wishes.  But what equally astonished and grieved me, was to see children brought up with this severity:  their poor locks shaved off, their young countenances already furrowed, that deathly dress with which they were covered before they knew any thing of life, before they had voluntarily renounced it, all this made my soul revolt against the parents who had placed them there.  When such a state is not the adoption of a free and determined choice on the part of the person who professes it, it inspires as much horror as it at first created respect.  The monk with whom I conversed, spoke of nothing but death; all his ideas came from that subject, or connected themselves with it; death is the sovereign monarch of this residence.  As we talked of the temptations of the world, I expressed to the father Trappist my admiration of his conduct in thus sacrificing all, to withdraw himself from their influence.  “We are cowards” said he to me, “who have retired into a fortress, because we feel we want the courage to meet our enemy in the open field.”  This reply was equally modest and ingenious*.

A few days after we had visited these places, the French government ordered the seizure of the father Abbe, M. de L’Estrange; the confiscation of the property of the order, and the dismissal of the fathers from Switzerland.

* (Note of the Editor.)I accompanied my mother in the excursion here related.  Struck with the wild beauty of the place, and interested by the spiritual conversation of the Trappist who had attended us, I besought him to grant me hospitality until the following day, as I proposed going over the mountain on foot, in order to see the great convent of the Val-Sainte, and rejoining my mother and M. de Montmorency at Fribourg.  This monk, with whom I continued to converse, had not much difficulty in discovering that I hated the imperial government, and I could guess that he fully participated in that sentiment.  Afterwards, after thanking him for his kindness, I entirely lost sight of him, nor did I imagine, that he had preserved the least recollection of me.

Five years afterwards, in the first months of the Restoration, I was not a little surprised at receiving a letter from this same Trappist.

He had no doubt, he said, that now the legitimate monarch was restored to his throne, I must have a number of friends at court, and he requested me to employ their influence in procuring to his order the restoration of the property which it possessed in France.  This letter was signed “Father A .... priest and procureur of La Trappe,” and he added, as a postscript, “If a twenty-three years’ emigration’ and four campaigns in a regiment of horse-chasseurs in the army of Conde, give me any claims to the royal favor, I beg you will make use of them.”

I could not help laughing, both at the idea which this good monk had of my influence at court, and at the use of it which he required from a protestant.  I sent his letter to M. de Montmorency, whose influence was much greater than mine, and I have reason to believe that the petition was granted.