Saint Berno, Abbot of Baume and founder of Cluny

The examples and conversation of the Benedictines undoubtedly caused the thought of a religious vocation to germinate or mature in Bernon's heart. From his tender years, he devoted himself to fasting, vigils, prayers, and almsgiving, which are the best means to make a child pleasing to God; he was already patient and austere. When the other students shivered with cold in winter, he was seen with his face seized by a great ardor to learn and to delve into the mysteries of the Holy Scripture. Having become free upon the death of his father, who had left him his vast estates along with his title of count, he bade farewell to the world and entered the monastery of Saint-Martin d'Autun, which Badi monastère de Saint-Martin d'Autun Burgundian diocese associated with the saint's burial. llon, Count of Aquitaine, had raised from its ruins (from 873 to 877), towards the end of the reign of Charles the Bald, by calling there a colony of eighteen monks from Saint-Savin, in Poitou, led by Saint Hugh. Edified by this holy community, he in turn edified it by his regularity, obeying with all his heart the commandments of his superiors. His pure, simple, and innocent life prepared him, in the designs of Providence, to one day be the director of others.

The monastery of Baume, founded likely in the 6th century by Saint Lautein, between Lons-le-Saulnier and Poligny, in a narrow valley within high and steep mountains from which the Seille flows, had fallen into decadence; perhaps it was even destroyed by the Normans who invaded Burgundy in 888. Repopulated after these ravages, the solitude of Baume was without a rule. To establish true religious life there, recourse was had to the flourishing monastery of Saint-Martin. The votes of the community designated Bernon as the most worthy to be the head of the requested community; Saint Hugh himself was joined and submitted to him: he followed him undoubtedly more out of inclination than obedience, for he held him in singular esteem and affection; he became the confidant of all his thoughts, his advisor, his auxiliary in all his undertakings. Saint Bernon, consecrated abbot by Thierry I, Bishop of Saint Bernon Abbot of Baume and founder of Cluny. Besançon, set to work around the year 890. This monastery was rebuilt from its foundations; and, while the walls rose from the ground, the holy abbot, around whom a numerous community had gathered, built piety, love of the rule, and other virtues in their hearts. He had everything necessary to found and well govern a community; he knew how to accommodate the temperament of each, supporting those who walked straight, recalling with gentle and firm words those who strayed from the right path. However, correction was never lacking for contumacious or obstinate delinquents; he was especially pitiless, he who was occupied only with the love of God, toward those who involved themselves in the interests of the world. He brought his monastery to such a degree of prosperity that he was regarded as the founder of Baume. He had brought from Autun the reform of Saint Benedict of Aniane, named Eutice by som e historians: he did saint Benoît d'Aniane Reformer of the Benedictine Rule whose precepts were followed by Berno. the same for the monasteries he governed thereafter.

From the beginning, he opened a school for children. The master in charge was required to be among them at all times; however, he was forbidden from being alone with any of them, or speaking to them in secret. During walks or conversations, there had to be at least three people present. At night, the students were gathered in a common dormitory, and the masters rested in their midst to attend to all their needs. A reading was performed during meals.

Among the other customs observed in this monastery, we shall also note the following:

Silence was rigorously kept during the prescribed hours. It was considered especially sacred during the night; it would have been deemed a crime to break it before the hour of Prime. This practice was intended to accustom the monks to recollecting themselves in the meditation of eternal truths. Psalms were recited during manual labor. Each monk confessed his failures against the rule in public. After Compline, no strangers were received, and no food was taken. Two meals were served on certain feast days; but at other times, only one was usually taken, with a light collation after Vespers.

