Everyone lent him assignats which he repaid with some loads of wood;
the vast farms of the estate furnished food for the college and,
lacking money, Dom Ferlus paid the external teachers in provisions,
which suited them very well at a time when famine was rife in France.

On the death of Dom Ferlus, the college passed into the hands of
his brother Raymond Ferlus, a former Oration, now married, a
third-rate poet and man of little capacity. The college went into
decline when the restoration of 1814 allowed back the Jesuits, who
were determined to wreak revenge on the Benedictines by destroying
the edifice which the latter had erected on the ruins of their order.

The university took sides with the Jesuits. M. Raymond Ferlus handed
over the college to his son-in-law, M. Bernard, a former artillery
officer who had been one of my contempories. He knew nothing about
running such an establishment, and, besides that, a host of other
good colleges sprang up as rivals, and Sorèze, losing its importance
from day to day, became one of the most mediocre institutions of
learning.

I return now to the time when I was at Sorèze. I have told you how
Dom Ferlus saved the college from ruin, and how, upheld by the care
of this enlightened man, it was the only great establishment of its
kind left standing by the revolution. The monks adopted lay clothing
and the appellation "Citizen" replaced that of "Dom." Apart from
that, nothing essential was changed in the college and it continued
to exist peacefully in a corner of France, while the country was most
cruelly being torn to pieces. I say that nothing essential had
changed because the studies followed their usual course, and there
was no breakdown of order, but it was impossible that the feverish