shed located outside of the abbey. Almost
all the slaves and colonists who had ground-rent to pay to the monastery
were gathered at the place. There were four days in the year set aside
for the payment of major rents. At these periods, the products of the
land that was cultivated, and with so much labor, by the Gauls, flowed
in a strong and steady stream into the abbey. Thus abundance and leisure
reigned within the holy precincts of this, the same as of all the other
monasteries, while the enslaved populations, barely sheltered in
thatched hovels, lived in perpetual and atrocious misery, borne down by
all manner of exactions. Few sights could be imagined, more lively and
yet so sad, than those presented at the payment of the ground-rent. The
peasants, barely clad, whether slaves outright or only colonists, whose
leanness told of their trials, arrived carrying on their shoulders or
pushing in carts provisions and products of all sorts. To the tumultuous
noise of the crowd was added the bleating of sheep and calves, the
grunting of pigs, the lowing of cattle, the cackling of poultry--animals
that the rent payers had to bring alive. Some of the men bent under the
weight of large baskets filled with eggs, cheese, butter and honeycombs;
others rolled barrels of wine that were taken to the abbey's gate on a
sort of sled; yonder, wagons were unloaded of their heavy bags of wheat,
of barley, of spelt, of oats or of mustard grain; here, hay and straw
were being heaped up in high piles; further away, kindling wood or
building material, such as beams, planks, boards, vine poles, stakes;
forester slaves brought in bucks, wild boars and venison to be smoked;
colonists led by the leash hunting dogs that they had to train, or
carried in cages falcons and sparrow-hawks that they had taken from
their nests for falconry; others, taxed in a certain quantity of iron
and lead, necessary articles in the construction of the buildings of the
abbey, carried these metals, while others brought rolls of cloth and of
linen, bales of wool or of hemp for spinning, large pieces of woven
serge, packages of cured hides, ready for use. There were also tenants
whose rent consisted in certain quantities of wax, of oil, of soap and
even resinous torches; baskets, osier, twisted rope, hatchets, hoes,
spades and other agricultural implements. Finally, others had to pay
with articles of furniture, and household utensils.

Ricarik sat down at one of the corners