A Retreat at La Trappe [pp. 862-883]

,A RETREAT AT LA TRAPPE.
velopment that he may justly be looked upon as one of the
founders of the order.
But all things human are subject to decay, and a day came
when even the austere and saintly Cistercians had need of a
reformer to recall them to their first fervor. The cause, however, which operated most powerfully in bringing about this
decadence was one beyond the control of the monks-the system, namely, of the appointment of "abbots commendatory"
by the temporal rulers of the state. Under the rules of the
order an abbot is elected by the monks of the monastery over
which he is to rule, and the election must then be confirmed
by the pope; but with the increase in wealth of some of the
monasteries the right of appointing the abbot was frequently
usurped by the king, and the title conferred on some court
favorite without any regard to his fitness for the office. The
result may easily be imagined. Men were appointed who were
priests only in name, and frequently not even that. Disorder
reigned supreme, and the enforcement of the rule became impossible. Strange to say, the reformer came at length in the
person of one of these very abbots commendatory. ArmondJean le Bouthillier de Ranc6, created in 1638, while yet in his
fourteenth year, titular abbot of the Cistercian monastery of
Notre Dame de la Maison-Dieu de la Trappe, after a youth
spent in pleasure and debauchery, was at length converted, and
in I664 instituted a vigorous reform of the order. He restored
the greater part of the primitive austerities in all their original rigor, and demonstrated by personal practice that the penitential life of the monks of the middle ages was no less suitable to and possible in modern times.
No summary, however brief, of the history of the Cisterciansor Trappists, as they are now more commonly called-would be
complete without at least a passing reference to the preserver
of the order during the trying times immediately following the
French Revolution-Louis Henri de Lestrange, known in religion as Dom Augustin, Abbot of La Trappe. Expelled from
France, the wanderings over Europe of the little band of
Trappists, with Dom Augustin at their head, reads like a romance. But the sun at length came out from behind the clouds,
and he lived to lead them back to France and to La Trappe,
lived to see the order spread in a way that, considering the
austerity of the life, is almost phenomenal.
De Ranc~ had departed somewhat from the Cistercian constitutions, and had introduced some slight changes in govern
,870
[Mar.,