Two Summers in Guyenne: A Chronicle of the Wayside and Waterside

by Edward Harrison Barker

It was evident that no sentimental illusions respecting the begging class were entertained by the community. The monk confirmed what people in the country had already told me of the help afforded by the Trappists to peasant agriculturists in difficulties. The sick were, moreover, supplied with medicines gratuitously from the small pharmacy attached to the monastery. I did not ask the question, but I concluded that at least one of the fathers had a medical diploma. The medicine that was chiefly wanted in the Double when the Trappists settled there was quinine. The demand upon it was very heavy years ago, but by removing to a great extent the cause of the fever-breeding miasma, the monks have been able to economize the drug.

Talking about these matters, we reached the refectory. A great cold room with whitewashed walls, and five long narrow tables with benches on each side, stretching from end to end, was the place where the monks took their very frugal meals. The tables were laid for the first meal. There were no cloths, and it is almost needless to add that there were no napkins, although these are considered so essential in France that even in the most wretched auberge one is usually laid before the guest. Trappists, however, have little need of them. At each place were a wooden spoon and fork, a plate, a jug of water, and another jug—a smaller one—of beer, and a porringer for soup, which is the chief of the Trappists' diet. Very thin soup it is, the ingredients being water, chopped vegetables, bread, and a little oil or butter. Until a few years ago no oily matter, whether vegetable or animal, was allowed in the soup, nor was it permissible, except in case of sickness, to have more than one meal a day; but the necessity of relaxing the rule a little was realized. Now, during the six summer months of the year, there are two meals a day, namely, at eleven and six; but in winter there is still only one that is called a meal, and this is at four. There is, however, a goûter—just something to keep the stomach from collapsing—at ten in the morning. No flesh, nor fish, nor animal product, except cheese and butter, is eaten by these Trappists unless they fall ill, and then they have meat or anything else that they may need to make them well. There is, however, very little sickness amongst them. The living of each Trappist probably costs no more than sixpence a day to the community. Assuming that the money brought into the common fund by those who have a private fortune—the fathers, as a rule, are men of some independent means—covers the establishment expenses and the taxation imposed by the State, there must remain a considerable profit on the work of each individual, whether he labours in the fields or in the dairy and cheese rooms, or concerns himself with the sales and the accounts, or, like the porter at the gate, tests with an instrument the richness of the milk that is brought in by the peasants, lest they who have been befriended by the monks in sickness and penury should steal from them in return. To devote this surplus, obtained by a life of sacrifice compared to which the material misery of the beggars whom they relieve is luxury, to the lessening of human suffering, to the encouragement of the family, offering the hand of charity to the worthy and to the unworthy—expecting no honour from all this, not even gratitude—is a life that makes that of the theoretical philanthropists and humanitarian philosophers look rather barren. Let every man who lives up to an unselfish ideal have full credit for it, whether he be a Trappist or a Buddhist.

At one end of the refectory, below the line of tables, was a small wooden bench for a single person. The monk pointed to it with half a smile upon his face.

'What is it?' I asked.

'The stool of penitence,' he replied.

Here the monk who had brought upon himself some disciplinary correction sat by order of the abbot in view of everybody, and had the extra mortification of watching the others eat, while he, the penitent, had nothing to put between his teeth. I wondered if my cicerone had ever been perched there, but I was not on such terms of familiarity with him that I could ask the question.

From the refectory we went to the dormitory, an oblong room with a passage down the middle, and cells on each side—about fifty altogether. They were very narrow, and were separated by lath and plaster partitions, only carried to the height of about six feet. These partitions, which had been whitewashed over, looked very fragile and dilapidated, and altogether the appearance of this great dormitory was wretched in the extreme. A glance into the interior of two or three of the cells deepened this impression. In each was a small wooden bedstead about a foot and a half high, with nothing upon it but a very thin paillasse, a black blanket (the colour of the wool), and a little bolster. Upon a nail hung a small cat-o'-nine-tails of knotted whipcord.

'How often do you administer to yourselves the discipline?' I asked.

'Every Friday,' said the monk.

To other questions that I put to him he replied that about ten members of the community were priests, and that fathers and brothers used the dormitory in common. There was no distinction between the two classes as regards the vows that were taken.