Meade County news., 1916-11-09
IS AN old ORDER
TRAPPISTS ONE OF THE MOST
ANCIENT ORGANIZATIONS.
incident of the Present War Has.
Called General Attention to Their
Monastery at Hazebrouck-
Have Spread over World.

Many American tourists have
stopped over night in the Trappist
monastery where, according to re-.
port recently published in a Paris,
newspaper, the youthful Prince Maxi
milien died of wounds in the third
month of the European war. After
nearly two years of mysterious silence
concerning the fate of this member
Of the royal family of Germany, it is.
now said that Hazebrouck is the place
Of burial of the kaiser's nephew. This.
town is only few miles south of the
Belgian border, and about eighteen
miles from Ypres, where the Germans
in their first onward drive toward the
sea were definitely checked by food
ing of the lowlands.
When peace is eventually declared a
search will doubtless be made in the
humble little cemetery of Hazebrouck
Ito recover the body Of the royal sub
lieutenant and carry it back to his
mother, the youngest sister of the
kaiser.
The fighting to the east of Haze
brouck was exceptionally severe dur
ing the early months of the war, for
this French town of 10000 inhabitants
is a place Of extraordinary strategic
value, owing to the fact that 1t is the
junction point of railroads leading to-
the North sea port Of Dunkirk, %
miles to the north; to Arras, 20 miles
to the south; to Calais, 3S miles to the
northwest, and to Lille, 20 miles to
the southeast. The German advance
never reached as far as Hazebrouck.
The town Of Godewaersvelde, where
Prince Maximihen is supposed to have
received his fatal wound, is the last
village before crossing the French bor-
der into Belgium on the HaZebrouck-
Ypres line. Above the little town
towers the Mont des Cats, on top Of
which is situated the modern Trappist
monastery where the wounded officer
was nursed.
The tourists who frequented the
monastery in the days before the war
were those who wished to take advan-
tage of it's hospitable walls for a
nights lodging to be able to get an
early start for delightful walking ex-
cursions over the wooded slopes of Mont
Noir and Mont de Lille on the Belgian
frontier.
The Trappists are a flourishing Or
der of Cistercian monks who derive
their name from the monastery of La
Grande Trappe, at Soligny-la-T -Trappe,
100 miles southwest of Paris, where
Armand Jean lie B. de Rance insti-
tuted sweeping reforms in the middle
of the seventeenth century. The expul-
sion Of the order during the French
revolution only seemed to stimulate
it's growth in its city of refuge-Val
Sainte, Switzerland. A quarter Of
century after their flight the Trappists
returned to their original home, and in
the course of the century which has
intervened between that day and this,
the order has spread to many parts Of
the world, including congregation Of
so Chinese ruonks, others in Japan,
Asia Minor, Canada and the United
States.
In Natal the missionary Trappists
are particularly active in trying to
civilize and convert the Kaffirs, and
among their activities in this part Of
the world is the printing of books in
the Zulu language. There are also
Trappist nunneries, the first being that
of Les Clairet, at Chartres, which
adopted de RANGES reforms during his
lifetime.