Knights and their days

by Dr. Doran

THE KNIGHTS WHO GREW “TIRED OF IT.”

“How blest are they that waste their weary hours

In solemn groves and solitary bower

Where neither eye nor ear

Can see or hear

The frantic mirth

And false delights of frolic earth;

Where they may sit and pant,

And breathe their pursy souls;

Where neither grief consumes, nor griping want

Afflicts, nor sullen care controls!

Away false joys! Ye murder where ye kiss;

There is no heaven to that, no life to this.”

Francis Quarles.

As marriage or the cloister was the alternative submitted to most ladies in the days of old, so young men of noble families had small choice but between the church and chivalry. Some, indeed, commenced with arms, won knightly honors, cared nothing for them when they had obtained the prize, and took up the clerical profession, or entered monasteries. There are many distinguished examples. There was first St. Mochua or Cluanus, who, after serving in arms with great distinction, entered a monastery and took to building churches and establishing cities. Of the former he built no less than thirty; and he passed as many years in one church as he had built of churches themselves. He was the founder of one hundred and twenty cells. He is to be looked upon with respect. Old warriors in our own days are often moved by the same impulse which governed Mochua; and when we see retired admirals taking the chair at meetings where Dr. Cumming is about to exhibit; or infirm major-generals supporting, with unabated mental energy, their so-called Puseyite pastors, we only look upon men who, acting conscientiously, are worthy of respect, and are such Mochuas as modern times and circumstances will admit of.

We have another example in Adelard, the cousin of Charlemagne. He was a gay and gallant chevalier at his imperial cousin’s court, and there was no stouter wielder of a sword in all the army; but Alard, or Adelard, grew weary of camp and court alike. He fled from some very pretty temptations in the one, as well as great perils in the other. The young prince, he was only twenty, took the monastic habit at Corbie, where he was employed as a gardener, and spoiled cartloads of vegetables before he got his hand and his thoughts to his new profession. He was occasionally busy too in the kitchen, but not to the visible gratification of the monks. Charlemagne often insisted on his appearing at court, where at last he held one or two high offices; and, when he left, wrote a book for the guidance of courtiers generally, by which the latter as little profited, say wicked wits, as other nobility, for whom a nation has long prayed that grace, wisdom, and understanding might be their portion. St. Adelard, for the imperial knight was canonized, lived to be the chief authority in the monastery where he had commenced as cook and gardener, and St. Gerard composed an office in his honor, in gratitude for having been cured of a violent headache through the saint’s interposition. This seems to me one of the oddest ways of showing gratitude for a small service that I ever heard of.

I believe that St. Cedd, Bishop of London, in very early days, was also of a family whose profession was military. When or why he entered the church I do not know; but he has some connection with military matters in the fact that Tilbury Fort occupies part of the site of a monastery which St. Cedd had founded, in which he resided, and which was the pride of all the good people in the then pleasant and prosperous city of Tillabury.

Touching St. Aldric, Bishop of Mans, there is no doubt whatever. He was of a noble family, and commenced life at twelve years old, as page to Louis le Debonnaire, at the court of Charlemagne. He was speedily sick of the court, and as speedily sick of the camp. At the age of twenty-one he withdrew to Metz, entered the clerical profession, and became chaplain and confessor to the sovereign whom he had once served as page. His military training made him a very sharp disciplinarian during the quarter of a century that he was bishop; and it is only to be regretted that he had not some influence over the king whose conscience he directed, and of whom a legend will be found in another part of this volume.

There was a second son of Eric, King of Denmark, known by the name of St. Knudt or Canute. He was Duke of Schleswig, and was much more of a monk than a duke. He was canonized accordingly for his virtues. He had a rough way of joking. His knights were nothing better than robbers and pirates, and he resolved to make them forswear violence and live peaceably. They represented, in vain, that they had a right to live as became knights, which Canute did not dispute; he simply dissented from the construction of the right as set down by the knights themselves. To prevent all mistakes on the matter, he one day condemned seven of these gentlemen to be hanged for acts of piracy. One of these exclaimed that, “fitting as the sentence might be for his fellows, there must necessarily be exemption for him.” He was like the German corporal in the “Etoile du Nord,” who can very well understand that it is quite proper that a man should be hanged, but could not comprehend that he himself should be the man. The Schleswig knight claimed special exemption on the ground that he was a kinsman of Canute. The latter allowed that this entitled him to some distinction, and the saintly duke hung his cousin six feet higher than any of his accomplices.

We come back more immediately to a knight who grew tired of his vocation, in the person of Nathalan, a Scottish noble of the fifth century. He sold arms, horses, and estate, divided the proceeds among the poor, and devoted himself to preparations for ordination, and the cultivation of vegetables. He bears a highly respectable reputation on the roll of Bishops of Aberdeen.

We meet with a man more famous, in Peter of Sebaste, whose pedigree showed more heroes than could be boasted by any of Peter’s contemporaries. He is not an example, indeed, of a man quitting the camp for the cloister; but he and two of his brothers exhibit to us three individuals who might have achieved great worldly profit, by adopting arms as a vocation, but who preferred the Church, and became, all three, bishops.

We have a similar example in the Irish St. Felan. His high birth and great wealth would have made him the flower of Irish chivalry, but he selected another profession, and despising chivalry, entered the Church. He went a Mundo ad Mundum, for it was from the hands of Abbot Mundus that he received the monastic habit. Thus, as it was wittily said, the world (Mundus) at once drove and drew him into the Church. It is clear, however, that, like the old war-horse, he pricked up his ears at the sound of battle, and took an interest in stricken fields. To such conclusion we must come, if it be true, as is asserted of him, that the battle of Bannockburn, in 1314, was won by Bruce through the saint’s especial intercession. The Dukes of Normandy owed equal obligations to St. Vaneng, who unbuckled the armor from his aristocratic loins, to cover them with a frock; and built churches for the Normans, where he offered up continual prayer for the Norman dukes.

