"And why can't you say as much for the monks?"
"Why, because they have been driven out since 1797, of course."
"Then to whom does the Chartreuse belong?"
"To no one."
"What? A farm, a convent, a forest of ten thousand acres, and three thousand acres of land besides, here in France, which belongs to no one?"
"They belong to the Republic, which amounts to the same thing."
"Then the Republic does not cultivate the land which it confiscates?"
"As if it had the time! It has plenty of other things to do, has this Republic."
"What has it to do?"