[ashton] MATURIN and DIDEROT 129 



he saw how impossible it would be for him to present such a picture 

 to a British public. One may note, en passant, that, elsewhere in 

 his story, he makes a very clear reference to a similar danger in 

 monasteries.^^ The subsequent picture of the Inquisition is either 

 Maturin's own or it has been taken from some work other than 

 Diderot's. With this exception, Melmolh follows fairly closely the 

 story as told by Diderot. 



The girl in La Religieuse is supposed to be illegitimate, and this is 

 the reason for her being forced, against her will, to enter a convent. 

 There comes later a scene in which the mother states clearly that the 

 girl is not the daughter of her supposed father. 



In Melmoth the illegitimacy of the boy is a mere technicality. 

 He is the son of the parents in whose house he lives, but was born 

 before their marriage. This irregularity is considered sufficient cause 

 to condemn him to a monastic life in spite of his very serious opposi- 

 tion. While the boy does no more than make pitiful scenes in his 

 home the girl actually has the courage to make a public disavowal 

 in the convent. 



In each case the mother's confession to her child is the culminating 

 point in the efforts made to force the boy or girl to take the vows. 



This step having been taken Maturin darkens the picture. Of 

 this talent he is rather proud for he says: " If I possess any talent it 

 is that of darkening the gloomy and of deepening the sad, of painting 

 life in extremes. . . ." Hence, while Diderot places the girl in happy 

 surroundings, at first, to show how cunningly the work of snaring the 

 future nun is carried on, Maturin has nothing but obvious hypocrisy 

 to paint from the outset. His boasted talent succeeds in diminishing 

 his art and in weakening his thesis. 



In each story the victim decides to apply for résiliation of the 

 vows and the obvious difficulty is to procure sufficient paper to draw 

 up the memorandum. There is nothing surprising in the discovery, 

 in each case, that it may be procured by giving as excuse the necessity 

 of writing out a general confession in preparation for an important 

 church festival. Suspicion is naturally aroused by the quantity 

 of paper required and, in one case, the Superior and four nuns, and 

 in the other the Superior and four monks, examine very minutely 

 the cell and the person of the accused and cross-question at some 

 length. 



All this may happen in the best regulated religious institutions, 

 and so perforce appear in both novels, but the following passages seem 



to be too similar to be the result of a mere coincidence. * 



^«Melmoth, vol. I, p. 177. 



—22 



