Monsieur, annoyed with his erudition and confused at his escapade, sought to change the conversation.  The King, passing into his cabinet, left him entirely, in my charge.  I scolded him for his inconsequences, and he dared to implore me to put his daughter “in the right way,” to become one day Queen of France by marrying Monsieur le Dauphin, whom she loved already with her whole heart.

CHAPTER X.

The Benedictines of Fontevrault.—­The Head in the Basin.—­The Unfortunate Delivery.—­The Baptism of the Monster.—­The Courageous Marriage.—­Foundation of the Royal Abbey of Fontevrault.

Two or three days after our arrival at Fontevrault, the King, who loves to know all the geographical details of important places, asked me of the form and particulars of the celebrated abbey.  I gave him a natural description of it.

“They are two vast communities,” I told him, “which the founder, for some inexplicable whim, united in one domain, of an extent which astonishes the imagination.”

The Community of Benedictine Nuns is regarded as the first, because of the abbotorial dignity it possesses.  The Community of Benedictine Monks is only second,—­a fact which surprises greatly strangers and visitors.  Both in the monastery and the convent the buildings are huge and magnificent, the courts spacious, the woods and streams well distributed and well kept.

“Every morning you may see a hundred and fifty to two hundred ploughs issue from both establishments; these spread over the plain and till an immense expanse of land.  Carts drawn by bullocks, big mules, or superb horses are ceaselessly exporting the products of the fields, the meadows, or the orchards.  Innumerable cows cover the pastures, and legions of women and herds are employed to look after these estates.

“The aspect of Fontevrault gives an exact idea of the ancient homes of the Patriarchs, in their remote periods of early civilisation, which saw the great proprietors delighting in their natal hearth, and finding their glory, as well as their happiness, in fertilising or assisting nature.

“The abbess rules like a sovereign over her companion nuns, and over the monks, her neighbours.  She appoints their officers and their temporal prince.  It is she who admits postulants, who fixes the dates of ordinations, pronounces interdictions, graces, and penances.  They render her an account of their administration and the employment of their revenues, from which she subtracts carefully her third share, as the essential right of her crosier of authority.”

“Have you invited the Benedictine Fathers to your fete in the wood?” the King asked me, smiling.

“We had no power, Sire,” I answered.  “There are many young ladies being educated with the nuns of Fontevrault.  The parents of these young ladies respectful as they are to these monks, would have looked askance at the innovation.  The Fathers never go in there.  They are to be seen at the abbey church, where they sing and say their offices.  Only the three secular chaplains of the abbess penetrate into the house of the nuns; the youngest of the three cannot be less than fifty.