130 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



The nun is dragged into the underground chamber described 

 below. The Spaniard takes up more time in preliminary pleadings 

 and imaginings {Melmoth has to run to four volumes), but finally he 

 also is ushered into his underground chamber which he must^needs 

 describe. 



"Cependant l'on ouvrit avec "I had time to view all the 



de grosses clefs la porte d'un petit furniture of what I thought my 

 lieu souterrain, obscur, où l'on last abode. It was of stone; the 

 me jeta sur une natte que roof formed an arch; a block of 

 l'humidité avait à demi pourrie, stone supported a crucifix, and a 

 Là je trouvai un morceau de pain death's head with a loaf and a 

 noir et une cruche d'eau avec pitcher of water. There was a 

 quelques vaisseaux nécessaires et mat on the floor to lie on; another 

 grossiers. La natte roidée par un rolled up at the end of it formed a 

 bout formait un oreiller; il y pilloiv. . . ."-'^ 

 avait, sur un bloc de pierre, une 

 tête de mort, avec un crucifix de 

 bois.''^^ 



The writer confesses absolute ignorance of the "standard" 

 furniture of convent dungeons, and this ignorance leads him to 

 believe that the similarity of the above passages is due to a careful 

 reading of Diderot by Maturin. In describing the scene as a whole 

 the translator is more prolix than the original author and much more 

 careless in composition. The "last abode," and the furniture thereof, 

 are mixed in a way that Diderot's style would not for one moment 

 tolerate. 



The length of confinement in the dungeon is three days in the 

 case of the nun, while the monk is liberated on the fourth day. 



The persecution continues. Each is excluded from chapel ;2^ 

 each is denied food;^^ fellow monks or nuns join in the persecution. 

 When Diderot's nun is met by a sister she is greeted with the cry: 

 "Satan, éloignez-vous de moi,"^ while Maturin's monk is stood off 

 with: "Apage Satana."^^ For other persecutions the reader of 

 Melmoth is invited in a footnote to consult Mosheim's Ecclesiastical 

 History.^^ 



^^La Religieuse, p. 85, vol. V, of Diderot, Oeuvres complètes, Assézat's edition, 

 Paris (Gamier), 1875. All other references are to this edition. 

 ^° Melmoth, I, p. 242. 

 2iLa R., p. 71— Mel. I, p. 254. 

 22La R.^ p. m.—Mel. I, p. 255. 

 23La R., p. 71— Mel. I, p. 256. 

 2*Note to Mel. I, p. 266. 



