitude suits me perfectly.”

”Well,” said the abbot, laughing, ”you are one of the few laymen who have borne our rule so easily. Generally those who have tried to make a retreat here have been devoured by home sickness and spleen, and have had but one idea, to get away.”

”Let us see,” he said after a pause; ”it is not possible, all the same, that such a sudden change of habits should not bring with it some painful privations; there must be at least one which you feel above all the others?”

”True, I feel the want of being able to light a cigarette whenever I like.”

The abbot answered smiling, ”But I suppose you have not been entirely without smoking, since you came here?”

”I should tell a lie if I said I had not smoked in secret.”

”Why, bless me, tobacco was not foreseen by St. Benedict; there is no mention of it in his rule, and I am therefore free to allow its use; so smoke as many cigarettes as you like without being uneasy.”

And Dom Anselm added:

”I hope shortly to have a little more time to myself, unless, indeed, I am obliged to keep my room, in that case I shall be happy to have a longer talk with you.”

And the monk, who seemed exhausted, shook them by the hand.

Going down into the court with the oblate Durtal exclaimed,

”The Father Abbot is charming, and quite young.”

”He is hardly forty.”

”He appears to be really ill.”

”Yes, he is not well, and he required no common energy to say his ma.s.s this morning; but let us see, we will first of all visit the grounds of La Trappe which you can hardly have been over completely, then we will leave the enclosure and push on to the farm.”

They started, skirting the remains of the ancient abbey, and as they walked, turning by the piece of water near which Durtal had been seated in the morning, M. Bruno entered into explanations about the ruins.

”This monastery was founded in 1127 by St. Bernard, who installed the Blessed Humbert as abbot, an epileptic Cistercian, whom he had cured by a miracle. At that time there were apparitions in the convent; a legend relates that two angels came and cut one of the lilies planted in the cemetery every time one of the monks died.

”The second abbot was the Blessed Guerric, who was famous for his knowledge, his humility and his patience in enduring evils. We possess his relics and they are enclosed in the shrine under the high altar.

”But the most remarkable of the superiors, who succeeded each other here in the middle ages, was Peter Monoculus, whose story was written by his friend, the member of the synod, Thomas de Reuil.

”Pierre, called Monoculus, or the one-eyed, was a saint thirsting for austerities and sufferings. He was a.s.sailed by horrible temptations at which he laughed. Exasperated, the Devil attacked his body and, by fits of neuralgia, broke his skull, but Heaven came to his aid and cured it.

By shedding tears from a spirit of penitence, Peter lost an eye, and he thanked our Lord for this blessing, 'I had' he said, 'two enemies; I have escaped the first, but the one I retain troubles me more than the one I have lost.'

”He worked miracles of healing. The king of France, Louis VII., venerated him so much that, on seeing the empty eyelid, he wished to kiss it. Monoculus died in 1186; they soaked linen cloths in his blood, and washed his entrails in wine which was distributed, for the mixture was a powerful remedy.

”The property of the abbey was then immense; it comprised all the country which surrounds us, kept up several lazar houses in the neighbourhood, and was the home of more than three hundred monks.

Unfortunately what happened to others happened to Notre-Dame de l'Atre.

Under the rule of abbots in commendam it declined, and it was dying with only six religious to look after it when the Revolution suppressed it.