situ_. I took pleasure in following through
the wretched latin of the time the description of this familiar landscape.
It has not changed.

The foundation charter bears date 1145. Subsequent charters show that the
abbey of Rozel was in possession, in the thirteenth century, of a sort of
patriarchate over all the institutions of the order of Saint Benedict that
were then in existence in the province of Normandy. A general chapter of
the order was held there every year, presided over by the Abbot of Rozel,
and at which some ten or a dozen other convents were represented by
their highest dignitaries. The discipline, the labors, the temporal and
spiritual management of all the Benedictines of the province were here
controlled and reformed with a severity which the minutes of these little
councils attest in the noblest terms. These scenes replete with dignity,
took place in that Capitulary Hall now so shamefully defiled.

Aside from the archives, this library is very rich, and this is apt to
divert attention. Moreover, the vortex of worldly dissipation that rages
in the chateau is not without occasionally doing some prejudice to my
independence. Finally, my worthy hosts frequently take away with one hand
the liberty they have granted me with the other; like many persons of the
world, they have not a very clear idea of the degree of connected
occupation which deserves the name of work, and an hour or two of
reading appears to them the utmost extent of labor that a man can bear
in a day.

"Consider yourself wholly free," Monsieur le Malouet tells me every
morning; "go up to your hermitage; work at your ease."

An hour later he is knocking at my door:

"Well! are we hard at work?"

"Why, yes, I am beginning to get into it."

"What! the duse! You have been at it more than two hours! You are killing
yourself, my friend. However, you are free. By the way, my wife is in the
parlor; when you have done you'll go and keep her company, won't you?"

"Most undoubtdedly I will."

"But only when you have entirely done, of course."

And, he goes off for a hunt or a ride by the seaside. As to myself,
preoccupied with the idea than I am expected, and satisfied that I shall
be unable to do any further work of value, I soon resolve to go and join
Madame de Malouet, whom I find deeply engaged in conversation with the
parish priest, or with Jacquemart (of Bordeaux). She has disturbed me, I
am in her way, and we smile pleasantly to eac