It is said that St. Patrick suffered a second captivity, which, however, only lasted sixty days; but of this little is known. Neither is the precise time certain, with respect to these captivities, at which the events occurred which we are about to relate. After a short residence at the famous monastery of St. Martin, near Tours, founded by his saintly relative, he placed himself (probably in his thirtieth year) under the direction of St. Germain of Auxerre. It was about this period that he was favoured with the remarkable vision or dream relating to his Irish apostolate. He thus describes it in his _Confessio_:-- "I saw, in a nocturnal vision, a man named Victoricus[120] coming as if from Ireland, with a large parcel of letters, one of which he handed to me. On reading the beginning of it, I found it contained these words: 'The voice of the Irish;' and while reading it I thought I heard, at the same moment, the voice of a multitude of persons near the Wood of Foclut, which is near the western sea; and they cried out, as if with one voice, '_We entreat thee, holy youth, to come and henceforth walk amongst us.'_ And I was greatly affected in my heart, and could read no longer; and then I awoke." St. Patrick retired to Italy after this vision, and there spent many years. During this period he visited Lerins,[121] and other islands in the Mediterranean. Lerins was distinguished for its religious and learned establishments; and probably St. Germain,[122] under whose direction the saint still continued, had recommended him to study there. It was at this time that he received the celebrated staff, called the _Bachall Isu_, or Staff of Jesus. St. Bernard mentions this _Bachall Isu_, in his life of St. Malachy, as one of those insignia of the see of Armagh, which were popularly believed to confer upon the possessor a title to be regarded and obeyed as the successor of St. Patrick. Indeed, the great antiquity of this long-treasured relic has never been questioned; nor is there any reason to suppose that it was not in some way a miraculous gift. Frequent notices of this pastoral staff are found in ancient Irish history. St. Fiacc speaks of it as having been richly adorned by an ecclesiastic contemporary with the saint. A curious MS. is still preserved in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, containing an examination of "Sir Gerald Machshayne, knight, sworn 19th March, 1529, upon the Holie Mase-booke and the _great relicke of Erlonde, called Baculum Christi_, the presence of the Kynge's Deputie, Chancellour, Tresoror, and Justice." Perhaps it may be well to conclude the account of this interesting relic by a notice of its wanton destruction, as translated from the Annals of Loch Cè by Professor O'Curry:--