Oui, mes Enfans, dit il, haussant la voix,
J’aimerois mieux, pour le bien de mon ame,
Avoir à faire à dix filles par mois
Que de toucher en dix ans, une femme.
[55] “Monachus parvulorum & adolescentulorum consectator, vel qui osculo vel de quâlibet occasione turpi deprehensus fuerit inhiare, comprobatâ patenter, per accusatores verissimos, sive testes, causâ, publice verberetur.”
[56] ... Hic ego durare non possum, sed accipiam casulam, & eam ubi voluerit Dominus.
[57] Cap. XV. De lascivis & clamosis.
[58] “Qui solus cum solâ fœminâ sine personis certis loquitur familiariter, maneat sine cibo, duobus diebus, in pane & aquâ, vel ducentis plagis afficiatur.”
This Article, in which the Founder of a religious Order expressly rates the hardship of living upon bread and water for one day, at that of receiving an hundred lashes, is somewhat surprising. And supposing the generality of Readers should agree that the loss of a good dinner has really been over-rated by the good Father, his decision on that head, may then serve as one proof of that remarkable love of good eating and drinking which prevails among Monks; a disposition with which, to say the truth, they have long ago been charged. On this occasion, I shall quote the two following lines in Monkish style, recited by Du Cange in his Glossary, in which the love of good cheer is said to be one of the three things that prove the ruin of Monks: these lines only mention the black Monks; but this has been done, we may suppose, for the sake of the measure, and their meaning was, no doubt, also intended to be applied to the Grey and White.
Sunt tria nigrorum, quæ vastant res Monachorum,