Dialogues sur la vie et les miracles des pères italiens

prostrate at his prayers ; and calling upon him to rise and take his horse, he bade them go on a God’s name, saying that he needed him not ; but for all that they alighted and set him perforce upon his own beast, and so in all haste departed, and returning back to the river they passed over so quickly as though in the channel there had been no water at all ; and so it fell out that God’s servant having restitution made him of his one horse, that all the soldiers came likewise to enjoy the use of their own. At the same time one Buccellinus entered Campania with an army of French men, and because it was commonly said that the Abbey in which the holy man lived had great store of money, the French men, very greedy of so good a booty, came thither, and with raging minds went into his oratory (where he lay prostrate at his prayers) seeking and crying out for Libertinus ; and a strange thing it was, for though they came in, and stumbled upon him, yet could they not see him, and so, deceived through their own blindness, away they departed as empty as they came. At another time likewise upon business of the monastery, at the commandment of the Abbot who succeeded his master Honoratus, he took his journey to Ravenna. And for the great love which he bare to venerable Honoratus, always did he bear about him in his bosom one of his stockings. Being in his way it fell so out that a certain woman was carrying the corpse of her io libertinus of JFunDa