they happen to be sojourning in, or working for the convent, will many a time be seen occupying the lower seats at the long board, which stretches down each side of the hall, with an upper table across the top end; the ample space between the three-sided parallelogram thus formed remaining free for ingress and egress. This arrangement of one board for the entire household or family,'' upper and lower, disposed as described, is no less effective from the æsthetic point of view than it is fraternal, and therefore Christian in principle.

Nor was it only in baronial halls (among secular establishments) that in days of yore master, guests, domestics, met together to share the midday meal and a substantial, if homely, supper towards nightfall. For the general gathering of all classes, high and low, at a common table had place in households of every sort and degree-a democratic system in an aristocratic age, of which Scott has given us a lively picture in his description of the hall of the Hostelry in 'Marmion,' where lord and squire, yeoman and groom, are one and all depicted as sharing simultaneously in the entertainment pro

How modern is the use of 'family' to mean exclusively a man's own kith and kin may be inferred from the frequent, or general, employment of the word within a century to signify the entire household. Thus in Ainsworth's Dictionary we are told that 'the servants belonging to one common master, together with the wife and children,' make up 'what we call a family or household.'

vided for the Baron and his retainers by the host; the latter, moreover, telling a Tale for the amusement of the whole company alike, who, as the recital proceeds, all equally give vent to the natural ebb and flow of feeling.

But it is time to pass from refectories and common halls in general, to cast a glance at that of the monastery of Ste.-Foy in Guienne, with its row of whitefrocked, shaven occupants.

Entering, then, the refectory of the Premonstrant monks who serve the stately church of Conques, we shall observe the walls to be hung with curiously wrought tapestry, more than three centuries old, portraying the legend of the martyrdom of Ste.-Foy: the same St. Faith whose name is still retained as the titular patron of several churches in England, and notably of the ancient crypt beneath St. Paul's. A succession of narrow tables skirt as usual the two sides and upper end; and, affixed to the wall at the head of the chamber, is an image of the Crucified-to which symbol, or to a pictorial representation of the Last Supper, this conspicuous position in a monastic refectory is commonly relegated. After dark, a couple of tin lamps suspended from the roof shed a dim light around.

Before the upper table sits Père Edmond, at once Provost of the monastery of Ste.-Foy de

Conques and curate of the parish. To these offices he adds the dignified post of Mitred Abbot of St.-Michel de Frigolet in Provence, whence issued in 1873 a colony of Premonstrants, by whom the abbey of Conques was to be restored after its long secularization. This dignitary, clad like the rest in white, with a gold cross hanging from his neck by a purple cord, and a large abbatial ring on his finger, is here only for a few days, rather as official visitor than as head of the house, for he makes his home of the distant Provençal abbey. Here, however, on the present occasion, he sits in the place of honour, a picture of healthy embonpoint, partaking but sparingly of the food set before him, yet looking sedulously after everybody's wants (for being a festival several guests are ranged along the board); asking, in the simplicity of his heart, a secular canon who faced him, what another guest, M. l'abbé Servières, meant by the Bulgarian atrocities--which just then were rousing with one accord the sympathies of all Europe-Que veulent dire ces atrocités bulgariennes ?' Or, a few moments later on, smiling the smile, if not the kiss, of peace, as, with no less Christian charity than worldly wisdom, he casts oil on the troubled waters, just when a subject of discussion begins to wax warm betwixt the selfsame canon and abbé Servières aforesaid: a discussion, by the by,

involving the curious social question of how far it is permissible for a wife, in her husband's absence, to hint, before third persons, a want of political courage on his part; the abbé (who was a 'curé de campagne,' or small country parson) justifying a suggestion of the kind attributed by him to the wife of a distinguished political personage in France, and the canon on the other hand stigmatizing any such suggestion on the part of a wife, if really made, as 'excessivement impertinente.'

Abstemious, devout, a model of the claustral proprieties; yet supple, of insinuating address, as keen to save a franc as to earn one in the interest of his Order; and, withal, firm, clear-headed, having an eye alike for art and for discerning human character; of energy unsurpassed one of the best of friends and a born ruler of his kind, the Père Edmond is a veritable king of men—ἄναξ ἄνδρων : - a kingship displayed no less in persuading others to contribute untold sums towards the monasteries he is ever founding or enlarging, than in the government of their inmates: a kingship, too, which had been placed palpably in relief that morning by his officiating as Mitred Abbot in a gorgeous pontifical pageant of which the church of Ste.-Foy had been the theatre. It was a pageant, pompous, spectacular, artistic in form, colour, and sound, like a living page from the annals of medievalism.

D

A day or two passes, and the scene has changed. The Provost of Conques has retired to his stately abbey amid the thyme-scented hills of Frigolet. This group of bare cliffs dotted about broadcast within the angle made by the junction of the river Durance with the Rhône, just below Avignon, follow the downward course of the latter stream nearly to Tarascon, and may be regarded as a sort of link between the more important range of the Cevennes on the west, and the outlying spurs of the Alps known as the 'Alpines' to the east. In the place of that Prelate, dignified and rotund, there presided to-day at the refectory table his representative, Père Thomas d'Aquin, a man of spare form and delicately chiselled features, of severely austere life and unbounded devotion to his Church and Order. His ascetic character, softened by a large infusion of charity, has gained him the respect and affection of his brethren, one of whom lately described him as 'Cet homme au cœur d'or.' A monk of St.-Michel de Frigolet, Père Matthias, recounted to the writer, some years since, the following curious and characteristic personal anecdote. He said that he was himself a novice, after attaining his fiftieth year, under Père Thomas d'Aquin as master of the novices,' when he exhibited an undutiful restiveness, amounting to insubordination. Père Thomas, however, without evincing the least irascibility, indited his disciple