The same spirit
of mortification is observable in their cells, which are very small,
and have no other furniture than a bed of boards, a human skull, and a
few religious books.
Silence is at all times rigidly maintained; conversation is never
permitted: should two of them even be seen standing near each other,
though pursuing their daily labour, and preserving the strictest
silence, it is considered as a violation of their vow, and highly
criminal; each member is therefore as completely insulated as if he
alone existed in the Monastery. None but the Pere Abbe knows the name,
age, rank, or even the native country of any member of the community:
every one, at his first entrance, assumes another name, as I before
observed, and with his former appellation, each is supposed to abjure,
not only the world, but every recollection and memorial of himself and
connexions: no word ever escapes from his lips by which the others can
possibly guess who he is, or where he comes from; and persons of the
same name, family, and neighbourhood, have often lived together in the
Convent for years, unknown to each other, without having suspected
their proximity.
The abstraction of mind practised at La Trappe, and the prevention of
all external communication with the world is such, that few but the
superior know any thing of what is passing in it. It has been related,
that so little information of the affairs of mankind did these people
receive, that the death of Louis XIV.
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