472 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



But, toward the close of the last century, its inmates having become 

 slothful and corrupt, it was dismantled, all save a small portion torn 

 down, and the island became the property, first of impiety, embodied 

 in a French actress, and finally of heresy, embodied in an English 

 clergyman. 



Bought back for the Church by the Bishop of Frejus in 18G9, there 

 was little revival of life for twelve years. Then came the reaction, 

 religious and political, after the humiliation of France and the Vatican 

 by Germany ; and of this reaction the monastery of Saint Honorat was 

 made one of the most striking outward and visible signs. Pius IX 

 interested himself directly in it, called into it a body of Cistercian 

 monks, and it became the chief seat of their order in France. To re- 

 store its sacredness the strict system of La Trappe was established 

 labor, silence, meditation on death. The word thus given from Rome 

 was seconded in France by cardinals, archbishops, and all churchmen 

 especially anxious for promotion in this world or salvation in the 

 next. Worn-out dukes and duchesses of the Faubourg Saint-Ger- 

 main united in this enterprise of pious reaction with the frivolous 

 youngsters, the petits creves, who haunt the purlieus of Notre Dame 

 de Lorette. The great church of the monastery was handsomely 

 rebuilt and a multitude of altars erected ; and beautiful frescoes and 

 stained windows came from the leaders of the recation. The whole 

 effect was, perhaps, somewhat too theatrical and thin, but it showed 

 none the less earnestness in making the old " Isle of Saints " a protest 

 against the hated modern world. 



As if to bid defiance still further to modern liberalism, great store 

 of relics was sent in among these, pieces of the true cross, of the white 

 and purple robes, of the crown of thorns, sponge, lance, and Avinding- 

 sheet of Christ the hair, robe, veil, and girdle of the Blessed Virgin 

 relics of Saint John the Baptist, Saint Joseph, Saint Mary Magdalene, 

 Saint Paul, Saint Barnabas, the four Evangelists, and a multitude of 

 other saints ; so many that the bare mention of these treasures re- 

 quires twenty-four distinct heads in the official catalogue recently 

 published at the monastery. Besides all this what was considered 

 even more powerful in warding off harm from the revived monastery 

 the bodies of Christian martyrs were brought from the Roman 

 catacombs and laid beneath the altars.* 



All was thus conformed to the mediaeval view ; nothing was to be 

 left which could remind one of the nineteenth century ; the " ages of 

 faith" were to be restored in their simplicity. Pope Leo XIII com- 

 mended to the brethren the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, as 

 their one great object of study ; and works published at the monas- 

 tery dwelt upon the miracles of Saint Honorat as the most precious 

 refutation of modern science. 



* See the " Guide des Visiteurs a LeVins," published at the monastery in 18S0, p. 204 ; 

 also the " Histoire de Lerins," mentioned below. 