Soon the monastery of Baume was too small to contain all those who came to place themselves under the guidance of Bernon. The holy abbot founded a new house at Gig ny, a Gigny Final resting place of relics in Burgundy. place that belonged to him and was then part of the diocese of Lyon. Wishing to make this abbey his favorite work, he spared nothing to endow it richly and ensure its long duration. He first had it confirmed, according to custom, by royal authority. Jurane Burgundy, taken from the Carolingians, was then under the scepter of Rudolph of Stratlingen, who had been crowned king at Saint-Maurice, in Valais, at the beginning of 888, by the bishops and the great men of the country. This prince welcomed our Saint with the distinction that his birth and virtues deserved, and granted him, in a charter, all that he asked: confirmation of the abbey of Gigny; donation to this abbey: 1st of the monastery of Baume, 2nd of La Celle, where the body of the confessor Saint Lautein rested, 3rd of the domains of Chavanne and Clémencey. The following year, Bernon made the journey to Rome and placed in the hands of Pope Formosus a solemn act w pape Formose Pope who confirmed the foundation of Gigny in 895. hich made homage and donation of his pious establishment to the Prince of the Apostles and his successor, with a prayer to sanction and consolidate it. The sovereign Pontiff, in a bull dated the month of November 895, received this homage very heartily, confirmed by his pontifical authority and placed in perpetuity, under the jurisdiction and possession of the blessed Peter, the venerable monastery of Gigny, with the villages, barns, houses, lands, vineyards, meadows, forests, and settlers that belong to it, and also the abbey of Baume, with all its dependencies. "If the abbot should die," adds the Pope, "the community, according to the rule of Saint Benedict and according to custom, shall elect in the spirit of God the one whom the unanimous votes judge most worthy to succeed him." It was not too much to have the protection of the head of the Church and the influence of Bernon to save his monasteries in a time "when one saw the Church of the Lord confounded, rights ignored, laws violated, ecclesiastical possessions invaded and become the prey of the wicked." The French soil was ravaged by the Normans, or torn like prey by a crowd of petty sovereigns: there was "neither king nor judge." As for the state of Burgundy, "on one side, Zwentibold, natural son of the Emperor Arnulf, was enlarging his kingdom of Lorraine by the entire county of Port, as far as Besançon; on the other side, the county of Scodingue was again taken from Rudolph and ceded by the Emperor to the young king of Arles, Louis, son of Boso. Bernard, a vassal of Louis, while occupying the region for his master, had seized for himself the goods of the monastery of Baume." Bernon summoned the usurper to the plea (or assembly) of Varennes, where the bishops, abbots, and lords present declared that there was usurpation, and restored our Saint and his religious to their rights.

However, thanks to Bernon's governance, discipline and fervor reigned at Gigny and Baume. His religious seemed to have their bodies alone on earth and their thoughts in heaven. Nothing human could be seen in their virtues anymore. Jesus animated their souls, spoke in their words, and acted in their deeds. Every earthly pleasure was trampled underfoot like mud. Observing the Rule of Saint Benedict in all its rigor, they exceeded human strength in their vigils, their fasts, and their prayers; some even added voluntary penances to the austerity of the Rule. In return, God gave them supernatural powers; these holy religious commanded the elements: at their prayer, one saw in turn, according to need, rain watering the parched harvests, or serenity gladdening the sky and the earth. They had no less dominion over souls: the most hardened were softened, the most corrupt became chaste and pure under the breath of their words or their holy acts. To this treasure of virtues was added another: the relics of Saint Aquilin and Saint Taurin, who was from then on honored at Gigny as the second patron of the monastery. Our Saint resided alternately at Gigny and at Baume; he was in this abbey when (900) two gentlemen stopped there; wishing to dedicate themselves to a perfect life, and seeing the French monasteries in decline, they were traveling to Italy: but charmed by the virtues that perfumed the monastery of Baume, and by the charity of Bernon, who welcomed them as brothers, they resolved to become his disciples: they were Saint Aldegrin and Saint Odo; we will recount the life of the latter later.

The following year (910), our Saint laid the foundations of the greatest and most illustrious monastery that has ever existed: the monastery of monasteries, I mean Cluny. Willia m the Pious, son-i Guillaume le Pieux Duke of Aquitaine and founder of Cluny. n-law of King Boso, Count of Auvergne and Duke of Aquitaine, desiring to add, before his death, to his already numerous good works, the foundation of a monastery of th e Rule of Saint Bened règle de saint Benoît Religious order occupying the monastery of Honnecourt. ict, sent for Bernon, who set out in all haste with Saint Hugh, his faithful advisor. William awaited them at Cluny, one of his estates; he explained his design to them, and all three set out in search of a suitable location; but the two holy religious, charmed by the situation of Cluny, said that they would find no place more propitious for the projected establishment. It was a solitary place full of rest and peace, four leagues from Mâcon, almost on the borders of southern Burgundy, between two great mountains covered with forests. There were already two churches or collegiate churches dedicated, one to the Blessed Virgin, the other to Saint Peter, on the slope of a hill that descends gently into a smiling valley embellished by the thousand sinuosities of the Grosne.

