Thus, without premeditation, and scarcely knowing what I was saying, I engaged to confess to the abbot.

This was my way.  Whenever I obeyed a spontaneous impulse, whenever I did anything of a sudden, I thought I was following the laws of my destiny, and yielding to a supreme will.  When I had thus plainly intimated to him that he was to be my confessor, he felt obliged to speak with religious fervour, and his discourses seemed tolerable enough during a delicate and appetising repast, for we had snipe and woodcock; which made me exclaim,—­

“What! game like that at this time of year?”

“It’s a secret,” said he, with a pleased smile, “which I shall be glad to communicate to you.”

The abbot was a man of taste, for though he affected sobriety he had the choicest wines and the most delicious dishes on the table.  A splendid salmon-trout was brought, which made him smile with pleasure, and seasoning the good fare with a jest, he said in Latin that we must taste it as it was fish, and that it was right to fast a little.

While he was talking the abbot kept a keen eye on me, and as my fine dress made him feel certain that I had nothing to ask of him he spoke at ease.

When dinner was over the chancellor bowed respectfully and went out.  Soon after the abbot took me over the monastery, including the library, which contained a portrait of the Elector of Cologne in semi-ecclesiastical costume.  I told him that the portrait was a good though ugly likeness, and drew out of my pocket the gold snuffbox the prince had given me, telling him that it was a speaking likeness.  He looked at it with interest, and thought his highness had done well to be taken in the dress of a grand-master.  But I perceived that the elegance of the snuff-box did no harm to the opinion the abbot had conceived of me.  As for the library, if I had been alone it would have made me weep.  It contained nothing under the size of folio, the newest books were a hundred years old, and the subject-matter of all these huge books was solely theology and controversy.  There were Bibles, commentators, the Fathers, works on canon law in German, volumes of annals, and Hoffman’s dictionary.

“I suppose your monks have private libraries of their own,” I said, “which contain accounts of travels, with historical and scientific works.”

“Not at all,” he replied; “my monks are honest folk, who are content to do their duty, and to live in peace and sweet ignorance.”

I do not know what happened to me at that moment, but a strange whim came into my head—­I would be a monk, too.  I said nothing about it at the moment, but I begged the abbot to take me to his private chamber.

“I wish to make a general confession of all my sins,” said I, “that I may obtain the benefit of absolution, and receive the Holy Eucharist on the morrow.”

He made no answer, but led the way to a pretty little room, and without requiring me to kneel down said he was ready to hear me.