LA TRAPPE, 14 trip', the name of a Cis tercian abbey founded by Count Rotrou of Perche in 1140. It was known as Notre Dame de la Maison Dieu and from its situation in a damp, unhealthy glen, accessible only by a nar row stony passage was called La Trappe ("the trap"). The monks were as distinguished for austerity during the 14th and the 15th century as they subsequently became for licentiousness and violence when they were known as the "Bandits of La Trappe." The monastery, how ever, passed into the hands of Armand Jean le Boutlulier de Rance in the middle of the 17th century. This brilliant abbot had early aban doned himself to worldliness, but became con verted, introduced Benedictine monks into La Trappe and enforced severe discipline. The brethren rose at 2 A.M., retired at 7, slept on straw, were forbidden wine and flesh, spent each evening some time in digging their own graves, and never spoke excepting to say to each other, "Memento mori." Rance discour
aged literary pursuits but enforced constant manual labor; he died in 1700, and the Trappists were driven out of France by the Revolution. They founded a house at Valsainte, Switzer land, which was destroyed by the French in 1798, but they were again put in possession of La Trappe on the restoration of the Bourbons. In 1829 the Trappist houses were closed by a royal decree, and all but nine monasteries were suppressed; these were compelled to seek refuge in Algiers 1844, and the United States in 1848, where they established houses in Kentucky, Iowa and Rhode Island. Consult Gaillardin,