Père Pamphile

A monk belonging to the Trinitarian Order whose mission had formerly been to secure the release of Christian prisoners held hostage by Barbary pirates, Pamphile had lived, since the time of the dissolution of the brotherhood, alone on the grounds on the ruined Abbey de Réno, in Perche, where he had come to entertain a host of fantastical and mad ideas.

By dint of living by himself, sustained on himself, far from all intellectual contact, haunted by a single idea, in this mortal solitude, in the silence that only the creaking of beams and the collapsing of walls disturbed, a strange process of mental crystallization had taken place in the brain of Père Pamphile.

To this end, he sets off across France, where, over the course of several decades, he begs, endures hardships and humiliations, while regularly returning to Réno to continue the work of reconstruction.

But, exploited by those from whom he seeks financial assistance, Pamphile, unconcerned, sees the money he collects slip through his fingers, and his project never comes any closer to completion.

Not long thereafter, Jules returns to find Pamphile dead, after being crushed from the collapse of the partially constructed chapel, his body already in a state of advanced decomposition.