in the honey, and ate
them with the bread, and excellent they were. In the place of coffee,
which was forbidden, we had hot milk boiled with borage to flavour it,
quite a pleasant beverage. The washing arrangements being primitive, I
waited until every one was safely occupied in Chapel for an hour and a
half, and then had a swim in the reservoir which supplied the monastery
with water, and can only trust that I did not dirty it much. I was
greatly disappointed with the singing in the severe, unadorned Chapel;
it was plainsong, without any organ or instrument. The effect of so
great a body of voices might have been imposing had not the intonation
(as kindly critics say at times of a debutante) been a little
uncertain. As Trappists never speak, one could understand their losing
their voices, but it seems curious that they should have lost their
ears as well, though possibly it was only the visitors who sang so
terribly out of tune.

I was taken all over the Monastery next day by the "Pere Hospitalier,"
who, like his brown-frocked lay-brother, wore a black stole over his
white habit, as a badge of office. With the exception of the fine
cloisters, there were no architectural features whatever about the
squat, massive pile of buildings. The modern chapel, studiously severe
in its details, bore the unmistakable imprint of Viollet-le-Duc's
soulless, mathematically correct Gothic. Personally, I think that
Viollet-le-Duc spoiled every ancient building in France which he
"restored." I was taken into the refectory to see the monks' dinners
already laid out for them. They consisted of nothing but bread and
salad, but with such vast quantities of each! Each monk had a yard-long
loaf of bread, a bottle of wine and an absolute stable-bucket of salad,
liberally dressed with oil and vinegar. The oil supplied the fat
necessary for nutrition, still it was a meagre enough dinner for men
who had been up since 3 a.m. and had done two hours' hard work in the
vegetable gardens. The "Pere Hospitalier" told me that not one scrap of
bread or lettuce would be left at the conclusion of the repast. The
immense austerity of the place impressed me very much. The monks all
slept on plank-beds, but they were not allowed to remain on these hard
resting-places after 3 a.m. Their "Rule" was certainly a very severe
one. I was told that the monks prepared Tincture of Arnica for
medicinal purposes in an adjoining factory, arnica growing wild
everywhere in t