Page 857 - les-miserables

ment of taking the oath, she said to the priest, ‘Monseigneur
Saint-Francois gave it to Monseigneur Saint-Julien, Monsei-
gneur Saint-Julien gave it to Monseigneur Saint-Eusebius,
Monseigneur Saint-Eusebius gave it to Monseigneur Saint-
Procopius, etc., etc.; and thus I give it to you, father.’ And
the school-girls would begin to laugh, not in their sleeves,
but under their veils; charming little stifled laughs which
made the vocal mothers frown.
On another occasion, the centenarian was telling stories.
She said that in her youth the Bernardine monks were every
whit as good as the mousquetaires. It was a century which
spoke through her, but it was the eighteenth century. She
told about the custom of the four wines, which existed be-
fore the Revolution in Champagne and Bourgogne. When a
great personage, a marshal of France, a prince, a duke, and
a peer, traversed a town in Burgundy or Champagne, the
city fathers came out to harangue him and presented him
with four silver gondolas into which they had poured four
different sorts of wine. On the first goblet this inscription
could be read, monkey wine; on the second, lion wine; on
the third, sheep wine; on the fourth, hog wine. These four
legends express the four stages descended by the drunk-
ard; the first, intoxication, which enlivens; the second, that
which irritates; the third, that which dulls; and the fourth,
that which brutalizes.
In a cupboard, under lock and key, she kept a mysterious
object of which she thought a great deal. The rule of Fonte-
vrault did not forbid this. She would not show this object to
anyone. She shut herself up, which her rule allowed her to

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