The order among whom I was, was that of La Trappe, which is by far the
most austere sect in Christendom. They allow themselves but five
hours' sleep, and that on a bare board, without putting off their
clothes. They perform masses each morning, from half-past two until
six o'clock; they deny themselves any meat whatever, their meal
invariably consisting of some oaten bread, with a little poor wine of
their own growing, disguised in water; and--they never speak!

When we reflect that what is not only the great characteristic between
man and the brute, but perhaps the most wonderful and beneficent gift
of God to man should be thus rejected, we cannot but be possessed
with a very sorry opinion of such an unjustifiable institution.

I have now spent a few days with two of them, both of whom were as
agreeable, truly well-bred men, as I ever met with; but what is the
more remarkable is that these two old men, who have lived, or rather
but just existed under such privations, were as good-tempered,
kind-hearted old persons, as it is capable for human frailty to
attain; and when we consider that each day is a day of penance, and
that, too, a monotonous penance, with not a prospect beyond their
walls, and none within, save their burial-ground, perhaps there is
nothing in the character of man so unaccountable as such overwhelming
immolation, unless it be that they esteem this life as so
insignificant, such a nothingness in comparison to eternity, and that
endless glories are to be earned by, comparatively speaking, momentary
deprivation, that they endure it as martyrs. And when, as I was, in
the stillness of the crumbling Abbey, while its bell tolled the hour
and reverberated through the courts and deserted cloisters, I
remembered that these poor old men, so kind, so hospitable to the
stranger, so denying, so unsparing to themselves, had here buried
their youth under such belief, I could not but from my heart wish them
compensation as extreme as their delusion.

CHAPTER IV.

On reaching Bourges, my attention was attracted by an object widely
differing from the venerable Abbot. Judging from my own experience, I
may confidently affirm that not an Englishman quits his country, but
he instantly becomes sensible of the comparative plainness of the
fairer sex. I need hardly say that I allude to that of the lower
orders; for as I was circumstanced, I was but little qualified to
estimate the attributes of the more exclusive