o divine by instinct that I was an
Englishman, as promptly as he did by my embarrassment that I was no
Frenchman, addressing me in my own language with great fluency,
though, as was to be expected, with a considerable accent. Informing
me that I was welcome to his monastery, he withdrew to order some
refreshment. Returning shortly with a monk, he announced my supper;
and I shall not forget the sense of humiliation I experienced, when
compelled to sit at table and be attended on by two persons, each of
whom was half a century my senior, and one of them that might grace
the proudest aristocracy of Europe, of which, indeed, this abbot, Pere
Antoine, was once a member in his youthful days, at the court of Louis
XV.

The monk who had now joined us proved to be my countryman, which
circumstance had induced his Superior to grant him the indulgence of
entertaining the stranger. I may be permitted to say indulgence, for,
with a face glowing with delight, he let me know that he had not
listened to his native tongue for fifteen years.

My supper consisted of broth, potatoes, and artichokes, which also
comprised my breakfast, as well as dinner, during my sojourn of three
days in this monastery, where they esteem even fish and eggs to be too
carnal. Such is the austerity of their lives, that this monk, who was
their physician, informed me that it required three entire years to
become inured to it, but that those who stood the ordeal mostly
attained a very great age. Their clothing, food, and medicines are
each confined to such as they themselves can manufacture from the
produce of the surrounding acres, of which they are the cultivators.
As the sun went down, the Abbot and his companion, wishing me
good-night, retired to rest. On approaching the window, I observed
another monk sauntering from the burial-ground, where, with his
hands, in conformity to their daily custom, he had been scooping out
his final resting-place.

Never have I been so conscious of intense loneliness and solitude! It
was now about midnight, and the moon was shining brightly on the Abbey
lake. Not a leaf was stirring, and all things as still as death, while
the clear evening star shone cold and motionless over the dark edge of
the forest, towering black and gloomy in the silent distance. I was as
"the last man." Not a soul was breathing nearer to me than the poor
old monks, who, hours ago, had crept to their dormitory in the
farthest cloister of the Abbey.