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 CISTERCIANS

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CISTERCIANS

introduced into the Order of Citeaux, as into almost all the great religious families, a pernicious licence of thought and morality. New conflicts between the Abbot of Citeaux and the abbots of the four first houses of filiation arose concerning the government of the order and their own jurisdiction. In virtue of the liberties of the Gallican Church, the king and his council appointed a commission to restore order. A new collection of statutes was drawn up, but these were not definitively adopted until 17S6. The gen- eral chapter of that year finally agreed among them- selves and adopted the new statutes on the eve of the French Revolution. The political and religious disturbances which then and at the commencement of the nineteenth century troubled France and Europe almost ruined this venerable order. When the National Convention, by the decree of 13 February, 1790, secularized all the religious houses of France, the Order of Citeaux had in France 228 monasteries, with 1875 religious; 61 of these houses, with 532 re- ligious, were in the filiation of Citeaux; 3, with 33 religious, in that o c La Fert6; 33, with 171 religious, in that of Pontigny; 92, with 864 religious, in that of Clairvaux; and 37, with 251 religious, in that of Morimond. The sLxty-second and last Abbot of Citeaux, Dom Francois Trouve, having lost all hope of saving his monastery, begged Pius VI to transfer all his powers to Robert Schlecht, Abbot of Salsmans- weiler, of the Congregation of Northern Germany, so that the remnants of the ancient corporation of Citeaux might still have a ruler.

From France the hatred of religion passed with the arms of the usurpers into Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, and other countries, and there continued the work of destruction. By an imperial veto of the 25th of February, 1803, and a decree of the Prussian Govern- ment of the 28th of April, 1810, all the monasteries of Germany were ruined. The abbeys of Portugal were abolished by a law of the 26th of May, 1834, those of Spain by the laws of the 25th of July and the 11th of October, 1835, those of Poland disappeared before the decrees of the Russian and Prussian rulers.

IV. The Restoration (1790 — ). — The reform inau- gurated at La Trappe by Abbot de Ranee, reviv- ing the austerity and fervour of primitive Citeaux, was maintained, almost intact, against difficulties of every kind, until the French Revolution. There were then at La Trappe seventy religious and a nu- merous and fervent novitiate. When, on the 4th of December, a decree of the National Assembly sup- pressed the Trappists in France, Dom Augustin de Lestrange, then master of novices at La Trappe, authorized by his local superior and the Abbot of Clairvaux, set out with twenty-four of his brethren for Switzerland. The Senate of Fribourg permitted them to settle in Val-Sainte, 1 June, 1791. Pope Pius VI, by a Brief of 31 July, 1794, authorized the erection of Val-Sainte into an abbey. Dom Augustin was elected abbot on the 27th of the following No- vember, and on the 8th of December of the same year, a solemn decree of the nuncio of the Holy See at Lucerne, executing the Brief of Pius VI, constituted Val-Sainte an abbey and the mother-house of the whole Congregation of Trappists. There the Rule of St. Benedict was observed in all its rigour, and at times its severity was even surpassed. Novices flocked thither. 'From Val-Sainte Dom Augustin sent colonics into Spain, Belgium, and Piedmont.

But the French troops invaded Switzerland in

1796. Obliged to leave Val-Sainte, Dom Augustin,

with his religious of 1 oth sexes, commenced two years

nderings through Europe, during which period

they gave to the world the spectacle of the mo I heroic virtues. In 1800 Dom Augustin returned to France, and two years later resumed possession of Val-Sainte. In 1803 he sent a colony of his religious

to America under the direction of Dom Urbain Guillet. In 181 1, fleeing from the anger of Napoleon, who first favoured the Trappists and then suppressed all their monasteries in France and the whole empire, Dom Augustin himself left for America. In 1815, on the downfall of Napoleon, he returned immediately to La Trappe, while Dom Urbain Guillet established himself at Bellefontaine in the Diocese of Angers.

During this imperial persecvition, a schism took place in the Congregation of La Trappe. The colony which Dom Augustin had sent from Val-Sainte into Belgium under the direction of Dom Eugene de Laprade, and which had settled first at Westmalle, and then at Darpheld in Westphalia, had abandoned the Rules of Val-Sainte to embrace those of de Ranc<5. It returned to France and occupied Port-du-Salut in the Diocese of Laval; Westmalle, restored in 1821, with- drew from the jurisdiction of Dom Augustin to form, five years later, the Congregation of Belgium.

Dom Augustin died 16 July, 1827, at Lyons. A Decree dated 1 October, 1834, confirmed two days later by Gregory XVI, united the different houses of Trappists in France in one congregation known as the Congregation of Cistercian Monks of Ovir Lady of La Trappe. The General President of the Order of Citeaux is its head and confirms its abbots. The four first fathers are the Abbots of Melleray, Port- du-Salut, Bellefontaine, and Gard. The Rule of St. Benedict and the Constitutions of Citeaux or those of de Ranc6, according to the custom of each monas- tery, are observed. But with this diversity of ob- servance, the union did not last long. A pontifical Decree dated the 25 February, 1S47, and granted at the request of the religious of each observance, divides the Trappist monasteries of France into two congre- gations: the Ancient Reform of Our Lady of La Trappe, which follows the Rules of de Ranee, and the New Reform, which follows the Primitive Ob- servance and is governed by the Charter of Charity. Already Westmalle in 1836 formed a distinct congre- gation known as the Congregation of Belgium. There were then three distinct congregations of the Trappists.

It was reserved for a later generation to see the most complete reform effected by the fusion of all the congregations into one order in unity of government and observance. On the first of October, 1S92, at the desire of Leo XIII, a plenary general chapter was held at Rome, imder the presidency of Cardinal Mazzella, delegated by the Cardinal Protector Monaco della Valetta. The assembly lasted twelve days; the fusion was adopted; Dom Sebastian Wyart. Abbot of Septfons, who had taken the most active part in all the negotiations to effect this union, was chosen "General of the Order of the Reformed Cis- tercians of Our Lady of La Trappe". Such was the name given to the order. A decree of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars of 8 December, 1892, then a pontifical Brief of 23 March, 1S93, con- firmed and ratified the Acts of the chapter. On the 13th of August, 1894, the sovereign pontiff approved the new constitutions and the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars promulgated them on the 25th of the same month. In 1S9S, the SOOth anniversary of the foundation of the order, the sons of St. Bernard again took possession of the ancient Abbey of Citeaux. Dom Sebastian Wyart was elected abbot, and thus was restored the chain of abbots of Citeaux which had been broken for 107 years. It was then decided to suppress in the title of the order the words "Our Lady of La Trappe". the Abbey of La Trappe yielding the first rank to Citeaux. Finally, on the 30th of July, 1902, an Apostolic Constitution of Leo XIII solemnly

confirmed the restoration of the order and gave to it the definite name of "Order of Reformed Cister- cians, or the Strict Observance". Dom Sebastian Wyart died 18 August, 1904. The general chapter,