The society comprehends two orders, monks and hermits; symbolised by their arms, two doves drinking out of the same cup.

The monastery in which the monks here reside is beautifully situated, but a large unattractive edifice, not unlike a factory.

The hermitage is placed in a loftier and wilder region of the forest.

It comprehends between 20 and 30 distinct residences, each including for its single hermit an inclosed piece of ground and three very small apartments.

There are days of indulgence when the hermit may quit his cell, and when old age arrives, he descends from the mountain and takes his abode among the monks.
My companion had, in the year 1831, fallen in with the monk, the subject of these two sonnets, who showed him his abode among the hermits.