Then again, there was William Berringer, of the family of the Counts of Nevers. No persuasion could induce the handsome William to continue in the career he had embraced, the career of chivalry and arms. His uncle, Peter the Hermit, may have had considerable influence over him, and his change of profession was by no means unprofitable, for the once horse-loving William became Archbishop of Bourges: and he defended the rights of his Church against kings and councils with as much boldness, zeal, and gallantry, as any knight could have exhibited against the stoutest of assailants.

Among our English saints, the one who most nearly resembles him is St. Egwin, who was of the royal blood of the Mercian kings, and who, after a short trial of the profession of arms, retired to the cloister, but was ultimately raised to the see of Worcester. The spirit of the man may perhaps be seen through the legend which says that on setting out on a penitential pilgrimage to Rome, he put iron shackles on his legs, the key of which shackles he flung into the Avon. This is very possible; but when we are told that on requiring the key at a subsequent period, he found it inside a fish, we see that the author of the legend has plagiarized from the original constructor of the story of Polycrates and his ring.

St. Egwin was far less a benefactor to his fellow-men than St. Benedict Biscop, a noble knight of the court of Oswi, the pious king of the Northumbrians. When Benedict, or Bennet, as he is familiarly called, retired from the profession of arms to follow that of the Church, he continued quite as active, and twice as useful, as he had been before. He was a great traveller, spent and gave liberally, and brought over with him, from the continent, workers in stone to erect that monastery at Weremouth which, in its ruins, commemorates his name and deeds. He also brought from France the first glaziers who ever exercised the art of glass-making in England. Altogether St. Bennet is one of those who find means to effect good to others, whatever may be the position they are in themselves.

Aelred of Ridal was a man of similar quality. He was a young North-of-England noble, when he figured as the handsomest cavalier at the court of that “sair saint to the Church,” the Scottish king, David. He was remarkable for his good temper, and was as well-disciplined a monk as he had been a military man; for when he once happened to inadvertently break the rule of permanent silence, which prevailed in the monastery at Ridal, into which he entered at the age of twenty-five, he became so horror-stricken that he was eager to increase the penalty put upon him in consequence. He had only dropped a single word in the garden, to a monk who, like himself, had been a knight, but who gave him in return so edifying a scowl, that in an instant poor Aelred felt all the depth of his unutterable iniquity, and accounted himself as criminal as if he had set fire to the neighboring nunnery. He never afterward allowed himself the indulgence of reading his favorite Cicero, but confined his reading to his own work “On Spiritual Friendship,” and other books of a similar description.

The great St. Hilary was another of the men of noble family following arms as a vocation, who gave up the profession for that of the Church, and prospered remarkably in consequence. St. Felix of Nola affords us an additional illustration of this fact. This noble young soldier found no happiness in the business of slaughtering, and all the sophistry in the world could not persuade him that it was honorable. “It is a disgusting business,” said the Saint, “and as I can not be Felix [happy] in performing it, I will see if I can not be Felix in the Church;” and the punning saint found what he sought.

There is something more wonderful in the conversion of St. Maurus. He was the son of a nobleman, had St. Benedict for a tutor, and was destined to the career of arms. The tutor, however, having awoke him one night, and sent him to pick a monk out of the river, whom Benedict, in a dream, had seen fall in, Maurus, although no swimmer, obeyed, walked upon the surface of the water, pulled out the struggling monk, walked back with him, arm-in-arm, to the shore, and immediately concluded that he was called to another vocation than that of arms. As for St. John Calybyte, he would not be a soldier, but ran away from home before his wealthy sire could procure him a commission, and only returned to stand, disguised as a mendicant, in front of his father’s house, where he received alms till he died. A curious example of idiosyncrasy. St. Honoratus was wiser. He was of a consular family; but, in declining the military profession, he addressed himself with sincerity to be useful in the Church; and the well-deserved result was that he became Archbishop of Arles. St. Anthony, the patriarch of monks, made still greater sacrifices, and chose rather to be a hermit than a commander of legions. St. Sulpicius, the Debonnair, was both rich and good-looking, but he cared less for helmet and feathers than for cord and cowl, and the archbishopric of Bourges rewarded his self-denial. There was more than one King Canute too, who, though not surrendering royalty and generalship of armies, seemed really more inclined, and indeed more fitted, to be studious monks than chivalrous monarchs. Wulstan of Worcester was far more decided, for finding himself, one night, most warmly admiring the young lady who was his vis-à-vis in a dance, the gallant officer was so shocked at the impropriety, that he made it an excuse for taking to the cowl forthwith. He did not so ill by the exchange, for the cowl brought him to the mitre at Worcester.

St. Sebastian was a far bolder man, seeing that although he hated a military life, he, to the very utmost, did his duty in that state of life to which it had pleased God to call him; and if half be true of what is told of him, there never was knight of the actual days of chivalry who performed such bold and perilous actions as St. Sebastian. What was a cavalier, pricking against a dragon, to a Roman officer preaching Christianity to his men, under Diocletian?

In later days we meet with St. Raymund of Pennafort, the wealthy young lord, who, rather than serve for pay or plunder, went about teaching philosophy for nothing. St. John, the Patriarch of Alexandria, might have been known as a conqueror, but he preferred being handed down, under the title of the Almoner. He was like that St. Cadoc who chose rather to be abbot in, than prince of, Wales. St. Poppo of Stavelo exhibited similar humility. He was rapidly rising in the Flandrian army when he suddenly sunk into a cell, and became a sort of Flemish John Wesley. He preached against all tournaments, but only succeeded in abolishing the very exciting combats between a knight and a bear, which were greatly patronized by Flemish ladies, and at which parties staked great sums upon their favorite animal.

