the question? Does that
prevent Martin de Tours from being a saint, and giving half of his cloak
to a beggar? They persecute the saints. They shut their eyes to the
truth. Darkness is the rule. The most ferocious beasts are beasts which
are blind. No one thinks of hell as a reality. Oh! how wicked people
are! By order of the king signifies to-day, by order of the revolution.
One no longer knows what is due to the living or to the dead. A holy
death is prohibited. Burial is a civil matter. This is horrible. Saint
Leo II. wrote two special letters, one to Pierre Notaire, the other to
the king of the Visigoths, for the purpose of combating and rejecting,
in questions touching the dead, the authority of the exarch and the
supremacy of the Emperor. Gauthier, Bishop of Chalons, held his own
in this matter against Otho, Duke of Burgundy. The ancient magistracy
agreed with him. In former times we had voices in the chapter, even on
matters of the day. The Abbot of Citeaux, the general of the order, was
councillor by right of birth to the parliament of Burgundy. We do what
we please with our dead. Is not the body of Saint Benoit himself in
France, in the abbey of Fleury, called Saint Benoit-sur-Loire, although
he died in Italy at Mont-Cassin, on Saturday, the 21st of the month
of March, of the year 543? All this is incontestable. I abhor
psalm-singers, I hate priors, I execrate heretics, but I should detest
yet more any one who should maintain the contrary. One has only to
read Arnoul Wion, Gabriel Bucelin, Trithemus, Maurolics, and Dom Luc
d'Achery."

The prioress took breath, then turned to Fauchelevent.

"Is it settled, Father Fauvent?"

"It is settled, reverend Mother."

"We may depend on you?"

"I will obey."

"That is well."

"I am entirely devoted to the convent."

"That is understood. You will close the coffin. The sisters will carry
it to the chapel. The office for the dead will then be said. Then we
shall return to the cloister. Between eleven o'clock and midnight, you
will come with your iron bar. All will be done in the most profound
secrecy. There will be in the chapel only the four Mother Precentors,
Mother Ascension and yourself."

"And the sister at the post?"

"She will not turn round."

"But she will hear."

"She will not listen. Besides, what the cloister knows the world learns
not."

A pause ensued. The prioress went on:--

"You will remove your bell. It is not necessary that the sister at