Robert founded nine monasteries, and made large gifts to all the churches in his duchy, entreating the prayers of the clergy and of the poor, for the pardon of the sins of his youth; but his conscience was ill at ease, and in the sixth year of his dukedom he resolved to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, a journey which was then even more perilous than in subsequent years, when the Crusades had, in some degree, secured the safety of the pilgrims, and he seems to have been fully persuaded that he should never return alive. His chief care was for the welfare of his son, William, a boy of seven years old, whose situation was the more precarious, because there was a stain on his birth, his mother being the daughter of a tanner of Falaise, so that it was more than probable that his right to the succession would be disputed by the numerous descendants of Richard Sans Peur. Robert did his best to secure his safety by calling together the vassals to do homage to him, and placing him under the especial protection of Henry I. of France, at whose court at Paris he left him. Robert then set out on his pilgrimage, with a few companions, all wearing the coarse garb of pilgrims, with staves in their hands, and their feet bare. As they were passing the gates of a small town in Franche Comté, Robert walking last, an insolent warder, tired of holding the gate open, struck him such a blow on the shoulders with a halbert that he reeled under it, but so changed was his once violent temper, that, seeing his friends about to revenge the insult, he called out, “Let him alone; pilgrims ought to suffer for the love of God. I love his blow better than my city of Rouen.” The next time Robert was heard of, was in humble guise, with staff and wallet, when he received the blessing of the Pope at Rome; but afterward, when he entered Constantinople, he appeared in all his wonted magnificence. He rode to the palace of the Greek Emperor on a mule, shod with golden shoes, so slightly fastened on as to be shaken off amongst the crowds who surrounded him. He travelled onward through Asia Minor, though attacked by a fever, which obliged him to be carried in a litter by Moorish slaves--as he himself expressed it to a Norman pilgrim whom he met returning, “to be carried by devils to Paradise.” Safely arriving at Jerusalem, he there paid the entrance-money for a multitude of poor pilgrims, whom he found shut out because they were unable to pay the large toll demanded by the Saracens; and after performing the accustomed devotions at the different consecrated spots in the Holy City, he set out on his return to Normandy. His health was already impaired by the fatigues of the journey, and he died at the city of Nicaea, in the year 1035. There, in the now profaned sanctuary, where was held the first general Council of the Church, rests, in his nameless and forgotten grave, the last of the high-spirited and devout Dukes of Normandy.