The religious orders were early famed for their distillations. In the account of his travels in Italy the observant Seigneur de Montaigne mentions the Jesuits of Vicenza, who had a liqueur-shop in their monastery, as well as the monks of Verona, who were excellent distillers of _eau de naffe_, a liqueur made with the flower of citron. The famous _Bénédictine_, however, a rival of _Chartreuse_, though at present made by the monks of Fécamp in Normandy, and therefore possessing the stamp of monachism, was not of spiritual inspiration. Like the _eau de vie des Carmes_, _Liqueur des Evèques_, _Eau Archiépiscopale_, _Liqueur des Chartreux_, _Plaisir des Dames_, and _Huile des Jeunes Mariés_, it was worldly in its inception. Its history is interesting. In 1803 M. Le Grand, an enterprising wine-merchant of Fécamp, set about its manufacture, advertising it to the amount of eight hundred thousand francs,--his entire fortune,--the claim being made that the secret of its fabrication was consigned by a Benedictine brother to a manuscript in 1510 and opportunely discovered by the vender. The venture proved successful, as indeed the virtues of the liqueur merited, its annual sale now exceeding a million bottles. At first the clergy protested loudly against the bald appropriation of the name of an abbey, and Cardinal Bonnechose[36] petitioned Napoleon III to put an end to the scandal, the restored order eventually taking up the manufacture of the cordial and signing it with the name of the inventor, whose final _Benedicite_ was recently pronounced. The present Archbishop of Rouen came to bless the most recent constructions of the abbey, among which is a superb _Salle des Abbés_, and, at the banquet following the ceremonial, during the dessert he compared the inventor of the liqueur to several of the heroes of Christianity. Benedictine (_ad majorem Dei gloriam_) is the only important liqueur thus far which has escaped analysis, although imitations of this and all others that have proved successful are freely placed upon the market.