1.C.7.4. THE CONVENT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF PRINCIPLES
MEN unite themselves and dwell in communities. By virtue
of what right? By virtue of the right of association.
They shut themselves up at home. By virtue of what right?
By virtue of the right which every man has to open or shut
his door.
They do not come forth. By virtue of what right? By virtue
of the right to go and come, which implies the right to
remain at home.
There, at home, what do they do?
They speak in low tones; they drop their eyes; they toil.
They renounce the world, towns, sensualities, pleasures, vanities,
pride, interests. They are clothed in coarse woollen or
coarse linen. Not one of them possesses in his own right anything
whatever. On entering there, each one who was rich
makes himself poor. What he has, he gives to all. He who
was what is called noble, a gentleman and a lord, is the equal
of him who was a peasant. The cell is identical for all. All
undergo the same tonsure, wear the same frock, eat the same
black bread, sleep on the same straw, die on the same ashes.
The same sack on their backs, the same rope around their loins.
If the decision has been to go barefoot, all go barefoot. There
may be a prince among them; that prince is the same shadow
as the rest. No titles. Even family names have disappeared.
They bear only first names. All are bowed beneath the equality
of baptismal names. They have dissolved the carnal
family, and constituted in their community a spiritual family.
They have no other relatives than all men. They succor the
poor, they care for the sick. They elect those whom they obey.
They call each other "my brother."
You stop me and exclaim, "But that is the ideal convent!"
It is sufficient that it may be the possible convent, that I
should take notice of it.
Thence it results that, in the preceding book, I have spoken
of a convent with respectful accents. The Middle Ages cast
aside, Asia cast aside, the historical and political question held
in reserve, from the purely philosophical point of view, outside
the requirements of militant policy, on condition that the monastery
shall be absolutely a voluntary matter and shall contain
only consenting parties, I shall always consider a cloistered
community with a certain attentive, and, in some respects,
a deferential gravity.
Wherever there is a community, there is a commune; where
there is a commune, there is right. The monastery is the
product of the formula: Equality, Fraternity. Oh! how grand
is liberty! And what a splendid transfiguration! Liberty suffices
to transform the monastery into a republic.
Let us continue.
But these men, or these women who are behind these four
walls. They dress themselves in coarse woollen, they are
equals, they call each other brothers, that is well; but they do
something else?
Yes.
What?
They gaze on the darkness, they kneel, and they clasp their
hands.
What does this signify?