[51] Animum rege! qui nisi paret, imperat.—Lilly's Grammar.
For the Legend that follows Father John has, it will be seen, the grave authority of a Romish Prelate. The good Father, who, as I have before had occasion to remark, received his education at Douai, spent several years, in the earlier part of his life, upon the Continent. I have no doubt but that during this period he visited Blois, and there, in all probability, picked up, in the very scene of its locality, the history which he has thus recorded.
[THE LAY OF ST. ALOYS.]
A LEGEND OF BLOIS.
S. Heloïus in hâc urbe fuit episcopus, qui, defunctus, sepulturus est a fidelibus. Nocte autem sequenti, veniens quidam paganus lapidem, qui sarcophagum tegebat, revolvit, erectumque contra se corpus Sancti spoliare conatur. At ille, lacertis constrictum, ad se hominem fortiter amplexatur, et usque mane, populis spectantibus, tanquam constipatum loris, ita miserum brachiis detinebat.... Judex loci sepulchri violatorem jubet abstrahi, et legali pœnæ sententiâ condemnari; sed non laxabatur a Sancto. Tunc intelligens voluntatem defuncti, Judex, factâ de vitâ promissione, absolvit, deinde laxatur, et sic incolumis redditur: non vero fur demissus quin se vitam monastericam amplexurum spopondisset.
Greg: Turonens: de Gloriâ Confessorum.
Saint Aloys Was the Bishop of Blois, And a pitiful man was he, He grieved and he pined For the woes of mankind, And of brutes in their degree.— He would rescue the rat From the claws of the cat, And set the poor captive free; Though his cassock was swarming With all sorts of vermin, He'd not take the life of a flea!— Kind, tender, forgiving To all things living, From injury still he'd endeavour to screen 'em, Fish, flesh, or fowl,—no difference between 'em— Nihil putavit a se alienum.
The Bishop of Blois was a holy man,— A holy man was he! For Holy Church He'd seek and he'd search As a Bishop in his degree. From foe and from friend He'd "rap and he'd rend," To augment her treasurie. Nought would he give, and little he'd lend, That Holy Church might have more to spend.— "Count Stephen"[52] (of Blois) "was a worthy Peer, His breeches cost him but a crown, He held them sixpence all too dear, And so he call'd the Tailor lown." Had it been the Bishop instead of the Count, And he'd overcharged him to half the amount, He had knock'd that Tailor down!— Not for himself!— He despised the pelf; He dressed in sackcloth, he dined off delf; And, when it was cold, in lieu of a surtout, The good man would wrap himself up in his virtue.[53] Alack! that a man so holy as he, So frank and free in his degree, And so good and so kind, should mortal be!
Yet so it is—for loud and clear From St. Nicholas' tower, on the listening ear, With solemn swell, The deep-toned bell Flings to the gale a funeral knell; And hark!—at its sound, As a cunning old hound, When he opens, at once causes all the young whelps Of the cry to put in their less dignified yelps, So—the little bells all, No matter how small, From the steeples both inside and outside the wall, With bell-metal throat Respond to the note, And join the lament that a prelate so pious is Forced thus to leave his disconsolate diocese, Or, as Blois' Lord May'r Is heard to declare, "Should leave this here world for to go to that there."