This, the most vivid historian of his time, was a wild, unbalanced, eccentric visionary, whom one of his uncles, himself a monk, had dedicated to the same vocation, in the hope that monkish discipline would cure his natural perversities. The hope was not fulfilled, for Raoul the Bald, always restless and dissatisfied, wandered, in turn, from monastery to monastery, appearing successively at St. Bénigne de Dijon, Moutier St. Jean, St. Germain d'Auxerre, Béze, and Cluny, finding only in St. Guillaume and St. Odilon, at the first and last named houses, masters of calibre enough to calm his troubled spirit, and encourage his literary bent. But, wherever he might be dwelling, Raoul remained an unhappy man, a victim of a disordered and powerful imagination. He himself tells us of the frequent visions to which he was subject; visions not without interest as throwing light upon the mental condition of the time. At Moutier appeared to him Guillaume de St. Bénigne, who, laying his hand upon the bald head, said gently; "Do not forget me, I beg of you, if it be true that I have sincerely loved you; accomplish rather, such is my desire, the work you have promised to me."[132] Not all his visions were so consoling. Conscience often brought the devil to his dreams. He saw one night, standing at the foot of his bed, "A hideous little monster. He was of middle height, with a thin neck, a skinny figure, eyes very black, a narrow and wrinkled forehead, a flat nose, a wide mouth, swollen lips, chin short and tapering, a goat's beard, straight ears, hair dirty and stiff, dog's teeth, the back of his head pointed, a protruding belly, a hump on the back, hanging buttocks and dirty clothing. His whole body appeared to be animated by a convulsive and desperate activity. He seated himself on the edge of my bed and proceeded to say to me; 'You will not remain here much longer,' then ground his teeth and repeated; 'You shall not stay here any longer.' I jumped out of bed; I ran to prostrate myself at the foot of the altar of Father Benedict; I recapitulated all the sins I had committed since my childhood, whether by negligence or perversity." This strange work of his, which recounts in a chaotic, tortured manner, without order and without literary grace, though with extraordinary vividness and effect, the chief social, political, and religious events of the period dating from 900 to 1046, is the most highly coloured, yet, at the same time, the most sincere and the most valuable document we possess concerning the first half of the eleventh century in Burgundy. The book deals only briefly with the political events of his time, but is extraordinarily prolix concerning monks and marvels, which are a source of constant bewilderment to his troubled brain.