At the defence of Pampeluna against the French, in 1521, Ignatius, while bravely performing his duty on the walls, was struck down by a ball, which disabled both his legs. With him fell the courage of the besieged. They yielded, and the victors entering the town, found the wounded officer, and kindly sent him to his father’s castle, which was not far distant. Here he endured all the agonies which generally attend gunshot wounds, and an inflammatory fever which supervened brought him to the verge of the grave—when, “Oh, miracle!” exclaims his biographer, “it being the eve of the feast of the glorious saints Peter and Paul, the prince of the apostles appeared to him in a vision, and touched him, whereby he was, if not immediately restored to health, at least put in a fair way of recovery.” Now the fact is, that the patient uttered not a syllable regarding his vision _at the time_; nevertheless we are gravely assured that the miracle was not the less a fact. Be this, however, as it may, Ignatius undoubtedly recovered, though slowly. During his long convalescence, he sought to beguile the tedious hours of irksome inactivity passed in the sick chamber by reading all the books of knight-errantry which could be procured. The chivalrous exploits of the Rolands and Amadises made a deep impression upon his imagination, which, rendered morbidly sensitive by a long illness, may well be supposed to have been by no means improved by such a course of study. When these books were exhausted, some pious friend brought him the _Lives of the Saints_. This work, however, not suiting his taste, Ignatius at first flung it aside in disgust, but afterwards, from sheer lack of better amusement, he began to read it. It presented to him a new phase of the romantic and marvellous, in which he so much delighted. He soon became deeply interested, and read it over and over again. The strange adventures of these saints—the praise, the adoration, the glorious renown which they acquired—so fired his mind, that he almost forgot his favourite paladins. His ardent ambition saw here a new career opened up to it. He longed to become a saint.