goods fall to your domain, if I become a bondsman, if I lose my house
and my citizenship, I will still keep that engine, gained by my
labours and my studies, on which lies there," cried he, striking his
forehead "in a place of which no one, save God, can be lord but
myself. And your whole abbey could not pay for the special creations
which proceed therefrom. You may have my body, my wife, my children,
but nothing shall get you my engine; nay, not even torture, seeing
that I am stronger than iron is hard, and more patient than sorrow is
great."

So saying, the silversmith, enraged by the calmness of the abbot, who
seemed resolved to acquire for the abbey the good man's doubloons,
brought down his fist upon an oaken chair and shivered it into
fragments, for it split as under the blow of a mace.

"Behold, monseigneur, what kind of servant you will have, and of an
artificer of things divine you will make a mere cart-horse."

"My son," replied the abbot, "you have wrongfully broken my chair, and
lightly judged my mind. This wench belongs to the abbey and not to me.
I am the faithful servant of the rights and customs of this glorious
monastery; although I might grant this woman license to bear free
children, I am responsible for this to God and to the abbey. Now,
since there was here an altar, bondsmen and monks, _id est_, from time
immemorial, there has never occurred the case of a citizen becoming
the property of the abbey by marriage with a bondswoman. Now,
therefore, is there need to exercise the right, and to make use of it
so that it would not be lost, weakened, worn out, or fallen into
disuse, which would occasion a thousand difficulties. And this is of
higher advantage to the State and to the abbey than your stones,