“All this time orders were pouring into the abbey in excess of expectation. They came from Nîmes, from Aix, from Avignon, from Marseilles.... Every day the convent became more like a factory. There were packing brothers, labelling brothers, others for the accounts, others for the carting; the service of God may have lost a few tolls of the bells now and again by it; but I can assure you that the poor folk of the district lost nothing....
“Well, then, one fine Sunday morning, whilst the treasurer was reading in full chapter his stock-sheet at the end of the year, and the good canons were listening to him with sparkling eyes and smiles on their lips, who should burst into the middle of the meeting but Father Gaucher, shouting out:
“‛That’s an end of it!... I can’t stand it any longer!... Give me my cows again!’
“‛But what is it, Father Gaucher?’ asked the prior, who had his own suspicions of what it was.
“‛What is it, my lord?... I’m on a fair way of preparing myself a fine eternity of flames and pitch-forks.... I drink, and drink, like a lost soul; that’s what it is!...’
‛But I told you to count your drops.’
‛Ah, so you did! To count my drops! But I would need to count by goblets now.... Yes, your Reverences, that’s what I’ve come to. Three bottles an evening!... You know quite well that can’t go on for ever.... So, get whom you like to make the elixir.... God’s fire burn me, if I take anything more to do with it!’
“There was no more laughing for the chapter.
“‛But, wretched man, you’ll ruin us!’ cried the treasurer, brandishing his ledger.
“‛Would you rather I damned myself?’