This solitude therefore fixed Bernon's choice. But the Duke objected that a monastery would be poorly placed there, because of the noise of the hunters and their dogs, which continually disturbed the surrounding woods. Bernon did not see that it would be difficult to remove this obstacle; he replied with a laugh: "Get rid of the dogs, and in their place call monks; do you not know from whom you will draw the most profit, from the hunting of dogs, or from the prayers of monks?" "My Father," replied William, "your advice is wise, and I love your frankness. Well then! Let it be done as Your Reverence desires, and may God be our help!" If one wishes to see from what pure source flowed these rivers of religious life that have fertilized our homeland, let one read the foundation charter of Cluny, or, as they said in those days, the testament of the old Duke.

Then Bernon went to Rome to have his donation ratified by the sovereign Pontiff, under whose protection he placed this new monastery. Five years later, when the construction of this new abbey was sufficiently advanced, Bernon brought there, according to the rule of Saint Benedict, only twelve religious, six from Baume and six from Gigny, among others Saint Hug Odon Second abbot of Cluny and a major monastic reformer. h and Saint Odo. These were not the only monasteries that our Saint founded or restored; one must also include in this number Ethice, which is none other than Moutier-en-Bresse, in the arrondissement of Louhans; Déols, today Bourgdieu, near Châteauroux, in the department of Indre, which, already existing in the 6th century, restored in 918 by Ebbon the Noble, a powerful lord of Berry, had Saint Bernon as its first abbot after this restoration; Massay, which was founded in the 6th century, or in the year 738, reformed by Saint Benedict of Aniane in 806, repaired by Louis the Pious in 840, and is found in the testament of our Saint, among the houses he disposes of; this monastery enjoyed the privilege of minting coins and other considerable rights. According to certain histories, he also governed the abbeys of Vézelay, Aurillac, Souvigny, and Château-sur-Salins. Although fervor and regularity were flourishing in all these houses, the holy abbot feared governing them poorly; moreover, age and infirmities were diminishing his strength, and he felt that his end was approaching. He therefore asked the neighboring bishops to come to him, so that he might profit from their consolations and their advice for the government of the communities he would leave behind him. He told them that he was unworthy of the name of abbot, that he had fulfilled this charge without fruit, and that he was placing it back into their hands, so that they might give it to a more worthy person, or at least relieve him of a part of it. His requests were granted, but he was asked to designate his successors himself. This is what he did in his testament, which we still possess: "I have," he said, "with the consent of the monks my brothers, chosen two of them to s ucc Guy Predecessor of Eunuce on the see of Noyon. eed me: Guy, my relative, and Odo, who is equally dear to me... The beloved Guy will govern the monasteries of Gigny, Baume, and Ethice, as well as the Cell of Saint-Lautein, with all the goods that belong to the aforementioned monasteries, with the exception of the village called Alafracte (la Frette, arrondissement of Louhans), etc... Our beloved brother Odo will receive in the same manner the monasteries of Cluny, Massay, and Déols with their dependencies, to govern them regularly, according to his power, with the help of God... As for the village of Alatracte, with all its dependencies and the quarter of the boilers that we possess (in the saltworks) at Lons-le-Saulnier, as well as half of the meadow that belonged to the lord Salmon (or Simon), I give them to Cluny, under the condition that this monastery will pay to Gigny an annual rent of twelve deniers, for the investiture. (This rent was paid until 1036, the time at which Gigny became a simple priory of Cluny.) And let it not be found unjust that I give these goods to Cluny, since it is there that I have chosen the place of my burial, and that this establishment is like a posthumous child, which remains imperfect because of my approaching death and that of the glorious Duke William, previously deceased..." This testament, which he ends by conjuring, in the name of divine mercy, all current and future abbots and religious to always maintain concord among themselves, and to keep the customs observed until this day, is dated from the fourth year of the reign of Raoul, King of France (926), and bears the signatures of Bernon, Guy, Odo, Geoffroy, and Wandalbert. Our holy abbot, the good father, as he was called, died some time later, on January 13, 927. He was buried at Cluny, according to his wishes, in the church of Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux, behind the altar of Saint Benedict, where his tomb could still be seen at the end of the last century. Bernon carried to the grave the glory of having been one of the most zealous restorers of monastic discipline, and of having formed disciples who surpassed their master even further and who carried to the highest point of splendor the institute he had formed. His name remained among them with the title of blessed and saint. His feast was celebrated every year at the monastery of Cluny, on January 13. On the same day, a solemn office was celebrated at the priory of Souvigny and food was given there to twelve poor people. His name is inscribed in the martyrologies of Ménard, Bucelin, Chatelain, Du Saussay, etc., etc. His office is not celebrated in the Breviary of Besançon.