St. Francis of Sales, on the other hand, that gentlemanly saint, was saved from the knightly career which his noble birth seemed to promise him, by a vow made by his mother, before he was born. She was resolved that he should be a saint and not a soldier, and as all things went as the lady desired, she placed her son in a position direct for the Church, and the world certainly lost nothing by the matron’s proceeding. I respect St. Francis of Sales all the more that he had small human failings, and did not scatter damnation over men whom he saw in a similar concatenation. Sulpicius Severus was, in many respects, like him, save that he had some experience of a soldier’s life. But he laid down the sword for the pen, and gave us that admirable historical romance, in which he details so graphically the life of another noble warrior, who quitted the command of soldiers, to take up the teaching of men—St. Martin of Tours.

There was a lady, St. Aldegonde, of the royal blood of France, in the seventh century, who at least encouraged young knights to abandon their fancied vocation, and assume that of monks or friars. She was, most undeservedly, I dare say, assailed by scandalizing tongues accordingly. Indeed, I never heard of lady more persecuted in this way, except perhaps this particular lady’s namesake, who once belonged to the gay troupe of the Varietés, and to whom the most rattling of chansonniers alluded, in the line of a song, which put the significant query of

Que fait Aldegonde avec le monde entier?

One of the most remarkable features in the characters of many of these young nobles who were disinclined to take up arms, or who laid them down for the religious vocation, is the dread they entertained of matrimony. In illustration of this fact, I may notice the case of St. Silvin of Auchy. There was not a gayer or braver knight at the court of Childeric II., nor a more welcome wooer among the ladies. In due time he proposed to a noble maiden, who was in a flutter of happiness at the thought of carrying off such a bachelor from a host of competitors. The wedding was brilliant, up to the conclusion of the ceremony. That over, no persuasion could induce the bridegroom to go to the breakfast. As he had been brought to the altar, there he was resolved to remain. He denounced all weddings as wicked vanities, and darting out of the church-door, left bride and bridal party to take what course they would. There was no end of conjectures as to the cause of the sudden fright which had seized upon the young bridegroom. The latter set it down to inspiration, and as he took to the cowl and led a most exemplary life, no one presumed to doubt it, except the bride and her relations.

The case of St. Licinius is easier of explanation. He was the most rollicking knight-bachelor at the court of Clotaire I. It must, however, be said for him that he sowed his wild oats early, and fought none the less stoutly for going to mass daily, and confessing once a quarter. He was rich, and had a maiden neighbor who was richer. The families of knight and maiden were united in thinking that the estates of the two, encircled in one ring fence, would be one of the most desirable of consummations. The maiden was nothing loath, the knight alone was reluctant. He too, had his doubts about the excellence of marriage, and it was only with very considerable difficulty he was brought to woo the lady, who said “Yes” before the plume in his bonnet had touched the ground when he made his bow to her. The wedding-day was fixed, and as the old epitaph says, “wedding-clothes provided.” On the eve of the eventful day, however, Licinius, on paying a visit to the bride, found her suddenly attacked with leprosy. The doctor protested that it would be nothing, but Licinius declared that it was a warning which he dared not neglect. He looked at the leprous lady, muttered the word “unpleasant,” and at once betook himself, not to active military life, but to a religious mission. In this occupation he is alleged to have performed such miracles as to deserve canonization, if only the half of them were true.

Now, a bride afflicted with leprosy may fairly be said to be an unpleasant sight. Licinius may even be considered authorized to hesitate in performing his promise, if not in altogether declaring off. We can not say as much in extenuation of another knight who broke his word to a lady, and was clapped into the Roman calendar of deified men. This gentleman in question had a rather unchristian-sounding name. He was called Abraham of Chiduna. At tilt and tournament, and in tented field, there was no cavalier who sat more perfectly in saddle, or handled his lance and wielded his battle-axe with more terrible effect. He was of noble birth, of course; was wealthy, somewhat addicted to light living, in his salad days, but a man who lived soberly enough when those were over. He then resolved to marry, and he had the “good taste,” if one may use a term which, we are told, belongs to the literary milliner’s vocabulary, to offer himself to, and ask the hand of a very pious maiden with a highly satisfactory dower. The required conclusion was soon come to, and one fine spring morning saw the two principals and their respective friends in church. The knight, it is true, was the last to arrive, and he had been, previously, as unwilling to get up and be married, as Master Barnardine was to get up and be hanged. He was finally brought to the altar, and after some little delay, such as searching for the ring which he had misplaced, and only recovered after much search, the nuptial knot was tied. When this had been accomplished, surrounding friends approached to offer their congratulations; but the icy Abraham coldly waved them back, and announced his determination, then and there, to end his short-lived married state. As he immediately rushed into the wood which was in the vicinity of the church, there was a universal cry that he contemplated suicide. The bride was conveyed home amid much sympathy, and a general but an ineffectual search was made for the “groom.” Yet, not altogether ineffectual, for at the end of seventeen days he was discovered, offering up his orisons, in the midst of a marsh. There he had been, he said, for a fortnight, and there he declared he would remain, unless those who sought him consented to the terms he should propose. These were, that he should be allowed to retire to a cell which should be entirely walled up, save a small square aperture for a window. The agreement was ratified, and Abraham was shut up according to his desire; and by a long life of seclusion, passed in preaching to all who approached the window, and taking in all they brought through the same aperture, Abraham has had “Beatus” attached to his name, and that name has been recorded upon the roll of saints.

If there be any reader who objects to this story as unnatural, I would remark to the same, that similar incidents may be met with in our own time. In proof thereof I will briefly relate an anecdote which was told me by the reverend father of a legal knight, who was himself the officiating minister at the ceremony of which I am about to speak.

To the clergyman of a pretty village in Wales, due notice had been given, and all preliminary legal observances having been fulfilled, he awaited in his vestry, ready to marry an ex-sergeant and one of the girls of the village. The canonical hours were fast gliding away, and yet the priest was not summoned to the altar. By certain sounds he could tell that several persons had assembled in the church, and he had two or three times seen a pretty face peeping in at the vestry-door, with a look upon it of pleasure to see that he was still there, and of perplexity as if there was something to be told which only waited to be asked for. At half-past eleven the face again peeped in, whereupon the clergyman invited the owner of it to approach nearer. The invitation was obeyed, and the clergyman inquired the reason for the unusual delay, remarking at the same time, that if the parties were not speedily prepared it would be too late to perform the ceremony that day.

