De Rancé was at this time thirty-four years old. With the exception of the ancient monastery of la Trappe, lost amid the wild forests verging on the perilous rock-bound shores of extreme North-Western Normandy, he divested himself of his property and possessions, and went to take up his residence in la Trappe, endeavouring to establish the old discipline in it. But the seven spirits he found there were unruly, and had no mind for being disturbed. So entirely were they opposed to the abbé’s reforms, that his life was in danger from them, for they threatened to throw him into the fish-ponds; and Brigadier Loureur, stationed at Mortagne, the nearest town of importance, begged de Rancé to accept a guard of his soldiery; but de Rancé decided that since the brigands of la Trappe had clearly less than no vocation for the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, they were best entirely got rid of—and he pensioned them off and sent them away, not in wrath, but in peace. Their place was filled by Cistercian brethren of the strict observance. The position of an abbé, or for that matter, an abbess in the ranks of the Church, had long become an anomalous one. The relaxation of the old rigid conventual ruling had wrought great changes. It was not unusual to find some lady of a noble family appointed to the nominal charge of a monastery, and some equally nobly-born gentleman set over a community of nuns; and in either case, as likely as not, they had no knowledge, or next to none, of the everyday mode of life or working of such community. At the fair of St Germain the abbés always swarmed thick as flies, in their short black habits and delicate little linen bands, as where did they not congregate in the society of the time? The salons of the Hôtel de Rambouillet and other brilliant assemblies were dotted all over with them. They were the makers of _petits vers_ and _bouts rimés_, and, if nothing more, pretty well indispensable to the following of a fine lady as _cavaliere serventis_. They were wont to make themselves generally amusing and agreeable, everything, in short, but useful to the spiritual needs of the Church in whose ranks they were supposed to serve. They wore their vows too lightly for the Abbé de Rancé to dream of exercising real authority in virtue of the title alone; and he qualified himself for the dignity he intended to assume of Superior of the monastery of la Trappe in Normandy—by entering as a novice in the Cistercian Abbey of Persigny. This ended, he took the vows, in company with a servant who was deeply attached to him, and was confirmed abbot.