“My son,” replied the abbot “have you lost your senses?  If you are so resolved to have this wench for a legal wife, your goods and your person belong to the Chapter of the abbey.”

“Yes, monseigneur, I am passionately in love with this girl, and more touched with her misery and her Christian heart than even with her perfections; but I am,” said he, with tears in his eyes, “still more astonished at your harshness, and I say it although I know that my fate is in your hands.  Yes, monseigneur, I know the law; and if my goods fall to your domain, if I become a bondsman, if I lose my house and my citizenship, I will still keep that engine, gained by my labours and my studies, on which lies there,” cried he, striking his forehead “in a place of which no one, save God, can be lord but myself.  And your whole abbey could not pay for the special creations which proceed therefrom.  You may have my body, my wife, my children, but nothing shall get you my engine; nay, not even torture, seeing that I am stronger than iron is hard, and more patient than sorrow is great.”

So saying, the silversmith, enraged by the calmness of the abbot, who seemed resolved to acquire for the abbey the good man’s doubloons, brought down his fist upon an oaken chair and shivered it into fragments, for it split as under the blow of a mace.

“Behold, monseigneur, what kind of servant you will have, and of an artificer of things divine you will make a mere cart-horse.”

“My son,” replied the abbot, “you have wrongfully broken my chair, and lightly judged my mind.  This wench belongs to the abbey and not to me.  I am the faithful servant of the rights and customs of this glorious monastery; although I might grant this woman license to bear free children, I am responsible for this to God and to the abbey.  Now, since there was here an altar, bondsmen and monks, id est, from time immemorial, there has never occurred the case of a citizen becoming the property of the abbey by marriage with a bondswoman.  Now, therefore, is there need to exercise the right, and to make use of it so that it would not be lost, weakened, worn out, or fallen into disuse, which would occasion a thousand difficulties.  And this is of higher advantage to the State and to the abbey than your stones, however beautiful they be, seeing that we have treasure wherewith to buy rare jewels, and that no treasure can establish customs and laws.  I call upon the king’s chamberlain to bear witness to the infinite pains which his majesty takes every day to fight for the establishment of his orders.”

“That is to close my mouth,” said the chamberlain.