As For Me, I Am More Patient And Good-Natured, And When I Found That The Kind Monks Who Gathered

Round me at Nazareth were longing to know the real truth about the General Bonaparte who had recoiled from the

Siege of Acre, I softened my heart down to the good humour of Herodotus, and calmly began to "sing history," telling my eager hearers of the French Empire and the greatness of its glory, and of Waterloo and the fall of Napoleon! Now my story of this marvellous ignorance on the part of the poor monks is one upon which (though depending on my own testimony) I look "with considerable suspicion." It is quite true (how silly it would be to INVENT anything so witless!), and yet I think I could satisfy the mind of a "reasonable man" that it is false. Many of the older monks must have been in Europe at the time when the Italy and the Spain from which they came were in act of taking their French lessons, or had parted so lately with their teachers, that not to know of "the Emperor" was impossible, and these men could scarcely, therefore, have failed to bring with them some tidings of Napoleon's career. Yet I say that that which I have written is true - the one who believes because I have said it will be right (she always is), whilst poor Mr. "reasonable man," who is convinced by the weight of my argument, will be completely deceived.

In Spanish politics, however, the monks are better instructed. The revenues of the monasteries, which had been principally supplied by the bounty of their most Catholic majesties, have been withheld since Ferdinand's death, and the interests of these establishments being thus closely involved in the destinies of Spain, it is not wonderful that the brethren should be a little more knowing in Spanish affairs than in other branches of history. Besides, a large proportion of the monks were natives of the Peninsula. To these, I remember, Mysseri's familiarity with the Spanish language and character was a source of immense delight; they were always gathering around him, and it seemed to me that they treasured like gold the few Castilian words which he deigned to spare them.

The monks do a world of good in their way; and there can be no doubting that previously to the arrival of Bishop Alexander, with his numerous young family and his pretty English nursemaids, they were the chief propagandists of Christianity in Palestine. My old friends of the Franciscan convent at Jerusalem some time since gave proof of their goodness by delivering themselves up to the peril of death for the sake of duty. When I was their guest they were forty I believe in number, and I don't recollect that there was one of them whom I should have looked upon as a desirable life-holder of any property to which I might be entitled in expectancy. Yet these forty were reduced in a few days to nineteen.

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