It was not in Southern France alone that the part of the hermit was played out. An amusing incident in the confession of Fetzer, head of a gang of robbers who infested the Rhine at the end of the eighteenth century, will go some way to show this. The gang had resolved on "burgling" a hermit near Lobberich. Had he been an eremite of the old sort, the last place in which robbers would have expected to find plunder would be his cell. But in the eighteenth century it was otherwise, and this particular hermit kept a grocer's shop, and sold coffee, sugar, and nutmegs. The rogues approached the cell at night, and as a precaution one of them climbed and cut the rope of the bell wherewith the hermit announced to the neighbourhood that he was about to say his prayers. Then they broke open his door. In Fetzer's own words, "The hermit was not at home, but as we learned, had gone a journey in connection with his grocery business. In the hermitage, however, we found several men placed there to keep guard over his goods. We soon settled them, beat them with our cudgels and cast them prostrate on the floor. Then we burst open all the chests and cupboards, but found little money. There was, however, plenty of tea and sugar. As we were about to leave, a fearful storm came on, and without more ado we returned into the hermitage to remain there till it was overpast. In order to dissipate the tedium, we ransacked the place for food, and found an excellent ham and wine in abundance. I assumed the place of host. Serve the meal! Bring more! I ordered, and we revelled and shouted and made as great a din as we liked. In the second room the hermit had a small organ. I seated myself at it; and to make the row more riotous I played as well as I was able. The laughter and the racket did not cease till morning broke. Then I dressed myself up in the hermit's cowl and habit, and so went off with my comrades." [Footnote: _Der neue Pitaval_, Leipzig, xviii. p. 182] I remember visiting a hermit in 1868 who lived on a ledge in the cliff above S. Maurice in the Vallais, where was a cave that had been occupied by the repentant Burgundian King Sigismund. He cultivated there a little garden, and I have still by me a dried bouquet of larkspur that he presented to my wife on our leaving after a pleasant chat. A pilgrimage to the cave was due on the morrow, and he had just returned from the town whither he had descended to borrow mugs out of which the devotees might drink of the holy spring that issued from the cave.