himself. The copy of
the rules which is handed to him in advance explains to him the future
use of each day and of each hour, the detail in full of the regime to
which he is to subject himself. Besides this, to forestall any illusion
and haste on his part he is required to make trial of the confinement
and discipline; he realizes through personal, sensible and prolonged
experience what he must undergo; before assuming the habit, he must
serve a novitiate of at least one year and without interruption. Simple
vows sometimes precede the more solemn vows; with the Jesuits, several
novitiates, each lasting two or three years, overlie and succeed each
other. Elsewhere, the perpetual engagement is taken only after several
temporary engagements; up to the age of twenty-five the "Freres des
Ecoles Chretiennes" take their vows for a year; at twenty-five for three
years; only at twenty-eight do they take them for life. Certainly,
after such trials, the postulant is fully informed; nevertheless, his
superiors contribute what they know. They have watched him day after
day; deep down under his superficial, actual and declared disposition
they define his profound, latent, and future intention; if they deem
this insufficient or doubtful, they adjourn or prevent the final
profession: "My child, wait-your vocation is not yet determined," or "My
friend, you were not made for the convent, return to the world!"--Never
was a social contract signed more knowingly, after greater reflection
on what choice to make, after such deliberate study: the conditions of
human association demanded by the revolutionary theory are all fulfilled
and the dream of the Jacobins is realized. But not where they planned
it: through a strange contrast, and which seems ironical in history,
this day-dream of speculative reason has produced nothing in the lay
order of things but elaborate plans on paper, a deceptive and dangerous
Declaration of (human) Rights, appeals to insurrection or to a
dictatorship: incoherent or still-born organizations, in short,
abortions or monsters; in the religious order of things, it adds to the
living world thousands of living creatures of indefinite viability. So
that, among the effects of the French revolution, one of the principal
and most enduring is the restoration of monastic institutions....

From the Consulate down to the present day they can everywhere be seen
sprouting and growing. Early, new sprouts shoot out and cover the old