“Well sir,” said the nymph, “I was about asking your advice. I am the bride’s sister; and there is a difficulty—”

“What is it?” asked the priest.

“Just this, sir,” said Jenny. “Sergeant Jones has promised to marry sister Winnifred if father will put down five pounds. Father agrees; but he says that if he puts down the money before the marriage, the sergeant will walk off. And the sergeant will not come up to be married till the money is put down. So, you see, sir, we are in a terrible difficulty; and we want you to propose a method to get us out of it.”

“There is nothing easier,” said the minister; “let your father put the money into the hands of a trusty third person, who will promise to place it in the sergeant’s possession as soon as he has married your sister.”

Jenny Morgan saw the excellence of the device in a moment, rushed back to the bridal parties, and they showed their appreciation of the clergyman’s suggestion, by crowding to the altar as soon as the preliminary proceeding recommended to them had been accomplished. At length the clergyman came to the words, “Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife?”

“Jack,” said the ex-sergeant, looking round at the stake-holder, “have you got the cash?”

“All right!” nodded Jack.

“Then I will,” said the sergeant; “and now, Jack, hand over the tin.”

The agreement was rigidly fulfilled; but had not the minister thought of the means which solved the difficulty, Sergeant Jones would have been nearly as ungallant to his lady as Abraham, Silvin, and Licinius, had been to theirs.

But to return to Abraham. I have said this knight, on assuming his monkly character, had caused himself to be walled up in his cell. I have my suspicions, however, that it was a theatrical sort of wall, for it is very certain that the saint could pass through it. Now, there resided near him a lady recluse who was his “niece,” and whose name was Mary. The two were as inseparable as the priest Lacombe and Madame Guyon; and probably were as little deserving of reproach. This Mary was the original of “Little Red Riding Hood.” She used to convey boiled milk and butter, and other necessary matters to her uncle Abraham. Now it happened that the ex-knight used also to be visited by a monk whose name was Wolf, or who, at all events, has been so called by hagiographers, on account of his being quite as much of a beast as the quadruped so called. The monk was wont to fall in with Mary as she was on her way to her uncle’s cell with pleasant condiments under a napkin, in a wicker-basket. He must have been a monk of the Count Ory fashion, and he was as seductive as Ponchard, when singing “Gentille Annette” to the “Petit Chaperon Rouge,” in Boieldieu’s Opera. The result was, that the monk carried off Mary to a neighboring city—Edessa, if I remember rightly—and if I am wrong, Mr. Mitchell Kemble will, perhaps, set me right, in his bland and gentleman-like way. The town-life led by these two was of the most disgraceful nature; and when the monk had grown tired of it, he left Mary to lead a worse, without him. Mary became the “Reine Pomare,” the “Mogadore,” the “Rose Pomponne” of Edessa, and was the terror of all families where there were elder sons and latch-keys. Her doings and her whereabouts at length reached the ears of her uncle Abraham, and not a little astonished were those who knew the recluse to see him one morning, attired in a pourpoint of rich stuff, with a cloak like Almaviva’s, yellow buskins with a fall of lace over the tops, a jaunty cap and feather on his head, a rapier on his thigh, and a steed between his legs, which curveted under his burden as though the fun of the thing had given it lightness. At Mary’s supper, this cavalier was present on the night of his arrival in Edessa. He scattered his gold like a Crœsus, and Mary considered him worth all the more penniless knights put together. When these had gone, as being less welcome, Abraham declared his relationship, and acted on the right it gave him to rate a niece who was not only an ungrateful minx, but who was as mendacious as an ungrateful niece could well be. The old gentleman, however, had truth on his side, and finally so overwhelmed Mary with its terrible application, that she meekly followed him back to the desert, and passed fifteen years in a walled-up cell close to that of her uncle. The miracles the two performed are adduced as proofs of the genuineness of the personages and their story; matters which I would not dispute even if I had room for it.

The next knight whom I can call to mind as having been frightened by marriage into monkery, is St. Vandrille, Count of the Palace to King Dagobert. During the period of his knightship he was a very Don Juan for gallantry, and railed against matrimony as conclusively as a Malthusian. His friends pressed him to marry nevertheless; and introduced him to a lady with a hundred thousand golden qualities, and prospects as auriferous as those of Miss Kilmansegg. He took the lady’s hand with a reluctance that might be called aversion, and which he did not affect to conceal. When the nuptial ceremony was concluded, Knight Vandrille, as eccentric as the cavaliers whose similar conduct I have already noticed, mildly intimated that it was not his intention to proceed further, and that for his part, he had renounced the vanities of this world for aye. Taking the lady apart, he appears to have produced upon her a conviction that the determination was one he could not well avoid; and we are not told that she even reproached him for a conduct which seems to me to have been a thousand times more selfish and inexcusable than that of the clever but despicable Abelard. The church, however, did not disapprove of the course adopted, and St. Vandrille, despite his worse than breach of promise, has been forgiven as knight, and canonized as saint.

Far more excusable was that little Count of Arian, Elzear, the boy-knight at the court of Charles II., King of Sicily, whom that monarch married at the age of thirteen years, to Delphina of Glandeves, a young lady of fifteen. When I say far more excusable, I do Elzear some injustice, for the boy was willing enough to be wed, and looked forward to making his lady proud of his own distinction as a knight. Delphina, however, it was who proposed that they should part at the altar, and never meet again. She despised the boy, and the little cavalier took it to heart—so much so, that he determined to renounce the career of arms and enter the church. Thereby chivalry lost a worthy cavalier, and the calendar gained a very active saint.

