avor to make our way into
it, and to take the reader in, and to say, without transgressing the
proper bounds, things which story-tellers have never seen, and have,
therefore, never described.

CHAPTER II--THE OBEDIENCE OF MARTIN VERGA

This convent, which in 1824 had already existed for many a long year in
the Rue Petit-Picpus, was a community of Bernardines of the obedience of
Martin Verga.

These Bernardines were attached, in consequence, not to Clairvaux, like
the Bernardine monks, but to Citeaux, like the Benedictine monks. In
other words, they were the subjects, not of Saint Bernard, but of Saint
Benoit.

Any one who has turned over old folios to any extent knows that Martin
Verga founded in 1425 a congregation of Bernardines-Benedictines,
with Salamanca for the head of the order, and Alcala as the branch
establishment.

This congregation had sent out branches throughout all the Catholic
countries of Europe.

There is nothing unusual in the Latin Church in these grafts of one
order on another. To mention only a single order of Saint-Benoit, which
is here in question: there are attached to this order, without counting
the obedience of Martin Verga, four congregations,--two in Italy,
Mont-Cassin and Sainte-Justine of Padua; two in France, Cluny and
Saint-Maur; and nine orders,--Vallombrosa, Granmont, the Celestins,
the Camaldules, the Carthusians, the Humilies, the Olivateurs, the
Silvestrins, and lastly, Citeaux; for Citeaux itself, a trunk for other
orders, is only an offshoot of Saint-Benoit. Citeaux dates from Saint
Robert, Abbe de Molesme, in the diocese of Langres, in 1098. Now it was
in 529 that the devil, having retired to the desert of Subiaco--he
was old--had he turned hermit?--was chased from the ancient temple of
Apollo, where he dwelt, by Saint-Benoit, then aged seventeen.

After the rule of the Carmelites, who go barefoot, wear a bit of willow
on their throats, and never sit down, the harshest rule is that of the
Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga. They are clothed in black,
with a guimpe, which, in accordance with the express command of
Saint-Benoit, mounts to the chin. A robe of serge with large sleeves,
a large woollen veil, the guimpe which mounts to the chin cut square on
the breast, the band which descends over their brow to their eyes,--this
is their dress. All is black except the band, which is white. The
novices wear the same habit, but all in white. The professed nuns also