Such being the case，and a convent having happened to be on our road，it has been our duty to enter it.
Why？
Because the convent，which is common to the Orient as well as to the Occident，to antiquity as well as to modern times，to paganism，to Buddhism，to Mahometanism，as well as to Christianity，is one of the optical apparatuses applied by man to the Infinite.
This is not the place for enlarging disproportionately on certain ideas；nevertheless，while absolutely maintaining our reserves，our restrictions，and even our indignations，we must say that every time we encounter man in the Infinite，either well or ill understood，we feel ourselves overpowered with respect.There is，in the synagogue，in the mosque，in the pagoda，in the wigwam，a hideous side which we execrate，and a sublime side，which we adore.
What a contemplation for the mind，and what endless food for thought，is the reverberation of God upon the human wall！
BOOK SEVENTH.——PARENTHESIS
Ⅱ THE CONVENT AS AN HISTORICAL FACT
From the point of view of history，of reason，and of truth，monasticism is condemned.
Monasteries，when they abound in a nation，are clogs in its circulation，cumbrous establishments，centres of idleness where centres of labor should exist.
Monastic communities are to the great social community what the mistletoe is to the oak，what the wart is to the human body.
Their prosperity and their fatness mean the impoverishment of the country.
The monastic regime，good at the beginning of civilization，useful in the reduction of the brutal by the spiritual，is bad when peoples have reached their manhood.
Moreover，when it becomes relaxed，and when it enters into its period of disorder，it becomes bad for the very reasons which rendered it salutary in its period of purity，because it still continues to set the example.
Claustration has had its day.
Cloisters，useful in the early education of modern civilization，have embarrassed its growth，and are injurious to its development.
So far as institution and formation with relation to man are concerned，monasteries，which were good in the tenth century，questionable in the fifteenth，are detestable in the nineteenth.The leprosy of monasticism has gnawed nearly to a skeleton two wonderful nations，Italy and Spain；the one the light，the other the splendor of Europe for centuries；and，at the present day，these two illustrious peoples are but just beginning to convalesce，thanks to the healthy and vigorous hygiene of 1789 alone.
The convent——the ancient female convent in particular，such as it still presents itself on the threshold of this century，in Italy，in Austria，in Spain——is one of the most sombre concretions of the Middle Ages.The cloister，that cloister，is the point of intersection of horrors.The Catholic cloister，properly speaking，is wholly filled with the black radiance of death.
The Spanish convent is the most funereal of all.
There rise，in obscurity，beneath vaults filled with gloom，beneath domes vague with shadow，massive altars of Babel，as high as cathedrals；there immense white crucifixes hang from chains in the dark；there are extended，all nude on the ebony，great Christs of ivory；more than bleeding，——bloody；hideous and magnificent，with their elbows displaying the bones，their knee-pans showing their integuments，their wounds showing their flesh，crowned with silver thorns，nailed with nails of gold，with blood drops of rubies on their brows，and diamond tears in their eyes.
The diamonds and rubies seem wet，and make veiled beings in the shadow below weep，their sides bruised with the hair shirt and their iron-tipped scourges，their breasts crushed with wicker hurdles，their knees excoriated with prayer；women who think themselves wives，spectres who think themselves seraphim.Do these women think？
No.Have they any will？
No.Do they love？No.Do they live？
No.Their nerves have turned to bone；their bones have turned to stone.
Their veil is of woven night.
Their breath under their veil resembles the indescribably tragic respiration of death.
The abbess，a spectre，sanctifies them and terrifies them.The immaculate one is there，and very fierce.
Such are the ancient monasteries of Spain.
Liars of terrible devotion，caverns of virgins，ferocious places.
Catholic Spain is more Roman than Rome herself.
The Spanish convent was，above all others，the Catholic convent.
There was a flavor of the Orient about it.
The archbishop，the kislar-aga of heaven，locked up and kept watch over this seraglio of souls reserved for God.
The nun was the odalisque，the priest was the eunuch.The fervent were chosen in dreams and possessed Christ.At night，the beautiful，nude young man descended from the cross and became the ecstasy of the cloistered one.
Lofty walls guarded the mystic sultana，who had the crucified for her sultan，from all living distraction.
A glance on the outer world was infidelity.The in pace replaced the leather sack.
That which was cast into the sea in the East was thrown into the ground in the West.In both quarters，women wrung their hands；the waves for the first，the grave for the last；here the drowned，there the buried.Monstrous parallel.
To-day the upholders of the past，unable to deny these things，have adopted the expedient of smiling at them.
There has come into fashion a strange and easy manner of suppressing the revelations of history，of invalidating the commentaries of philosophy，of eliding all embarrassing facts and all gloomy questions.
A matter for declamations，say the clever.
Declamations，repeat the foolish.Jean-Jacques a declaimer；Diderot a declaimer；Voltaire on Calas，Labarre，and Sirven，declaimers.
I know not who has recently discovered that Tacitus was a declaimer，that Nero was a victim，and that pity is decidedly due to'that poor Holofernes.'