## CHARTER OF THE FOUNDATION OF CLUNY

Everyone can understand, says the testator, that God has only given numerous goods to the rich so that they may merit eternal rewards by making good use of their temporary possessions. This is what the divine word implies and clearly advises when it says: "The riches of a man are the redemption of his soul." This is what I, William, count and duke, and Ingelberge, my wife, weighing maturely, and desiring, while there is still time, to provide for my own salvation, have found good, and even necessary, to dispose for the benefit of my soul of some of the things that have come to me in time. For I do not wish, at my final hour, to merit the reproach of having thought only of the increase of my earthly riches and the bosom of my body, and of not having reserved for myself any consolation for the supreme moment that must take all things from me. I cannot, in this regard, act better than by following the precept of the Lord: "I will make friends for myself among the poor," and by perpetually extending my benefits in the gathering of monastic persons whom I will feed at my own expense, in this faith, in this hope that, if I cannot sufficiently manage to despise the things of the earth myself, I will nevertheless receive the reward of the just, when the monks, despisers of the world, and whom I believe to be just in the eyes of God, have gathered my liberality.

"Therefore, to all those who live in the faith and implore the mercy of Christ, to all those who will succeed them and who must live until the consummation of the ages, I make it known that, for the love of God and our Savior Jesus Christ, I give and deliver to the holy apostles Peter and Paul all that I possess at Cluny, situated on the river Grône, with the chapel which is dedicated to Saint Mary, mother of God, and to Saint Peter, prince of the Apostles, without excepting anything of all the things that depend on my domain of Cluny (villa), farms, oratories, servants of both sexes, vineyards, fields, meadows, forests, waters, watercourses, mills, rights of passage, uncultivated or cultivated lands, without any reservation. All these things are situated in the county of Mâcon or in the vicinity, and enclosed within their boundaries, and I give them to the said apostles, I, William, and my wife Ingelberge, first for the love of God, then for the love of King Eudes, my lord, of my father and of my mother: for me and for my wife, that is to say for the salvation of our souls and our bodies, for the soul also of Albane, my sister, who left me all her possessions in her testament; for the souls of our brothers and our sisters, of our nephews and of all our relatives of both sexes; for the faithful men who are attached to our service; for the maintenance and integrity of the Catholic religion. Finally, and as we are united to all Christians by the bonds of the same faith and the same charity, let this donation also be made for all the orthodox of times past, present and future. But I give under the condition that a regular monastery will be built at Cluny, in honor of the apostles Peter and Paul, and that there will gather monks living according to the Rule of Saint Benedict, possessing, holding and governing in perpetuity the things given, in such a way that this house becomes the venerable dwelling of prayer, that it be filled ceaselessly with faithful vows and pious supplications, and that one may desire there, that one may seek there forever with a lively desire and an intimate ardor, the wonders of a conversation with heaven. May continual solicitations and prayers be addressed there without respite to the Lord, as much for me as for all the persons I have named. We order that our donation serve above all to provide a refuge for those who, having come out of the world poor, will bring there only a just will; and we want our surplus to thus become their abundance. May the monks and all the things named above be under the power and domination of Abbot Bernon, who will govern them regularly as long as he lives, according to his knowledge and his power. But after his death, may the monks have the right and the faculty to freely elect as abbot and master a man of their Order, according to the good pleasure of God and the Rule of Saint Benedict, without our power, or any other, being able to contradict or prevent this religious election. May the monks pay for five years to Rome the fee of ten gold sous for the lighting of the church of the Apostles, and that, placing themselves thus under the protection of the said Apostles, and having as defender the Pontiff of Rome, they build themselves a monastery at Cluny, in the measure of their power and their knowledge, in the fullness of their heart. We also want that, in our time and in the time of our successors, Cluny be, as much as the opportunity of the times and the situation of the place will allow, open every day, by the works and intentions of mercy, to the poor, to the needy, to strangers and to pilgrims.

