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Droll Stories — Volume 3 by Honoré de Balzac
page 68 of 181 (37%)
As the good abbot kept on at the finger of God, when thanking Amador,
the monk, annoyed to see the instrument of their delivery thus
diminished, said to him--

"Well, say that it is the arm, my father, and drop the subject."

The termination of the trial between the Sieur de Cande and the abbey
of Turpenay was followed by a blessing which rendered him devoted to
the Church, because nine months after he had a son. Two years
afterwards Amador was chosen as abbot by the monks, who reckoned upon
a merry government with a madcap. But Amador become an abbot, became
steady and austere, because he had conquered his evil desires by his
labours, and recast his nature at the female forge, in which is that
fire which is the most perfecting, persevering, persistent,
perdurable, permanent, perennial, and permeating fire that there ever
was in the world. It is a fire to ruin everything, and it ruined so
well the evil that was in Amador, that it left only that which it
could not eat--that is, his wit, which was as clear as a diamond,
which is, as everyone knows, a residue of the great fire by which our
globe was formerly carbonised. Amador was then the instrument chosen
by Providence to reform our illustrious abbey, since he put everything
right there, watched night and day over his monks, made them all rise
at the hours appointed for prayers, counted them in chapel as a
shepherd counts his sheep, kept them well in hand, and punished their
faults severely, that he made them most virtuous brethren.

This teaches us to look upon womankind more as the instruments of our
salvation than of our pleasure. Besides which, this narrative teaches
us that we should never attempt to struggle with the Churchmen.

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