the
traveller, who willingly fatigues himself, in order to get sooner
over the road which leads him to the object of his wishes. But what
equally astonished and grieved me, was to see children brought
up with this severity: their poor locks shaved off, their young
countenances already furrowed, that deathly dress with which they
were covered before they knew any thing of life, before they had
voluntarily renounced it, all this made my soul revolt against the
parents who had placed them there. When such a state is not the
adoption of a free and determined choice on the part of the person
who professes it, it inspires as much horror as it at first created
respect. The monk with whom I conversed, spoke of nothing but death;
all his ideas came from that subject, or connected themselves with
it; death is the sovereign monarch of this residence. As we talked
of the temptations of the world, I expressed to the father Trappist
my admiration of his conduct in thus sacrificing all, to withdraw
himself from their influence. "We are cowards" said he to me, "who
have retired into a fortress, because we feel we want the courage
to meet our enemy in the open field." This reply was equally modest
and ingenious*.

A few days after we had visited these places, the French government
ordered the seizure of the father Abbe, M. de L'Estrange; the
confiscation of the property of the order, and the dismissal of the
fathers from Switzerland.

* (Note of the Editor.)I accompanied my mother in the excursion here
related. Struck with the wild beauty of the place, and interested by
the spiritual conversation of the Trappist who had attended us, I
besought him to grant me hospitality until the following day, as I
proposed going over the mountain on foot, in order to see the great
convent of the Val-Sainte, and rejoining my mother and M. de
Montmorency at Fribourg. This monk, with whom I continued to
converse, had not much difficulty in discovering that I hated the
imperial government, and I could guess that he fully participated in
that sentiment. Afterwards, after thanking him for his kindness, I
entirely lost sight of him, nor did I imagine, that he had preserved
the least recollection of me.

Five years afterwards, in the first months of the Restoration, I was
not a little surprised at receiving a letter from this same
Trappist.

He had no doubt, he said, that now the legitimate monarch was
restored to his throne, I must have a number of