Elzear might well feel aggrieved. There have been knights even younger than he, who have carried spurs before they were thirteen. This reminds me of a paragraph in an article which I contributed to “Fraser’s Magazine,” in March, 1844, under the title of “A Walk across Bohemia,” in which, speaking of the Imperial Zeughaus at Vienna, I noticed “the suit of armor of that little hero, the second Louis of Hungary, he who came into this breathing world some months before he was welcome, and who supported his character for precocity by marrying at twelve, and becoming the legitimate bearer of all the honors of paternity as soon as he entered his teens; who moreover maintained his consistency by turning a gray old man at sixteen, and finally terminated his ephemeral course on the field of battle before he became of age.” Elzear then was not, perhaps, so poor a knight as his older lady seemed disposed to count him.

I must be briefer with noticing the remaining individuals who either flung up chivalry for the Church, or who preferred the latter to following a knightly career. First, there was St. Anscharius, who after he had made the change alluded to, was standing near the easy Olas, King of Sweden, when the latter cast lots to decide whether Christianity should be the religion of the state, or not. We are told that the prayers of St. Anscharius caused the king to throw double-sixes in favor of the better cause.

St. Andrew Cossini made an admirable saint after being the most riotous of cavaliers. So St. Amandus of Nantes won his saintship by resigning his lordship over men-at-arms. Like him was that St. Romuald of the family of the Dukes of Ravenna, who, whether fighting or hunting, loved to retire from the fray and the chase, to pray at peace, in shady places. St. John of Malta and St. Stephen of Grandmont were men of the like kidney. St. Benedict of Anian was that famous cup-bearer of Charlemagne, who left serving the Emperor in hall and field, to serve a greater master with less ostentation. He followed the example of that St. Auxentius, who threw up his commission in the equestrian guard of Theodosius the Younger, to take service in a body of monks.

Many of those who renounced arms, or would not assume military service when opportunity offered itself, profited personally by the adoption of such a course. Thus St. Porphyrius was a knight till he was twenty-five years of age, and he died Bishop of Gaza. The knight St. Wulfran became Bishop of Sens. St. Hugh won the bishopric of Grenoble, by not only renouncing knighthood himself, but by inducing his father to follow his example. St. Norbert became Archbishop of Magdeburg, after leading a jolly life, not only as a knight but as priest. A fall from his horse brought him to a sense of decency. A prophecy of a young maiden to St. Ulric gained him his saintship and the bishopric of Augsburg. Had she not foretold he would die a bishop, he would have been content to carry a banner. Examples like these are very numerous, but I have cited enough.

Few in a worldly sense made greater sacrifice than St. Casimir, son of Casimir III., King of Poland. He so loved his reverend tutor, Dugloss, that, to be like him, he abandoned even his chance of the throne, and became a priest. St. Benedict of Umbria took a similar course, upon a smaller scale; and not all the persuasions of his nurse, who ran after him when he ran away from home, could induce him to be anything but a priest. St. Herman Joseph, of Cologne, showed how completely he had abandoned the knightly character, when, as monk, he begged the peasants whom he taught, to be good enough to buffet him well, and cuff him soundly, as it was impossible for him to have a sufficiency of kicks and contempt. St. Guthlac, the noble hermit of Croyland, evinced more dignity in his retirement, and the same may be said of St. Peter Regalati, and St. Ubaldus of Gabio. The latter was resolute neither to marry nor take arms. He liked no turmoil, however qualified. St. Vincent of Lerins did bear arms for years, but he confessed he did not like the attendant dangers—threatening him spiritually, not bodily, and he took the cowl and gained a place in the sacred calendar accordingly. St. Aloysius Gonzaga, whose father was a prince, was another of the young gentlemen for whom arms had little attraction. The humility of this young gentleman, however, had a very silly aspect, if it all resembled what is said of him by Father Caperius. “He never looked on women, kept his eye strictly guarded, and generally cast down; would never stay with his mother alone in her chamber, and if she sent in any message to him by some lady in her company, he received it, and gave his answer in a few words, with his eyes shut, and his chamber-door only half open; and when bantered on that score, he ascribed such behavior to his bashfulness. It was owing to his original modesty that he did not know by their face many ladies among his own relations, with whom he had frequently conversed; and that he was afraid and ashamed to let a footman see so much as his foot uncovered.” Whatever the soft Aloysius may have been fit for, it is clear that he was not fit for chivalry. Something akin to him was St. Theobald of Champagne, who probably would never have been a saint, if his father had not ordered him to lead a body of troops to the succor of a beleaguered cousin. Theobald declined, and at once went into a monastery.

St. Walthen, one of the sons of the Earl of Huntingdon, and Maud, daughter of Judith, which Judith was the niece of the Conqueror, only narrowly escaped being a gallant knight. As a boy, indeed, he used to build churches with his box of bricks, while his brothers built castles; but at least he gave promise of being a true knight, and, once, not only accepted the gift of a ring from a lady, but wore the sparkling diamond on his finger. “Ah! ah!” exclaimed the saucy courtiers, “Knight Walthen is beginning to have a tender heart for the ladies!” Poor Walthen! he called this a devil’s chorus, tossed the ring into the fire, broke the lady’s heart, and went into a monastery for the remainder of his days. He escaped better than St. Clarus, who had a deaf ear and stone-blind eyes for the allurements of a lady of quality, and who only barely escaped assassination, at the hands of two ruffians hired by the termagant to kill the man who was above allowing her holy face to win from him a grin of admiration. But though I could fill a formidable volume with names of ci-devant knights who have turned saints, I will spare my readers, and conclude with the great name of St. Bernard. He did not, indeed, take up arms, but when he adopted a religious profession, he enjoyed the great triumph of inducing his uncle, all his brothers, knights, and simple officers, to follow his example. The uncle Gualdri, a famous swordsman and seigneur of Touillon, was the first who was convinced that Bernard was right. The two younger brothers of the latter, Bartholomew and Andrew, next knocked off their spurs and took to their breviary. Guy, the eldest brother, a married man, of wealth, broke up his household, sold his armor, sent his lady to a convent and his daughters to a nunnery, put on the cowl, and followed St. Bernard. Others of his family and many of his friends followed his example, with which I conclude my record of saints who have had any connection with arms. As for St. Bernard, I will say of him, that had he assumed the sword and been as merciless to his enemies as he was, in his character of abbot, without bowels of compassion for an adversary whom he could crush by wordy argument, he would have been the most terrible cavalier that ever sat in saddle!

