The candidates for admission included, without doubt, many very pious persons, but with them were degraded priests, with whom we have little to do, and ex-officers, fugitive men-at-arms, robbers who had lived by the sword, and murderers, of knightly degree, who had used their swords to the unrighteous slaying of others, and who sought safety within the cloisters of La Trappe. All that was asked of them was obedience. Where this failed it was compelled. Where it abounded it was praised. Next to it was humility. One brother, an ex-soldier reeking with blood, is lauded because he lived on baked apples, when his throat was too sore to admit of his swallowing more substantial food. Another brother, who had changed arms for the gown, is most gravely compared with Moses, because he was never bold enough to enter the pantry with sandals on his feet. Still, obedience was the first virtue eulogized--so eulogized that I almost suspect it to have been rare. It was made of so much importance, that the community were informed that all their faith, and all their works, without blind obedience to the superior, would fail in securing their salvation. Practical blindness was as strongly enjoined. He who used his eyes to least purpose, was accounted the better man. One ex-military brother did this in so praiseworthy a way, that in eight years he had never seen a fault in any of his brethren. It was not, however, this sort of blindness that De Rancé required, for he encouraged the brethren to bring accusations against each other. Much praise is awarded to a brother who never looked at the roof of his own cell. Laudation more unmeasured is poured upon another faithful knight of the new order of self-negation, who was so entirely unaccustomed to raise his eyes from the ground, that he was not aware of the erection of a new chapel in the garden, until he broke his head against the wall. On one occasion the Duchess de Guiche and an eminent prelate visited the monastery together. After they had left, a monk entered the Abbot’s apartment, threw himself at the feet of his superior, and begged permission to confess a great crime. He was told to proceed. “When the lady and the bishop were here just now,” said he, “I dared to raise my eyes, and they rested upon the face--” “Not of the lady, thou reprobate!” exclaimed the Abbot. “Oh no,” calmly rejoined the monk, “but of the old bishop!” A course of bread and water was needed to work expiation for the crime.