"How then comes it that so many churches get their music from Ratisbon?"
"Alas, how comes it that Pustet has so long acquired the monopoly of liturgical books, and ... but no, better hold one's peace ... take this only for certain, that the German volumes are the absolute negation of the Gregorian tradition, the most complete heresy of plain chant."
"By the way, what time is it? We must make haste," said the procurator, looking at the watch which Durtal held up to him. "Come up, my beauty," and he whipped up the mare.
"You drive with spirit," cried Durtal.
"It is true; I forgot to say to you, that over and above my other functions, I also have, if need be, that of coachman."
Durtal thought all the same that these people were extraordinary who lived an interior life in God. As soon as they consented to redescend on earth they revealed themselves as the most sagacious and the boldest of business men. An abbot founded a factory with the few pence he succeeded in gathering; he discerned the employment which suited each of his monks, and with them he improvised artisans, writing clerks, transformed a professor of plain chant into an agent, plunged into the tumult of purchases and sales, and little by little the house which scarcely was raised above the soil, grew, put forth shoots, and ended by nourishing with its fruit the abbey which had planted it.
Transported into another environment these people would have as easily created great manufactories and started banks. And it was the same with the women. When one thinks of the practical qualities of a man of business, and the coolness of an old diplomatist which a mother abbess ought to possess in order to rule her community, one is obliged to admit that the only women, truly intelligent, truly remarkable are, outside of drawing-rooms, outside of the world, at the head of cloisters.
And as he expressed his wonder aloud, that monks were so expert at setting up business.
"It must be so," sighed the father, "but if you believe that we do not regret the time necessarily spent in digging the ground! then our spirit at least was free, then we could sanctify ourselves in silence which to a monk is as necessary as bread, for it is thanks to it, that he stifles vanity as it rises, that he represses disobedience as it murmurs, that he turns all his aspirations, all his thoughts towards God, and becomes at last attentive to His presence.
"Instead of that ... but here we are at the station; do not trouble yourself about your portmanteau, but go and take your ticket, for I hear the whistle of the train."