Perhaps the most perfect cavalier who ever changed that dignity for the cowl, was the Chevalier de Rancé. Of him and his Trappist followers I will here add a few words.

THE CHEVALIER DE RANCE AND THE TRAPPISTS.

De Rancé was born in 1626. He was of a ducal house, and the great Cardinal de Richelieu was his godfather. In his youth he was very sickly and scholastic. He was intended for the Church, held half a score of livings before he could speak—and when he could express his will, resolved to live only by his sword. He remained for a while neither priest nor swordsman, but simply the gayest of libertines. He projected a plan of knight-errantry, in society with all the young cavaliers, and abandoned the project to study astrology. For a period of some duration, he was half-knight, half-priest. He then received full orders, dressed like the most frivolous of marquises, seduced the Duchess de Montbazon, and absolved in others the sins which he himself practised. “Where are you going?” said the Chevalier de Champvallon to him one day. “I have been preaching all the morning,” said De Rancé, “like an angel, and I am going this afternoon to hunt like the very devil.” He may be said to have been like those Mormons who describe their fervent selves as “Hell-bent on Heaven!”

Nobody could ever tell whether he was soldier or priest, till death slew the Duchess de Montbazon. De Rancé unexpectedly beheld the corpse disfigured by the ravages of small-pox or measles, and he was so shocked, that it drove him from the world to the cloister, where, as the reconstructor, rather than the founder, of the order of Trappists, he spent thirty-seven years—exactly as many as he had passed in the “world.”

The companions and followers of the chivalrous De Rancé claim a few words for themselves. The account will show in what strong contrasts the two portions of their lives consisted. They had learned obedience in their career of arms, but they submitted to a far more oppressive rule in their career as monks. Some century and a half ago there was published in Paris a dreadfully dreary series of volumes, entitled “Relations de la Vie et de la Mort de quelques Religieux de l’Abbaye de la Trappe.” They consist chiefly of tracts, partly biographical and partly theological, uninteresting in the main, but of interest as showing what noble soldiers or terrible freebooters asked for shelter in, and endured the austerities of, La Trappe. I have alluded to the unreserved submission required at the hands of the brothers. The latter, according to the volumes which I have just named, were sworn to impart even their thoughts to the Abbot. They who thus delivered themselves with least reserve appear to have been commanded in very bad Latin; but their act of obedience was so dear to Heaven, that their persons became surrounded with a glory, which their less communicative brethren, says the author naïvely, could not possibly gaze at for any length of time:—the which I implicitly believe.

The candidates for admission included, without doubt, many very pious persons, but with them were degraded priests, with whom we have little to do, and ex-officers, fugitive men-at-arms, robbers who had lived by the sword, and murderers, of knightly degree, who had used their swords to the unrighteous slaying of others, and who sought safety within the cloisters of La Trappe. All that was asked of them was obedience. Where this failed it was compelled. Where it abounded it was praised. Next to it was humility. One brother, an ex-soldier reeking with blood, is lauded because he lived on baked apples, when his throat was too sore to admit of his swallowing more substantial food. Another brother, who had changed arms for the gown, is most gravely compared with Moses, because he was never bold enough to enter the pantry with sandals on his feet. Still, obedience was the first virtue eulogized—so eulogized that I almost suspect it to have been rare. It was made of so much importance, that the community were informed that all their faith, and all their works, without blind obedience to the superior, would fail in securing their salvation. Practical blindness was as strongly enjoined. He who used his eyes to least purpose, was accounted the better man. One ex-military brother did this in so praiseworthy a way, that in eight years he had never seen a fault in any of his brethren.

It was not, however, this sort of blindness that De Rancé required, for he encouraged the brethren to bring accusations against each other. Much praise is awarded to a brother who never looked at the roof of his own cell. Laudation more unmeasured is poured upon another faithful knight of the new order of self-negation, who was so entirely unaccustomed to raise his eyes from the ground, that he was not aware of the erection of a new chapel in the garden, until he broke his head against the wall.

On one occasion the Duchess de Guiche and an eminent prelate visited the monastery together. After they had left, a monk entered the Abbot’s apartment, threw himself at the feet of his superior, and begged permission to confess a great crime. He was told to proceed.

“When the lady and the bishop were here just now,” said he, “I dared to raise my eyes, and they rested upon the face—”

“Not of the lady, thou reprobate!” exclaimed the Abbot.

“Oh no,” calmly rejoined the monk, “but of the old bishop!” A course of bread and water was needed to work expiation for the crime.

Some of the brethren illustrated what they meant by obedience and humility, after a strange fashion. For example, there was one who having expressed an inclination to return to the world, was detained against his will. His place was in the kitchen, and the devastation he committed among the crockery was something stupendous—and probably not altogether unintentional. He was not only continually fracturing the delf earthenware dishes, but was incessantly running from the kitchen to the Abbot, from the Abbot to the Prior, from the Prior to the Sub-Prior, and from the Sub-Prior to the Master of the Novices to confess his fault. Thence he returned to the kitchen again, once more to smash whole crates of plates, following up the act with abundant confessions, and deriving evident enjoyment, alike in destroying the property, and assailing with noisy apologies the governing powers whom he was resolved to inspire with a desire of getting rid of him.

In spite of forced detention there was a mock appearance of liberty at monthly assemblies. The brethren were asked if there was anything in the arrangement of the institution and its rules which they desired to see changed. As an affirmative reply, however, would have brought “penance” and “discipline” on him who made it, the encouraging phrase that “They had only to speak,” by no means rendered them loquacious, and every brother, by his silence, expressed his content.

