LATRAPPE. 
turn ; and the monks who dine are attended by other 
monks, who afterwards take their refrelhment along with 
the preacher. The lay-brothers dine at the fame time in 
a fmalier hall adjoining the principal, and which is fepa- 
rated from it only by an arcade without any door; we 
could fee them therefore as we flood in the refeflory; and 
they, as in the former inftance, were ferved by other lay- 
brothers, who ate when they had finifhed. From the re- 
feflory we went to the library. The cells are very fmall; 
they contain a ftraw bed, a wooden table, and a crucifix. 
We favv the monks at work in the garden. We entered 
the medicine-room, which is large, and well. fupplied 
with drugs : adjoining to it is an excellent botanic gar¬ 
den, filled with the ulual plants. 
“ I fhall here relate what I learned from the converfa- 
tion of the fathers. The hiftory of count de Comminges 
is fabulous, as well as various other things, viz. that the 
monks are every day employed in digging their own 
graves ; that they raife and level hills for the purpole of 
occupying themfelves ; that their falutation when they 
meet is, We mujl die-, that they wear upon their hearts a 
cufhion ftuck with thorns, &c. All thefe things are ab- 
folutely falfe. They fall continually ; they never eat ei¬ 
ther fifli, fugar, eggs, butter, or oil, except a fmall quan¬ 
tity with their falads. Vinegar is allowed them, qs well 
as milk ; but the latter is prohibited during Lent. Their 
rule never allows them theufeof wine except on journeys, 
and in any place of occafional refidence, where they may 
ufe both wine, filh, and butter. Their drefs, like that of 
the Chartreux, is entirely white; their head and beard are 
fhaved, and they have a large hood which they put on at 
pieafure. They always fleep in their clothes ; their fhirts 
are of wool, not hair-cloth, every mortification of this 
kind being prohibited by the rules of their order. No 
one is admitted among them till the age of twenty, when 
he enters upon his noviciate, which continues for the 
fpace of twelve months. The infirm alone employ them¬ 
felves in little articles of induftry, fuch as the making of 
rolaries, wooden fpoons, and in winter the work of the 
garden ; after which they fhell the peafe, drefs the vege¬ 
tables, prefs the grain for ufe. &c. Thefe laft occupa¬ 
tions are common to them all. 
“The monks of this abbey amount to about a hundred 
and twenty, including the fathers and lay-brothers. 
There are lixty of the former, of whom eighteen only are 
priefts ; the reft, though equally engaged by irrevocable 
vows, do not fay mafs, and have not received holy orders, 
thinking themfelves not fufficiently virtuous and devout 
to celebrate the facred myfteries. The abbot is elefted 
for life, and is named by the king in purfuance of the 
vote of the monks ; the votes are collected by way of bal¬ 
lot ; and, as foon as that is done, the ballotting-box is 
fealed up and fent to Verfailles. There are three monks, 
called hoteliers, whofe bufinefs it is to receive ftrangers and 
the poor. From their original endowment and the be- 
quefts of private individuals, they are fufficiently wealthy 
to afford three days’ hofpitality to every poor traveller who 
paffes that way. When all the beds in the houfe are oc¬ 
cupied, the traveller is accommodated at the inn, and his 
expenfes defrayed by the monks. If, during thefe three 
days, he fall fick, they take care of him till his recovery ; 
he is attended by their furgeons, fupplied by them with 
medicines ; the monks all'o vifit him, drefs his wounds, 
&c. If any poor traveller be in want of money to pur- 
fue his journey, they give him as much as is neceffary to 
carry him to the place of his deftination. Not a day paffes 
without their being vifited by perfons of this defeription, 
particularly foidiers. It frequently happens that the gra¬ 
titude and admiration which fo much benevolence^in- 
fpires, induce the perfons who are the objeefs of it to be¬ 
come members of their fraternity, and pafs their lives with 
them. Thefe monks alfo affift and take care of all the 
poor in the neighbourhood for many leagues round. I 
interrogated a great number of the peafants, who fpoke 
