no other furniture than a bed of boards, a human skull, and a
few religious books.

Silence is at all times rigidly maintained; conversation is never
permitted: should two of them even be seen standing near each other,
though pursuing their daily labour, and preserving the strictest
silence, it is considered as a violation of their vow, and highly
criminal; each member is therefore as completely insulated as if he
alone existed in the Monastery. None but the Pere Abbe knows the name,
age, rank, or even the native country of any member of the community:
every one, at his first entrance, assumes another name, as I before
observed, and with his former appellation, each is supposed to abjure,
not only the world, but every recollection and memorial of himself and
connexions: no word ever escapes from his lips by which the others can
possibly guess who he is, or where he comes from; and persons of the
same name, family, and neighbourhood, have often lived together in the
Convent for years, unknown to each other, without having suspected
their proximity.

The abstraction of mind practised at La Trappe, and the prevention of
all external communication with the world is such, that few but the
superior know any thing of what is passing in it. It has been related,
that so little information of the affairs of mankind did these people
receive, that the death of Louis XIV. was not known there for years,
except by the Father Abbe; and such was their state of seclusion, that
a Nobleman having taken a journey of five hundred miles, purposely to
see the Monastery, could scarcely find in the neighbouring villages
one person who knew where it was situated. Indeed, at the present day,
it is quite astonishing how little is known of this place, and how
very few, even among those in its immediate vicinity, have ever
visited it.[1]

On the great festivals they rise at midnight; otherwise they are not
called until three quarters past one: at two they assemble in the
Chapel, where they perform different services, public and private,
until seven in the morning, according to the regulations of the week,
as exemplified in the "_Table pour l'Office Divin_". At this hour they
go out to labour in the open air. Their work is of the most fatiguing
kind, is never intermitted, winter or summer, and admits of no
relaxation from the state of the weather.

[Footnote 1: Among the most frequent visitors of La Trappe, was
the unfortunate James the Second. H