s after.

When M. de Rance undertook the superintendance of the Monastery, it
exhibited a melancholy picture, of the greatest declension, and it
is curious to peruse the steps by which he effected so wonderful a
change;[2] and how men could ever feel it either an inclination or a
duty to enter upon a mode of life so different from the common ways of
thinking or feeling.

[Footnote 2: Reglements de L'Abbaye, La Maison-Dieu Notre Dame de La
Trappe, par Dom. Armand de Rance.]

The Monks of La Trappe were not only immersed in luxury and sloth, but
were abandoned to the most scandalous excesses; most of them lived by
robbery, and several had committed assassinations on the travellers
who had occasion to traverse the woods. The neighbourhood shrunk with
terror from the approach of men who never went abroad unarmed, and
whose excursions were marked with bloodshed and violence. The Banditti
of La Trappe was the appellation by which they were most generally
distinguished. Such were the men amongst whom M. de Rance resolved to
fix his abode; all his friends endeavouring to dissuade him from an
undertaking, they deemed alike hopeless and dangerous.

"Unarmed, and unassisted," [3] says his historian, "but in the panoply
of God, and by his Spirit, he went alone amidst this company of
ruffians, every one of whom was bent on his destruction. With
undaunted boldness, he began by proposing the strictest reform, and
not counting his life dear to him, he described the full intent of his
purpose, and left them no choice but obedience or Expulsion".

[Footnote 3: The work from which I have taken this, is a translation
by Mrs. Schimmelpenninck of Dom. Claude Lancelot's Narrative,
published in 1667. The present regulations not differing from the
former, I have extracted some of the most important.]

"Many were the dangers M. de Rance underwent; plans were laid, at
various times, to poison him, to waylay and assassinate him, and even
once one of his monks shot at him; but the pistol, which was applied
close to his head, flashed in the pan, and missed fire. By the good
providence of God all these plans were frustrated, and M. de Rance
not only brought his reform to bear, but several of his most violent
persecutors became his most stedfast adherents; many were, after a
short time, won over by his piety--the rest left the Monastery.
He especially, who had shot at M. de Rance, became eminently
distinguished for his piety and learning, and w