In the beginning of the last wars, when I was very young, I had the misfortune to be prisoner in Luxembourg, and not too civilly treated by the governor, the morose Count Dautel. Close confinement, (though in the postmaster’s house,) with the unusual smell of the stoves, (for it was in the cold month of March,) made me very ill, and worse, in all probability, should have been, had I not obtained the liberty of the town, which, after many fruitless solicitations, I despaired, from the ill-natured governor, nor should ever have had, were it not by the pressing instance of Father Cripps, a German Franciscan friar, of the convent of Luxembourg, whom they called there Heer[1] Cripps, being confessor to the governor, and having been once sent on a message of moment from him to the king of Spain, Philip the Fifth, now reigning.
This Father was really a good man, and a man of honour; him I gained by the good-nature of the postmaster, whose son was then in his noviceship, in the noviciate of their Order at Ulflingen. I need not tell you, that by noviceship is meant that year of probation, which those who have a mind to enter into any religious order in the church of Rome, must pass through, before they can be professed, or take their vows. This you, who have been abroad, must know as well as I.
This good father, with much ado, obtained what I desired from the governor, who he said was, homo mirabilis in negotiis suis, which, by the sequel of his discourse, I understood signified, a very strange man in his affairs. Gratitude obliged me to invite this reverend father to a glass of Rhenish, the wine of the country, which, he frankly accepted of in the afternoon, and, indeed, drank very plentifully, more Germanorum, as you have described. But though he would drink largely as well as his companion, yet I must own, that in none of the many merry bouts we had together (for he visited me very often afterwards, as I did him, I never saw him so far advanced as to lose his reason) he never failed a large glass brimful to St. Boniface, which he drank to the pious memory of the good Father, ad piam memoriam boni patris, and sometimes only to the good Father, ad bonum patrem. I found afterwards the same laudable custom of St. Boniface’s cup in the Low Countries, France and Italy, &c. amongst the religious.
And now, before I subscribe myself,
Sir,
Your most obedient, &c.
give me leave to tell you, that the French religious, who do not speak much Latin, drink healths in their own language. But I was surprised, when I heard in a certain monastery every one of the fathers drink a full glass to each other in these words, “a bumper,” as I thought. I am obliged to your reverence (reverend father, said I to the procurator, who sat next me, and drank to me in the same words) in drinking in our country language, you do me a great deal of honour. It may be your country phrase, said the prior to me, very gravely, for what I know; your countrymen make use of a great many of our words, but the thing itself, let the word (or vox significans) be what it will, the thing (or res significata) is very laudable, and every one will practise, who has any respect for the sacred see, holy church, and the good of his own soul. Did you never hear of the indulgences that the good father, holy pope St. Boniface, has granted to such as drink his cup, and which we have just now piously done? I ask your reverence’s pardon, reverend father, said I, I thought we had only been drinking a bumper to one another. Seulement au bon pere! replied he a little warmly (for the conversation was all in French, and which word I till then mistook for a bumper.) Why, that is all, said he, mais (continued he) c’êtoit au bon pere Saint Boniface. You see, sir, the double entendre[2], and that drinking of bumpers, which some precisians have ignorantly called profane, is a practice very orthodox and catholic.
Heigh Church militant, rare Church militant, dainty Church militant, O!
Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub a dub. Dub. Dub.
Tan. Tan. Tan. Tan. tara rara ra.