The Adventures of Father Silas

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When I look back at the strange vicissitudes that have chequered my existence, and compare the troubles of the past with the serenity of the present, I can scarcely regret the misfortune which made me retire from active service under the standard of the mighty Venus, and thus afforded me leisure to lay the fruits of my own bitter experience before those who may hereafter serve under the same banners.

I am the fruit of the incontinence of the reverend Celestine Fathers of the town of B-. I say of the reverend Fathers, because all of them boasted of having contributed a share in the formation of my individual person. But what so suddenly arrests me? My heart is agitated-is it through fear that I shall be reproached with revealing the mysteries of the Church? Alas! I must overcome this compunction. Who does not know that all men are men, and especially the monks? they have certainly the faculty of cooperating in the propagation of the species; and why should we hinder them, when they acquit themselves so well in that particular?

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