Part 51 (1/2)

”And Brother Simeon discovered them!”

”Ah! you know that....” And he replied quite simply to Durtal, who spoke to him of his admiration for the poor lay brothers,

”You are right, sir; if you could talk with these peasants and illiterate men, you would be surprised at the often profound answers which these people give you; then they alone at the monastery are really courageous; we, the Fathers, when we think ourselves too weak, accept willingly the authorized addition of an egg; they never; they pray more, and it must be admitted that our Lord listens to them, since they get well again, and indeed are never ill.”

And to a question of Durtal who asked him in what consisted the functions of procurator, the monk answered,

”They consist in keeping the accounts, in being the commercial agent, in travelling, in managing, alas! everything which does not concern the life of the cloister; but we are so few in number at Notre Dame de l'Atre, that we become necessarily Jacks-of-all-trades. For instance, Father Etienne is cellarer of the Abbey and guest-master, he is also sacristan and bell-ringer. I too, am first cantor and professor of plain song.”

And while the carriage rolled along, shaken by the ruts, the procurator declared to Durtal, who told him how much the offices chanted at the monastery had delighted him,

”It is not with us that you ought to hear them; our choirs are too restricted, too weak to be able to raise the giant ma.s.s of those chants.

You ought to go to the black monks of Solesmes or Liguge if you wish to find the Gregorian melodies executed as they were in the Middle Ages. By the way, do you know in Paris, the Benedictine nuns in the Rue Monsieur?”

”Yes; but do you not think they coo a little?”

”I cannot say; all the same their collection of tunes is authentic, but at the little seminary at Versailles, you have better still, since they chant there exactly as at Solesmes; note this well, moreover, at Paris, when the churches decline to repudiate liturgical music, they use for the most part the false notation printed and spread in abundance in all the dioceses in France by the house of Pustet of Ratisbon.”

”But the errors and frauds with which those editions abound are well known.”

”The legend on which its partisans rely is incorrect. To a.s.sert, as they do, that this version is no other than that of Palestrina who was charged by Pope Paul V. to revive the musical liturgy of the Church, is an argument dest.i.tute of truth and void of force, for everyone knows that when Palestrina died, he had hardly begun the correction of the Gradual.

”I will add that even if that musician had finished his work, that would not prove that his interpretation ought to be preferred to that which has been recently const.i.tuted after patient researches by the Abbey of Solesmes, for the Benedictine texts are based on the copy preserved at the monastery of St. Gall of the antiphonary of Saint Gregory, which represents the most ancient and the most certain monument which the Church preserves of the true plain chant.

”This ma.n.u.script, of which photographic facsimiles exist, is the code of Gregorian melodies, and it ought to be, if I may use the expression, the neumatic Bible of choirs.

”The disciples of Saint Benedict are then absolutely right when they declare that their version alone is faithful, alone correct.”

”How then comes it that so many churches get their music from Ratisbon?”

”Alas, how comes it that Pustet has so long acquired the monopoly of liturgical books, and ... but no, better hold one's peace ... take this only for certain, that the German volumes are the absolute negation of the Gregorian tradition, the most complete heresy of plain chant.”

”By the way, what time is it? We must make haste,” said the procurator, looking at the watch which Durtal held up to him. ”Come up, my beauty,”

and he whipped up the mare.

”You drive with spirit,” cried Durtal.

”It is true; I forgot to say to you, that over and above my other functions, I also have, if need be, that of coachman.”

Durtal thought all the same that these people were extraordinary who lived an interior life in G.o.d. As soon as they consented to redescend on earth they revealed themselves as the most sagacious and the boldest of business men. An abbot founded a factory with the few pence he succeeded in gathering; he discerned the employment which suited each of his monks, and with them he improvised artisans, writing clerks, transformed a professor of plain chant into an agent, plunged into the tumult of purchases and sales, and little by little the house which scarcely was raised above the soil, grew, put forth shoots, and ended by nouris.h.i.+ng with its fruit the abbey which had planted it.

Transported into another environment these people would have as easily created great manufactories and started banks. And it was the same with the women. When one thinks of the practical qualities of a man of business, and the coolness of an old diplomatist which a mother abbess ought to possess in order to rule her community, one is obliged to admit that the only women, truly intelligent, truly remarkable are, outside of drawing-rooms, outside of the world, at the head of cloisters.

And as he expressed his wonder aloud, that monks were so expert at setting up business.

”It must be so,” sighed the father, ”but if you believe that we do not regret the time necessarily spent in digging the ground! then our spirit at least was free, then we could sanctify ourselves in silence which to a monk is as necessary as bread, for it is thanks to it, that he stifles vanity as it rises, that he represses disobedience as it murmurs, that he turns all his aspirations, all his thoughts towards G.o.d, and becomes at last attentive to His presence.

”Instead of that ... but here we are at the station; do not trouble yourself about your portmanteau, but go and take your ticket, for I hear the whistle of the train.”

And in fact Durtal had only time to shake hands with the father, who put his luggage into the carriage.