"It has pleased us to insert in this testament that, from this day, the monks gathered at Cluny in congregation will be fully freed from our power and that of our relatives, and will be subject neither to the fasces of royal grandeur, nor to the yoke of any earthly power. By God, in God and all his saints, and under the formidable threat of the last judgment, I pray, I implore that neither secular prince, nor count, nor bishop, nor the Pontiff himself of the Roman Church, invade the possessions of the servants of God, sell, diminish, give as a benefice, to whomsoever it may be, anything that belongs to them, and do not permit themselves to establish over them a leader against their will! And so that this defense may bind the wicked and the rash more strongly, I insist and I add, if I conjure you, O holy apostles Peter and Paul, and you, Pontiff of pontiffs of the Apostolic See, to cut off from the communion of the holy Church of God and from eternal life, by the Catholic and apostolic authority that you have received from God, the thieves, the invaders, the sellers of what I give you, of my full satisfaction and of my evident will. Be the guardians and defenders of Cluny and of the servants of God who will dwell and stay there together, as well as of all their domains destined for the alms, the clemency and the mercy of our most pious Redeemer. That if anyone, my relative or stranger, of whatever condition or power he may be (which I hope the mercy of God and the patronage of the Apostles will prevent), that if anyone, in any manner and by any subtlety whatsoever, attempts to violate this testament, which I have wished to sanction by the love of the almighty God, and by the respect due to the princes of the apostles Peter and Paul, may he first incur the wrath of the almighty God; may God remove him from the land of the living, and erase his name from the book of life; may he be with those who said to God: Depart from us; may he be with Dathan and Abiron, under whose feet the earth opened, and whom hell swallowed alive. May he become the companion of Judas who betrayed the Lord, and be buried like him in eternal torments. May he not be able, in the present age, to show himself with impunity to human eyes, and may he suffer in his own body the torments of future damnation, a prey to the double punishment of Heliodorus and Antiochus, of whom one escaped barely and half-dead from the repeated blows of the most terrible flagellation, and of whom the other expired miserably, struck by the hand from on high, his limbs fallen into rot and gnawed by innumerable worms. May he finally be with all the other sacrilegious persons who have dared to defile the treasure of the hand of God; and, if he does not return to repentance, may the great key-bearer of all the monarchy of the churches, and joined to him Saint Paul, close to him forever the entrance to the blessed paradise, instead of being for him, had he wished it, most pious intercessors. May he be seized, moreover, by secular law, and condemned by the judicial power to pay one hundred pounds of gold to the monks he will have wished to attack, and may his criminal enterprise produce no effect. And may this testament be clothed with all authority, and remain forever firm and inviolable in all its stipulations. Done publicly in the city of Bourges."

This remarkable act was written on the third of the ides of September (September 11, 916). It is signed by the own hand of William, and sealed with the seals of Ingelberge, his wife; of Madalbert, archbishop of Bourges; of Adélard, bishop of Clermont; of Alton, bishop; of Count William, nephew of the old duke; of Viscount Armand and of thirty-six other personages who, no doubt, composed the council and the court of William. It was written and countersigned by Saint Odon, still a simple levite, performing here the functions of chancellor.

## NOTICE ON THE MONASTERY OF CLUNY.

After the death of Saint Bernon, his disciple, Saint Odo, succeeded him, as we have said: it was he who made this monastery a head of an order, by annexing to it, as so many dependencies subject to his abbatial authority, the new communities he established or reformed. He was its sole abbot: under him, the government of simple priors. He was succeeded by Saint Aymard, who took as his coadjutor Saint Mayeul, whose life we shall recount on May 11th. God did not only grant great saints as abbots to the monastery of Cluny, but to each abbot a long reign. Saint Mayeul bore the abbatial crosier for forty years; Saint Odilo, his successor, for fifty-six years; Saint Hugh, who came after, for sixty years; Peter the Venerable, the ninth abbot, for thirty-five years. But here the glory of Cluny ends; from now on it would be from Cîteaux that faith and civilization would radiate over Christendom; then this noble role passed to Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Dominic. Cluny became a power generally more feudal than religious, and half-detached itself from the Holy See. At the end of the Western Schism, the abbey fell into commendam.

In the list of its fifty-six abbots, we now find, instead of the names so brilliant in religious and literary glory of which we spoke at first, we find Jean III de Bourbon, Jean IV of Lorraine, the Prince of Conti. This illustrious house of God became in the end a court commodity: it was a royal pension, an income of so much, which Louis XIV gave to Cardinal de Bouillon, Louis XV to Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld. Finally, on February 13, 1799, a sadly famous decree abolished this monastic institute along with all those that covered France. The town, having become the owner of the abbey buildings, had neither enough taste nor enough courage to preserve them. In the month of October 1793, the bells were first torn with great difficulty from the bell towers and sent to Mâcon to be melted into republican cannons. In the month of November, the crosses of all the bell towers fell under the blows of these barbarians. At the end of the same month, the chapels of the church were destroyed, the altars and the tombs themselves were overturned; the stained glass windows and statues were smashed, the paintings torn; all the paintings, all the wooden statues, everything that remained of the abbey's papers, were burned in an auto-da-fé. This is how a city commits suicide.

