—Drink this, friend,; and tell me what you think of it.
At this, the priest of Graveson, with all the care of a jeweller counting pearls, poured me two fingers of what proved to be a fresh, golden, cordial, sparklingly exquisite liqueur…. It warmed the cockles of my heart.
—It's Father Gaucher's elixir, the pleasure and toast of Provence, crowed the kind man, it's made at the White Canons' Monastery, a few kilometres from your windmill…. Now, isn't that worth all the Chartreuses in the world?… And if you'd like to know the amusing story of this delightful elixir, listen to this….
The presbytery's dining room was genuine, and calm, with little pictures of the Stations of the Cross, and attractive, clear curtains starched like a surplice. It was in there that the priest began this short, and lightly sceptical and irreverent story, in the manner of Erasmus, but completely without art, or malicious intent.
* * * * *
Twenty years ago, the Norbertian monks, called the White Canons in Provence, hit some really hard times. To see their living conditions at that time was to feel their pain.
Their great wall and St. Pacôme's tower were crumbling away. The cloister was disappearing under the weeds, the columns were splitting, and the stone saints were collapsing in their niches. There was no stained glass window unbroken; nor door still on its hinges. Within the chapels and the inner cloister, the Rhone wind entered, just like in the Camargue, blowing out candles, bending the lead and breaking the glass, and skimming the holy water from its font. Tellingly sadly, the convent bell hung as silent as an empty dovecote, forcing the penniless Fathers to call to matins with an almond wood clapper!…
Oh, the woeful White Canons. I can still see them in procession on Corpus Christi day, sadly filing past in their patched capes—pale, emaciated, as befitted their mainly watermelon diet—followed by his grace the abbot, head lowered, shamed by his tarnished crosier, and his eaten away, white, wool mitre. The lady followers of the brotherhood were reduced to tears of pity in the procession, and the well-built banner-carriers were tittering quietly amongst themselves as the poor monks appeared,
—Those who dream together, starve together
The fact is that the unfortunate White Canons had come to the point where they were wondering if they wouldn't be better off finding a place in the real world with every man for himself.