James. Naturally the monastery became most illustrious,
and its seat "the Mediterranean Isle of Saints."
But toward the close of the last century, its inmates having
become slothful and corrupt, it was dismantled, all save a small
portion torn down, and the island became the property first of
impiety, embodied in a French actress, and finally of heresy,
embodied in an English clergyman.
Bought back for the Church by the Bishop of Frejus in 1859,
there was little revival of life for twelve years. Then came the
reaction, religious and political, after the humiliation of
France and the Vatican by Germany; and of this reaction the
monastery of St. Honorat was made one of the most striking
outward and visible signs. Pius IX interested himself directly
in it, called into it a body of Cistercian monks, and it became
the chief seat of their order in France. To restore its
sacredness the strict system of La Trappe was
established--labour, silence, meditation on death. The word thus
given from Rome was seconded in France by cardinals,
archbishops, and all churchmen especially anxious for promotion
in this world or salvation in the next.
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