Fauchelevent thought that it was an orison which she was finishing.
“Amen,” said he.
“Father Fauvent, what the dead wish must be done.”
The prioress took off several beads of her chaplet.
Fauchelevent held his peace.
She went on:—
“I have consulted upon this point many ecclesiastics laboring in Our Lord, who occupy themselves in the exercises of the clerical life, and who bear wonderful fruit.”
“Reverend Mother, you can hear the knell much better here than in the garden.”
“Besides, she is more than a dead woman, she is a saint.”
“Like yourself, reverend Mother.”
“She slept in her coffin for twenty years, by express permission of our Holy Father, Pius VII.—”
“The one who crowned the Emp—Buonaparte.”
For a clever man like Fauchelevent, this allusion was an awkward one.
Fortunately, the prioress, completely absorbed in her own thoughts, did not hear it.
She continued:— “Father Fauvent?”
“Reverend Mother?”
“Saint Didorus, Archbishop of Cappadocia, desired that this single word might be inscribed on his tomb: Acarus, which signifies, a worm of the earth; this was done.
Is this true?”
“Yes, reverend Mother.”
“The blessed Mezzocane, Abbot of Aquila, wished to be buried beneath the gallows; this was done.”
“That is true.”
“Saint Terentius, Bishop of Port, where the mouth of the Tiber empties into the sea, requested that on his tomb might be engraved the sign which was placed on the graves of parricides, in the hope that passers-by would spit on his tomb. This was done.
The dead must be obeyed.”
“So be it.”
“The body of Bernard Guidonis, born in France near Roche-Abeille, was, as he had ordered, and in spite of the king of Castile, borne to the church of the Dominicans in Limoges, although Bernard Guidonis was Bishop of Tuy in Spain.
Can the contrary be affirmed?”
“For that matter, no, reverend Mother.”
“The fact is attested by Plantavit de la Fosse.”
Several beads of the chaplet were told off, still in silence. The prioress resumed:—
“Father Fauvent, Mother Crucifixion will be interred in the coffin in which she has slept for the last twenty years.”
“That is just.”
“It is a continuation of her slumber.”
“So I shall have to nail up that coffin?”
“Yes.”
“And we are to reject the undertaker’s coffin?”
“Precisely.”
“I am at the orders of the very reverend community.”
“The four Mother Precentors will assist you.”
“In nailing up the coffin?
I do not need them.”
“No. In lowering the coffin.”
“Where?”
“Into the vault.”
“What vault?”
“Under the altar.”
Fauchelevent started.
“The vault under the altar?”
“Under the altar.”
“But—”
“You will have an iron bar.”