So long as I followed the course of the Loire, I was each day surrounded, though not by magnificent, yet by a beautiful and happy kind of scenery; but as often as I quitted its banks for a few days, in order that I might pursue a more direct line towards the mountains of Savoy, which now began dimly to appear in the horizon, so often was I compelled to pass over a level and treeless soil, and with the captive of twenty years imprisonment, when led into the street only to be executed at the other end, I began to sigh, "O, that I might but look on a green tree once more!" And I shall long remember the cheerful and delightful sensation, as I again drew near the verdant tracts, and then listened to the distant sound of the rapid Loire.
During one of these detours, but through a well-wooded plain, on my way towards the old city of Bourges, I had long been pacing through a deep and dusty lane formed purposely to exclude every breath of air, while the sun appeared to be heaping coals of fire on my devoted head. I was at length compelled to sit down considerably affected by the intense heat and leg-weariness. The day was now somewhat advanced, while, to all appearance, there was no termination to the silent woods, or, perhaps, forests on every side.
"A night in the greenwood spent,
Is but to-morrow's merriment;"
but I was now so annoyed by thirst that I was again compelled to rise and persevere in toiling on my way, until I was so fortunate as to meet with a man, whose rough and wild exterior portended anything or everything sooner than such satisfactory tidings as I was sufficiently ingenious to extract from him. Conducting me a little in advance, he pointed towards a distant but gigantic cross, rearing itself up into the blue sky, and then left me, apparently confident that I should find everything needful at the foot of that cross.
Having reached this in about half an hour, I observed a monastery situated in a valley beneath me. This, then, I conjectured was to be my auberge; for, on looking around, nothing was to be seen save the aforesaid interminable glades, and, what was still somewhat perplexing, the monastery itself was apparently tenantless. Having seated myself in the shade, in order to contemplate some contrivance by which, in a respectful manner, I might gain admittance and reveal my necessities, during perhaps an hour's suspense, I recognised not a token of habitation, until at length a bell lazily tolled, and echoed among the solitary woods.
Descending into the valley, I now approached the portal, within which I found a person with a brown freckled face, enveloped in a cowl of the same colour, seated motionless on a cold stone bench behind the gate. For the instant, I was the rude Gaul, surveying the mysterious senator of the forum; but without insulting his beard, or wasting words on the subject, I followed my silent conductor through several extensive corridors, into a spacious and very habitable salon, where a remarkable and interesting person shortly made his appearance, approaching with his hand proffered in token of welcome, while his face beamed with everything one could imagine to be associated with benevolence and charity. He seemed to divine by instinct that I was an Englishman, as promptly as he did by my embarrassment that I was no Frenchman, addressing me in my own language with great fluency, though, as was to be expected, with a considerable accent. Informing me that I was welcome to his monastery, he withdrew to order some refreshment. Returning shortly with a monk, he announced my supper; and I shall not forget the sense of humiliation I experienced, when compelled to sit at table and be attended on by two persons, each of whom was half a century my senior, and one of them that might grace the proudest aristocracy of Europe, of which, indeed, this abbot, Pere Antoine, was once a member in his youthful days, at the court of Louis XV.
The monk who had now joined us proved to be my countryman, which circumstance had induced his Superior to grant him the indulgence of entertaining the stranger. I may be permitted to say indulgence, for, with a face glowing with delight, he let me know that he had not listened to his native tongue for fifteen years.
My supper consisted of broth, potatoes, and artichokes, which also comprised my breakfast, as well as dinner, during my sojourn of three days in this monastery, where they esteem even fish and eggs to be too carnal. Such is the austerity of their lives, that this monk, who was their physician, informed me that it required three entire years to become inured to it, but that those who stood the ordeal mostly attained a very great age. Their clothing, food, and medicines are each confined to such as they themselves can manufacture from the produce of the surrounding acres, of which they are the cultivators. As the sun went down, the Abbot and his companion, wishing me good-night, retired to rest. On approaching the window, I observed another monk sauntering from the burial-ground, where, with his hands, in conformity to their daily custom, he had been scooping out his final resting-place.
Never have I been so conscious of intense loneliness and solitude! It was now about midnight, and the moon was shining brightly on the Abbey lake. Not a leaf was stirring, and all things as still as death, while the clear evening star shone cold and motionless over the dark edge of the forest, towering black and gloomy in the silent distance. I was as "the last man." Not a soul was breathing nearer to me than the poor old monks, who, hours ago, had crept to their dormitory in the farthest cloister of the Abbey.
The order among whom I was, was that of La Trappe, which is by far the most austere sect in Christendom. They allow themselves but five hours' sleep, and that on a bare board, without putting off their clothes. They perform masses each morning, from half-past two until six o'clock; they deny themselves any meat whatever, their meal invariably consisting of some oaten bread, with a little poor wine of their own growing, disguised in water; and—they never speak!