If death was the suicidal object of many, the end appears to have been generally attained with a speedy certainty. The superiors and a few monks reached an advanced age; only a few of the brethren died old men. Consumption, inflammation of the lungs, and abscess (at memory of the minute description of which the very heart turns sick), carried off the victims with terrible rapidity. Men entered, voluntarily or otherwise, in good health. If they did so, determined to achieve suicide, or were driven in by the government with a view of putting them to death, the end soon came, and was, if we may believe what we read, welcomed with alacrity. After rapid, painful, and unresisted decay, the sufferer saw as his last hour approached, the cinders strewn on the ground in the shape of a cross; a thin scattering of straw was made upon the cinders, and that was the death-bed upon which every Trappist expired. The body was buried in the habit of the order, as some knights have been in panoply, without coffin or shroud, and was borne to the grave in a cloth upheld by a few brothers. If it fell into its last receptacle with huddled-up limbs, De Rancé would leap into the grave and dispose the unconscious members, so as to make them assume an attitude of repose.

A good deal of confusion appears to have distinguished the rules of nomenclature. In many instances, where the original names had impure or ridiculous significations, the change was advisable. But I can not see how a brother became more cognisable as a Christian, by assuming the names of Palemon, Achilles, Moses, or even Dorothy. Theodore, I can understand; but Dorothy, though it bears the same meaning, seems to me but an indifferent name for a monk, even in a century when the male Montmorencies delighted in the name of “Anne.”

None of the monks were distinguished by superfluous flesh. Some of these ex-soldiers were so thin-skinned, that when sitting on hard chairs, their bones fairly rubbed through their very slight epidermis. They who so suffered, and joyfully, were held up as bright examples of godliness.

There is matter for many a sigh in these saffron-leaved and worm-eaten tomes, whose opened pages are now before me. I find a monk who has passed a sleepless night through excess of pain. To test his obedience, he is ordered to confess that he has slept well and suffered nothing. The submissive soldier obeys his general’s command. Another confesses his readiness, as Dr. Newman has done, to surrender any of his own deliberately-made convictions at the bidding of his superior. “I am wax,” he says, “for you to mould me as you will and his unreserved surrender of himself is commended with much windiness of phrase. A third, inadvertently remarking that his scalding broth is over-salted, bursts into tears at the enormity of the crime he has committed by thus complaining; whereupon praise falls upon him more thickly than the salt did into his broth: “Yes,” says the once knight, now abbot, “it is not praying, nor watching, nor repentance, that is alone asked of you by God, but humility and obedience therewith; and first obedience.”

To test the fidelity of those professing to have this humility and obedience, the most outrageous insults were inflicted on such as in the world had been reckoned the most high-spirited. It is averred that these never failed. The once testy soldier, now passionless monk, kissed the sandal raised to kick, and blessed the hand lifted to smite him. A proud young officer of mousquetaires, of whom I have strong suspicions that he had embezzled a good deal of his majesty’s money, acknowledged that he was the greatest criminal that ever lived; but he stoutly denied the same when the officers of the law visited the monastery and accused him of fraudulent practices. This erst young warrior had no greater delight than in being permitted to clean the spittoons in the chapel, and provide them with fresh sawdust. Another, a young marquis and chevalier, performed with ecstacy servile offices of a more disgusting character. This monk was the flower of the fraternity. He was for ever accusing himself of the most heinous crimes, not one of which he had committed, or was capable of committing. “He represented matters so ingeniously,” says De Rancé, who on this occasion is the biographer, “that without lying, he made himself pass for the vile wretch which in truth he was not.” He must have been like that other clever individual who “lied like truth.”

When I say that he was the flower of the fraternity, I probably do some wrong to the Chevalier de Santin, who under the name of Brother Palemon, was undoubtedly the chief pride of La Trappe. He had been an officer in the army; without love for God, regard for man, respect for woman, or reverence for law. In consequence of a rupture between Savoy and France, he lost an annuity on which he had hitherto lived. As his constitution was considerably shattered, he at the same time took to reading. He was partially converted by perusing the history of Joseph; and he was finally perfected by seeing the dead body of a very old and very ugly monk, assume the guise and beauty of that of a young man.

This was good ground for conversion; but the count—for the chevalier of various orders was of that degree by birth—the count had been so thorough a miscreant in the world, that they who lived in the latter declined to believe in the godliness of Brother Palemon. Thereupon he was exhibited to all comers, and he gave ready replies to all queries put to him by his numerous visiters. All France, grave and gay, noble and simple, flocked to the spectacle. At the head of them was that once sovereign head of the Order of the Garter, James II., with his illegitimate son, from whom is descended the French ducal family of Fitz-James. The answers of Palemon to his questioners edified countless crowds. He shared admiration with another ex-military brother, who guilelessly told the laughing ladies who flocked to behold him, that he had sought refuge in the monastery because his sire had wished him to marry a certain lady; but that his soul revolted at the idea of touching even the finger-tips of one of a sex by the first of whom the world was lost. The consequent laughter was immense.

From this it is clear that there were occasionally gay doings at the monastery, and that those at least who had borne arms, were not addicted to close their eyes in the presence of ladies. Among the most remarkable of the knightly members of the brotherhood, was a certain Robert Graham, whose father, Colonel Graham, was first cousin to Montrose. Robert was born, we are told, in the “Chateau de Rostourne,” a short league (it is added by way of help, I suppose, to perplexed travellers), from Edinburgh. By his mother’s side he was related to the Earl of Perth, of whom the Trappist biographer says, that he was even more illustrious for his piety, and for what he suffered for the sake of religion, than by his knighthood, his viceroyship, or his offices of High Chancellor of England, and “Governor of the Prince of Wales, now (1716) rightful king of Great Britain.” The mother of Robert, a zealous protestant, is spoken of as having “as much piety as one can have in a false religion.” In spite of her teaching, however, the young Robert early exhibited an inclination for the Romish religion; and at ten years of age, the precocious boy attended mass in the chapel of Holyrood, to the great displeasure of his mother. On his repeating his visit, she had him soundly whipped by his tutor; but the young gentleman declared that the process could not persuade him to embrace Presbyterianism. He accordingly rushed to the house of Lord Perth, “himself a recent convert from the Anglican Church,” and claimed his protection. After some family arrangements had been concluded, the youthful protégé was formally surrendered to the keeping of Lord Perth, by his mother, and not without reluctance. His father gave him up with the unconcern of those Gallios who care little about questions of religion.