of them with the refpeft and veneration that we fhould 
*7 5 
feel for angels if they were to condefcend to refide among 
us. They never receive a widower among them, unlefs 
his children are already provided for; whatever may be 
the age of thefe children, if their iituation be not fuch as 
to enfure them a fubfifience, they conceive that a father 
cannot, in that cafe, difpofe of his liberty, bur is bound 
to bellow all his care upon his family. When they have 
made their vow, they renounce every kind of epiftolaiy 
correfpondence whatever, and do not allow themfelves to 
be vifited by their relations, except their father and mo¬ 
ther, and this but feldom. They are exprefsly enjoined 
not to (how the lead preference to any individual of their 
order, as being bound to love them all equally. If one 
monk Ihould perceive that another had a particularyhlW- 
Jhip for him, he would confider it as his duty, when they 
were all affembled, to alk leave to l’peak, and then pub¬ 
licly to accufe him. In this cafe the fuperiors impofe a 
penance on the perfon criminated, who is not allowed to 
juftify himfelf, or anfwer a word, even though he Ihould 
think himfelf wrongfully accufed. He is to believe that 
he has in fome way or other, though he cannot recollect 
it, given caufe for the reproach, and he mull facrifice 
without hefitation his felf-love to the obedience due to 
the rules of the order. In all cafes, indeed, where one 
monk obferves in another any kind of fault, he is equally 
bound publicly to accufe him, and the accufed mult ob- 
ferve a perfedt filence, and fubmit with relignation to the 
penance that may be impofed. If a word efcape him in 
his defence, all the monks inllantly proftrate themlelves 
on the ground to alk pardon of God for his pride; but 
this never happens except to novices and perfons newly 
profeffed, and very feldom even to them. Thefe particu¬ 
lars were related to me by brother Profper, a young monk 
twenty-eight years of age, and who has been eight years 
at Latrappe. I entreated him to tell me honeitly if he 
did not know, among his brother monks, fome fingle in¬ 
dividual who had, at heart, more friendfliip for him than 
the reft ? No, indeed, was his reply ; I could fooner name 
a dozen than one. 
“ When a fick monk is pronounced to have but a few 
hours to live, he is told that he mult receive extreme 
unflion ; he is then carried to the church, where it is al¬ 
ways adminillered, and, after the ceremony is over, con¬ 
veyed back to his bed. When he approaches his laft mo¬ 
ment, a bell is tolled to fignify to the whole houfe that a 
brother is in the agonies of death. All the monks affem- 
ble round the dying man, and, having placed him in a/hes , 
pray aloud for him. This defeription is terrifying to 
W'orldly minds; but at Latrappe the apparel of death and 
the religious folemnities that accompany it, are confidered 
as augult and confolatory, as the fore-runners of a grand 
triumph and fupreme felicity. The frugal and laborious 
life we lead, faid father Theodore to me, exempts us 
from violent and putrid diforders, I have never feen 
among us an inftance of an epidemical malady, even when 
the contagion has fpread through the country. We know 
fcarcely any diforders but thole of the lungs occafioned 
by finging at church, and by the law which obliges us to 
get up frequently in the night. When a conftitution is 
able to refill thefe dangers, and has palled the age of 
thirty, life is protrafled longer here than elfewhere, and 
old age is found and vigorous: thus we commonly die in 
the poffeflion of all our faculties; and, during the fifty 
years that I have lived here, I have fcarcely leen an in- 
llance to the contrary.’’ 
When thefe monks were driven out of France at the 
beginning of the revolution, they were received at Lul- 
worth, near Wareham, in Dorfetfhire, by the munificence 
of Mr. Weld, who affigned them a houfe within his own 
grounds; and afterwards built a more lonely retreat for 
them near Warbarrow-cliff, where for feveral years they 
continued to wear their proper habits, and praflife all the 
rigid duties of their order. 
LATRA'TION, f. [from tore, Lat. to bark.] The afl 
of barking like a dog. 
LA'TRIA, 
