Although it’s many a year since I helped her to cull the herbs, I think that under the guidance of St. Augustine, with the permission of our good Father Abbé, and by taking pains, I could recover the secret of the wondrous Elixir. I should know the taste of it again. You would only have to bottle it and sell it at a fancy price to fill your coffers with golden louis. Then you might hold your heads as high as the haughty Brothers of La Trappe and the Grande Chartreuse!”

‘The Chapter leapt to their feet. The Prior threw his arm round Gaucher’s neck. The Canons grasped his hands. The Treasurer’s gratitude was unbounded—he kissed the tattered hem of the Brother’s sackcloth gown. The excitement having subsided and deliberations resumed, the Chapter decided unanimously to hand over the cows to Brother Thrasybulus, leaving Brother Gaucher free to pursue the quest of the Elixir.

‘It sufficeth to say that the recipe was found. When, how, where, Gaucher alone knows. History is in the dark. That the Brother was neither dolt nor laggard is decisively proved by the fact that, in less than six months, not a single farmhouse or cottage throughout the Comtat and the region around Arles but could show in the locked pantry cupboard, between the bottles of home-made wine and the jars of picholine olives, a little brown earthenware flagon, its seal stamped with the arms of Provence, its label all-glorious with—a Monk in Raptures on a Silver Ground.

‘By the magic succours of Aunt Bégon’s Elixir, wealth poured into the Convent Treasury. The crumbling fabric was restored, the monk’s penury relieved, the Prior was resplendent investments new, and the next Resurrection dawn was ushered in by the strains of virgin bells pealing forth full-throated pæans of thanksgiving.

‘The despised lay-brother Gaucher, whose clownish bearing had excited the Chapter’s mirth, was buried in oblivion. Were Brother Gaucher asked for at the Convent, it was replied, “There’s no such Brother here—perhaps you mean the Reverend Father Gaucher?”

‘ “The Father lived apart from the humdrum life of the Cloister, immersed in his distillery, the Superior of thirty monks who scoured the mountain in search of herbs. A disused chapel, standing apart at the foot of the Canon’s garden, served as distillery. It was an inviolable sanctum, forbidden ground even to the Prior himself. The unsophisticated Fathers regarded it with fear and trembling, a place of deep, perhaps unhallowed, mysteries. Should a venturesome, prying brother scale the vine and peep in at the rose window, a moment’s glance at the necromantic array took away his breath. There stood the black- bearded Father Gaucher, hydrometer in hand over a steaming furnace. Around were retorts of red- sandstone, gigantic stills, spiral condensing pipes, a bizarre sorcerer-like equipment blazing uncannily through the red panes of the window. Aghast at his own temerity, peeping Tom would scramble down the vine as if the devil were in pursuit.

‘At sunset, when the last Angelus was rung, a door in the distillery was cautiously opened, and His Reverence walked forth to Evensong. The Brothers lined up on either side with hushed respect. “He has the secret,” was faintly whispered. The Treasurer followed with bent head. As the Father advanced through the awe-struck throng, a wide-brimmed that encircling the back of his head like an aureole, he fanned his face, looked with serene self-complacency on the courts planted with orange trees, on restored roofs with newly-gilded weathercocks, on the dazzling whiteness of the Cloister, its elegant columns crowned with carved capitals, on the spick-and-span vestments of the Canons.

‘ “All these are yours, Gaucher,” said His Reverence to himself.

‘Yes, he walked with conscious pride. But pride goes before a fall, as is exemplified in the sequel.

‘Picture the scene one evening at Vespers when Father Gaucher burst in upon the worshippers, breathless, flushed, reeling, his cowl all awry, plunging into the holy water right up to his elbow. At first the monks thought that, his distillery duties having detained him, he was flustered at finding himself late; but when he turned his back to the High Altar, made obeisance to the organ and galleries, scudded up the nave