Circumstances compelled the earl to leave Scotland, when Robert sojourned with his mother at the house of her brother, a godly protestant minister. Here he showed the value of the instructions he had received at the hands of Lord Perth and his Romish chaplain, by a conduct which disgusted every honest man, and terrified every honest maiden, in all the country round. His worthy biographer is candid enough to say that Robert, in falling off from Popery, did not become a protestant, but an atheist. The uncle turned him out of his house. The prodigal repaired to London, where he rioted prodigally; thence he betook himself to France, and he startled even Paris with the bad renown of his evil doings. On his way thither through Flanders, he had had a moment or two of misgiving as to the wisdom of his career, and he hesitated while one might count twenty, between the counsel of some good priests, and the bad example of some Jacobite soldiers, with whom he took service. The latter prevailed, and when the chevalier Robert appeared at the court of St Germains, Lord Perth presented to the fugitive king and queen there, as accomplished a scoundrel as any in Christendom.

There was a show of decency at the exiled court, and respect for religion. Young Graham adapted himself to the consequent influences. He studied French, read the lives of the saints, entered the seminary at Meaux, and finally reprofessed the Romish religion. He was now seized with a desire to turn hermit, but accident having taken him to La Trappe, the blasé libertine felt himself reproved by the stern virtue exhibited there, and, in a moment of enthusiasm, he enrolled himself a postulant, bade farewell to the world, and devoted himself to silence, obedience, humility, and austerity, with a perfectness that surprised alike those who saw and those who heard of it. Lord Perth opposed the reception of Robert in the monastery. Thereon arose serious difficulty, and therewith the postulant relapsed into sin. He blasphemed, reviled his kinsmen, swore oaths that set the whole brotherhood in speechless terror, and finally wrote a letter to his old guardian, so crammed with fierce and unclean epithets, that the abbot refused permission to have it forwarded. The excitement which followed brought on illness; with the latter, came reflection and sorrow. At length all difficulties vanished, and ultimately, on the eve of All Saints, 1699, Robert Graham became a monk, and changed his name for that of Brother Alexis. King James visited him, and was much edified by the spiritual instruction vouchsafed him by the second cousin of the gallant Montrose. The new monk was so perfect in obedience that he would not in winter throw a crumb to a half-starved sparrow, without first applying for leave from his spiritual superior. “Indeed,” says his biographer, “I could tell you a thousand veritable stories about him; but they are so extraordinary that I do not suppose the world would believe one of them.” The biographer adds, that Alexis, after digging and cutting wood all day; eating little, drinking less, praying incessantly, and neither washing nor unclothing himself, lay down; but to pass the night without closing his eyes in sleep! He was truly a brother Vigilantius.

The renown of his conversion had many influences. The father of Alexis, Colonel Graham, embraced Romanism, and the colonel and an elder son, who was already a Capuchin friar, betook themselves to La Trappe, where the reception of the former into the church was marked by a double solemnity—De Rancé dying as the service was proceeding. The wife of Colonel Graham is said to have left Scotland on the receipt of the above intelligence, to have repaired to France, and there embrace the form of faith followed by her somewhat facile husband. There is, however, great doubt on this point.

The fate of young Robert Graham was similar to that of most of the Trappists. The deadly air, the hard work, the watchings, the scanty food, and the uncleanliness which prevailed, soon slew a man who was as useless to his fellow-men in a convent, as he had ever been in the world. His confinement was, in fact, a swift suicide. Consumption seized on the poor boy, for he was still but a boy, and his rigid adherence to the severe discipline of the place, only aided to develop what a little care might have easily checked. His serge gown clove to the carious bones which pierced through his diseased skin. The portions of his body on which he immovably lay, became gangrened, and nothing appears to have been done by way of remedy. He endured all with patience, and looked forward to death with a not unaccountable longing. The “infirmier” bade him be less eager in pressing forward to the grave.—“I will now pray God,” said the nursing brother, “that he will be pleased to save you.”—“And I,” said Alexis, “will ask him not to heed you.” Further detail is hardly necessary: suffice it to say that Robert Graham died on the 21st May, 1701, little more than six months after he had entered the monastery, and at the early age of twenty-two years. The father and brother also died in France, and so ended the chivalrous cousins of the chivalrous Montrose.

The great virtue inculcated at La Trappe, was one of the cherished virtues of old chivalry, obedience to certain rules. But there was no excitement in carrying it out. Bodily suffering was encountered by a knight, for mere glory’s sake. At La Trappe it was accounted as the only means whereby to escape Satan. The knight of the cross purchased salvation by the sacrifice of his life; the monk of La Trappe, by an unprofitable suicide. With both there was doubtless the one great hope common to all Christians; but that great hope, so fortifying to the knight, seemed not to relieve the Trappist of the fear that Satan was more powerful than the Redeemer. When once treating this subject at greater length, I remarked that there was a good moral touching Satan in Cuvier’s dream, and the application of which might have been profitable to men like these monks. The great philosopher just named, once saw, in his sleep, the popular representative of the great enemy of man. The fiend approached with a loudly-expressed determination to “eat him.” “Eat me!” exclaimed Cuvier, examining him the while with the eye of a naturalist. “Eat me! Horns! Hoofs!” he added, scanning him over. “Horns? Hoofs? Graminivorous! needn’t be afraid of you!”

And now let us get back from the religious orders of men to chivalrous orders of ladies. It is quite time to exclaim, Place aux Dames!