Page 863 - les-miserables

the circle of choice was restricted. She was not forty years
old. In proportion as the number diminishes, the fatigue
increases, the service of each becomes more painful; the
moment could then be seen drawing near when there would
be but a dozen bent and aching shoulders to bear the heavy
rule of Saint-Benoit. The burden is implacable, and remains
the same for the few as for the many. It weighs down, it
crushes. Thus they die. At the period when the author of
this book still lived in Paris, two died. One was twenty-five
years old, the other twenty-three. This latter can say, like
Julia Alpinula: ‘Hic jaceo. Vixi annos viginti et tres.’ It is in
consequence of this decay that the convent gave up the edu-
cation of girls.
We have not felt able to pass before this extraordinary
house without entering it, and without introducing the
minds which accompany us, and which are listening to
our tale, to the profit of some, perchance, of the melan-
choly history of Jean Valjean. We have penetrated into this
community, full of those old practices which seem so novel
to-day. It is the closed garden, hortus conclusus. We have
spoken of this singular place in detail, but with respect, in
so far, at least, as detail and respect are compatible. We do
not understand all, but we insult nothing. We are equally
far removed from the hosanna of Joseph de Maistre, who
wound up by anointing the executioner, and from the sneer
of Voltaire, who even goes so far as to ridicule the cross.
An illogical act on Voltaire’s part, we may remark, by the
way; for Voltaire would have defended Jesus as he defended
Calas; and even for those who deny superhuman incarna-

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