In the 16th century, the Huguenots, whom Théodore de Bèze, one of their own, accused of insolence and ignorance because they destroyed or carried away in shreds the library of Cluny, saying they were all mass books, the Huguenots profaned and tore to pieces altars, images, statues, shrines, reliquaries, precious fabrics, furniture, ornaments, objects of gold and silver, and stained glass. But from this pillage, from this devastation, at least the walls remained, the magnificent basilica of Saint-Hugh remained. It is this basilica, the largest in the world after that of Saint Peter in Rome, that was sold in pieces in '93. The naves, the pillars were divided, counted, broken down, and put up for auction. The merchants were masters of the temple and the mercantile demolition began; the choir grilles disappeared; the stalls also went, destined by a consolation of fortune to one day adorn the choir of the cathedral of Lyon. In 1798, the stained glass was removed from the windows, the doors; the trellises, the iron, and the lead that adorned the Romanesque rose window, the towers, the roofs, and other parts of the edifice were torn away; this done, they began to uncover the narthex and break the colossal framework; they removed the paving stones of the temple, demolished the altars, shook the columns; these devastating ants took a long time to dismember the colossus and carry it away in small shreds.

Napoleon passed through Mâcon around this time, on his way to Milan; the inhabitants of Cluny came to beg him to honor them with a visit: he replied that he "would not go into that land of Vandals." The destruction continued; all parts of the church fell successively under the hammer and were sold by the yard, even stone by stone, to all those who had to build a wall, a house, a farm, a stable. The partition of the temple was a thousand times worse than the partition of the monastic territory which passed at a low price into a thousand hands at once, the general source of all the enrichment of the place. The great naves and the aisles were razed from 1809 to 1811; the beautiful bell towers were not to survive, and one still remembers in Cluny the frightful noise that shook the city at the fall of the largest tower. It was like a distress cannon. Nothing was saved, neither the columns of the choir nor the curious and old paintings of the apse. Only some administrative alms left standing a southern bell tower and a chapel where some shapeless debris lies. I believe it well: the fall of the last bell tower could threaten the solidity of the adjacent buildings; and then, what was left standing does not in any way hinder the prowess of the stud farm horses, the temple of stallions, and the curator's dwelling. There was talk of establishing, in the more modern and fully preserved constructions, an imperial high school, a school of arts and trades; in the end, only a small communal college was housed there. The only imperial munificence that the city of the monks of Saint Benedict could obtain was this departmental stud farm that Napoleon gave it, much less to console it for its lost splendors than because the fodder was abundant and of good quality in the meadows of the Gronne.

Everything is consumed. The place that once served as a refuge and palace for popes, kings, emperors, princes, bishops, and lords of all Christendom will no longer receive any illustrious guest within its walls; and when modern princes, constitutional or absolute, pass through Burgundy by post, they will not even think of passing through Cluny, whose very name they will ignore. The powers of the day will refuse to go for a few hours to the same place where Saint Louis and the Sovereign Pontiff stayed for a whole month with a crowd of princes of the Church and kings of the earth. Already the new emperor of 1594 disdained to pay a solicited visit. The greatest personage who will pass through Cluny will be the prefect of the department of Saône-et-Loire, who will sometimes be willing to go there for the drawing of the conscription, if he does not prefer to be represented by a delegate. This territorial justice, formerly sovereign under the seigneurial right of the abbot, and which, even in 1789, recognized no superior other than the parliament of Paris, now falls under a poor justice of the peace, who has become the first and highest of its magistrates. This center of monastic religion, which answered only to the Sovereign Pontiff and the King of France, which cast two thousand monasteries into all parts of the world and which saw myriads of pilgrims and magnificent guests come to its solemnities, is no longer today, in its spiritual and temporal relations, anything but a humble territory, destined forever by all the men of the earth and penned into the narrow circumference of a cantonal division.

History of the Abbey of Cluny, by M. P. Lorain, which we have sometimes analyzed, sometimes reproduced textually.