What the Monks Thought of the Queen.

Evening Star, Issue 7277, 30 July 1887, Page 3

What the Monks Thought of the Queen.

. • The following extract from the letter of a Carthusian monk to his niece in Scotland, relative to the late visit of the Queen to La Grande Chartreuse, will interest Her Majesty's subjects. This monk is writing from another Chartreuse, but as his prior was at the Grande Chartreuse when the Queen visited it he is able to give the Carthußian view of the Royal visit. It will be noted that he contradicts what has been stated by several journals—namely, that the Queen was admitted by special permission of the Pope : As you derive some pleasure from little scraps of information about Her Majesty the Queen, I feel no small degree of satisfaction in being able to tell you that I have just learned all the particulars about the Royal visit to the Grande Chartreuse, and so tint singular event will form the subject of tho present letter. From what you told me in your last letter I see very well thac the substance of all that has been said by the journals about that Royal visit may be very accurately reduced to two simple points. First, in order to receive Her Majesty, the rules of the Order were laid aside; and secondly, the Queen refused to partake of the hospitality that was humbly offered to her. There is not bo much as a word of truth in either the one or the other of those two statements* They are both false —entirely false. From the days of St. Benedict such a thing as a monastic rule about the admission into or the exclusion from cloistered monasteries of either sex has never been heard of in the Catholic world. There is and always has been a law-a general law—a law not made by either monks or nuns, but by a General Council of the Church of God, about that very important matter. That law forbids, under pain of excommunication, the admission of man into the convents of cloistered nuns, and the admission of women into the monasteries of monks who, bye secluded, from the world. The reason why that law was made is simply this: If men were now and then admitted into {he cloisters of nuns, or if women were free to enter the houses of secluded monks, temptation to Bin could not bp avoided within, and both suspicion and scandal be speedily produced outside, the walls. But the law very expressly excepts both bishops and crowned heads. Bishops are always aged men; they lead saintly lives, and when any of them, prer gents himself before the gate of a convent the whole community is assembled to receive hinj. The movements of crowned heads are always public, their high position leaves no room for temptation within tho cloisters, and their vißits to those places are always accompanied by the pomp and the circumstance which become their great dignity, and which exclude the possibility of affording any food for either suspicion or scandal. No doubt when the law was made the persons of both kings and queens were sacred. Then all of them were Catholic, a good number of them were saints, and the possibility of ever beholding anywhere in, Kurope such a monster as a heretic king or a heretic queen was never even dreamed of. The religious revolution of the sixteenth century gave birth to more than one of these monsters, but their appearance in Christendom made no change in the law. Its letter and its spirit has always remained) and will always remain what it was in tho ages of faith.

It is quite true, then, that the foot »f an ordinary woman, or of an ordinary lady, has never crossed the threshold of the entrance gate of the Grande Chartreuse; but during the last eight hundred years a great number of queens have visited and dined in the grand old monastery. The daughter and successor of the renowned Gustavus Adolphus was one of them; Christina of Sweden was received into it just a short time before she abdicated the Crown and abjured Protestantism, and became a fervent child of the Catholic Church. No rule, therefore, was violated, no custom was momentarily forgotten, no exception was made in favor of Britannic Majesty. Queen Victoria had a perfectly right to be admitted into the old cloisters, and to be conducted through all the cells, and to be shown everything which *he wished to see, from the top to the bottom of the aged pile. But to be received into cloistered convents, kings must be actually reigning; and to be admitted into the monasteries of the same kind, queens must be actually reigning; so that, were Her Majesty of England to abdicate to-morrow, and knock just the next day at the old gate of La Grande Chartreuse, or at that of any of the houses of the Order, Bhe would not be allowed to cross the threshold of any of ihem. When either kings or queens cease to feign they fall into the category of private persons, and they are rigidly excluded. Such is the law. It never has teen, and never will be, changed. . Her Majesty remained In the monastery about four hours. She did not dine, because no notice of her visit had been sent beforehand to the Father-General, and so there was ho time for preparing a dinner for the Royal party. But the modest Queen partook very heartily of a collation, which was composed of chocolate, biscuits, jellies, and confectioneries of various kinds. She did more than that. She inquired of the rev. father if any of her good people from any of the three kingdoms wore among his children of the Grand Chartreuse; and having learned that there was a young and amiable Englishman actually in the community, she at once expressed a Btrong wish to visit bim in his own little cell. (I do not know the family name of the young man, but he is a convert, and the son of an English Protestant clergyman.) Her Majesty's wish was forthwith gratified. The Father-General was her pilot through the obscure windings of the cloisters. The young son of St. Bruno received his sovereign with great ease, modesty, and politeness. The good Queen was quite charmed. She sat down upon an old straw chair close by him, and chatted with him maternally for nearly half-an-hovr. She piously recommended both herself and her faithful subjects to his good prayers; and she was so highly pleased with his edifying conversation that she went the length of requesting him to give her a little "souvenir" which would enable her, after her return to England, to recall tb her mind the pleasure she derived from her visit to him and the Grande Chartreuse. He was the first English cloistered monk to whom Her Majesty had ever opened her Royal lips. The young son of St. Bruno at once presented to her a Bmall silver crucifix, of very ancient date and very fine workmanship. It was the only thing of any value that he had in his cell. The Queen did not kissHhe image of her crucified Redeemer, but she gracefully accepted it, placed it carefully in one of her pockets, very affectionately bade farewell to she young convert, and in a very short time afterwards she departed from the venerable cradlo of the Carthusian Order; I received the knowledge of these little facts and circumstances from the lips of our own Father,' who has just returned from the Chapter-General of (the Qtfot; which is annually held at the Grande Chartreuse. They were communicated to him by the Father-General, and so about then exactness and certitude no room is left for entertaining even-the shadow of a doubt. ' F ' ' ' i'i ■ ■ '