A general chapter of the order was held there every year, presided over by the Abbot of Rozel, and at which some ten or a dozen other convents were represented by their highest dignitaries.

The discipline, the labors, the temporal and spiritual management of all the Benedictines of the province were here controlled and reformed with a severity which the minutes of these little councils attest in the noblest terms.

These scenes replete with dignity, took place in that Capitulary Hall now so shamefully defiled.
Aside from the archives, this library is very rich, and this is apt to divert attention.

Moreover, the vortex of worldly dissipation that rages in the chateau is not without occasionally doing some prejudice to my independence.

Finally, my worthy hosts frequently take away with one hand the liberty they have granted me with the other; like many persons of the world, they have not a very clear idea of the degree of connected occupation which deserves the name of work, and an hour or two of reading appears to them the utmost extent of labor that a man can bear in a day.
"Consider yourself wholly free," Monsieur le Malouet tells me every morning; "go up to your hermitage; work at your ease." An hour later he is knocking at my door: "Well! are we hard at work ?" "Why, yes, I am beginning to get into it." "What! the duse! You have been at it more than two hours! You are killing yourself, my friend.