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Their mode of life and regulations exist nearly in the same state
as established by the founder; in reciting them, such horrible
perversions of human nature and reason make it almost difficult to
believe the existence of so severe an order, and lead us to wonder
at the artificial miseries, which the ingenuity of pious but morbid
enthusiasm can inflict upon itself. The abstinence practised at La
Trappe allows not the use of meat, fish, eggs, or butter; and a very
limited quantity of bread and vegetables. They only eat twice a
day; which meals consist of a slender repast at about eleven in the
morning, and two ounces of bread and two raw carrots in the evening:
both together do not at any time exceed twelve ounces. The same spirit
of mortification is observable in their cells, which are very small,
and have no other furniture than a bed of boards, a human skull, and a
few religious books.

Silence is at all times rigidly maintained; conversation is never
permitted: should two of them even be seen standing near each other,
though pursuing their daily labour, and preserving the strictest
silence, it is considered as a violation of their vow, and highly
criminal; each member is therefore as completely insulated as if he
alone existed in the Monastery. None but the Père Abbé knows the name,
age, rank, or even the native country of any member of the community:
every one, at his first entrance, assumes another name, as I before
observed, and with his former appellation, each is supposed to abjure,
not only the world, but every recollection and memorial of himself and
connexions: no word ever escapes from his lips by which the others can