*

It was years before Father Griffen heard of the adventurer again.

EPILOGUE.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE ABBEY.

The abbey of St. Quentin, situated not far from Abbeville and almost at
the mouth of the Somme, possessed the finest farms in the province of
Picardy; each week its numerous tenants paid in kind a part of their
rents. In order to represent abundance, a painter might have chosen the
moment when this enormous tithe was carried to the convent.

At the end of the month of November, 1708, about eighteen years after
the events of which we have spoken, the tenants were met together on a
misty, cold autumn morning, in a little court situated outside the
buildings of the abbey and not far from the lodge of the porter.

Outside one saw the horses, the asses, and the carts which had served
for the transportation of the immense quantity of produce destined for
the provisioning of the convent.

A bell rang, all the peasants pressed to the foot of a small staircase
of a few steps, situated under a shed which occupied the back part of
the court. The flight of steps was surmounted by a vault through which
one came out from the interior of the convent.

The cellarer, accompanied by two lay brethren, appeared under this
vault.

The fat, rubicund, animated face of the Father, detached itself like a
Rembrandt on the obscure depth of the passage at the extremity of which
he had stopped; from fear of the cold, the monk had drawn over his head
the warm hood of his black cloak. A soft _soutane_ of white wool draped
itself in large folds about his enormous obesity.

One of the brothers carried an ink bottle at his girdle, a pen behind
his ear, and a big register under his arm; he seated himself on one of
the steps of the staircase, in order to enter the rents brought by the
farmers.

The other brothers classified the goods under the shed as they were
placed there; while the cellarer, from the top of the flight of steps,
presided solemnly over their admission, his hands concealed in his large
cuffs.

It is impossible to number and describe this mass of comestibles placed
at the foot of the staircase. Here were enormous fish from the sea, the
lake, or the river, which still wriggled on the slabs of the court;
there magnificent capons, monstrous geese, large ducks coupled by their
feet, fluttered convulsively in the midst of mountains of fresh butter
and immense baskets of eggs, vegetables, and winter fruits.