A poor but venerable hermit, wearing the habit, sandals, and cord of St. Francis of Assisi, travelled, from dawn till the going down of the sun, over the flowery highways of verdant Normandy, passing through boroughs and villages, castles and towers. Was he a palmer from the Holy Land, come to rekindle the ardor of noble and valiant men of arms with tales of the woes of the Christians in Palestine? No, the times of Philip Augustus and Louis IX. had passed away. Yet our hermit kept steadily on, allowing himself not a day of rest but the Lord's day, seeking some one or something.
"What art thou seeking, pious traveller? Thy ardor is greater than that of a knight-errant longing to break a lance in honor of the fair lady whose color he wears."
"I am seeking a soul," replies the hermit, "because St. Michael the Archangel has made known to me that a throne in the eternal mansions awaits some soul from earth, a throne of dazzling beauty, resplendent with sapphires and diamonds, and the golden palms of the heavenly Jerusalem. But the soul thus summoned to a throne on high must not be too young."
"Keep on thy way. Old men are to be found in every country on the earth."
And the hermit kept on his way from the earliest dawn till eventide. At last he finds an aged abbot beneath the Gothic arches of an old Benedictine abbey. His reputation for sanctity and his great age, which was fourscore years, made our pilgrim hope that he had found the object of his search. So, on Sunday, after the hour of lauds, the hermit joyfully offered St. Michael, on bended knee, the name of the venerable abbot, with an account of his exemplary life; but, in the evening, after the hour of compline, the archangel said unto him, "Continue thy search. The abbot Fulgentius, worthy as he is, merits not this high reward. That servant of the Lord is still too young."
"He is fourscore years of age, of which sixty-four have been spent in the monastic state and in the same monastery."
"He has not yet lived twenty years as years are reckoned by the guardian angels. Pursue thy way, good hermit, and continue thy search."
After three months the pilgrim worn by fatigue and prolonged vigils joyfully brought four names to St. Michael. It will be understood that these names were chosen from among thousands by the zealous pilgrim. The first bright name on the list was that of a Lord of Falaise, illustrious through his ancestors, and still more so for his own charity. His castle with its square towers, surrounded by crags, deep moats, and high walls, was always hospitably open to all pilgrims and strangers as well as to the unfortunate. There he himself waited upon them at table, after having washed their feet with his own hands, count and baron as he was, and he never suffered them to depart till he had given them alms and chanted the divine office with them in the nave of his chapel of St. Prix. A numerous progeny reverenced him, and all his vassals proclaimed his fatherly kindness. What more could be asked that he might exchange his feudal power for a throne in heaven?
The second on the list was the mother of fifteen children, seven of whom served their king as brave soldiers, seven others served the altar as priests or monks, and the remaining one, a daughter, had many children, who were reared under the careful and vigilant eye of their grandmother of pious renown. What more could be asked that she might pass from family honors to a throne in heaven?
The third was a noble warrior of the Knights of Malta, covered with wounds and scars gained in the service of God. Having been made, at the age of thirteen years, knight of his order and page of the grand master, he was appointed, at the age of twenty-two, to the command of three war-vessels which he armed at his own expense. He made himself formidable to all the Turks on the seas of the Levant. Being appointed captain of one of the galleys of Malta, our knight took twenty-two vessels from the paynim and delivered many thousand Christian slaves. The Emir Fraycardin, who held sway over the Druses of Mount Lebanon, and boasted of his descent from Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, conceived so high an esteem for him that he came forth from the town of Sayeda to visit him on board of one of his vessels, and on that occasion gave him a scimitar from Damascus, with a scabbard of wrought silver, inlaid with diamonds and rare pearls, which our hero presented to the king of France, in presence of the same emir of illustrious memory.