In later days we meet with St. Raymund of Pennafort, the wealthy young lord, who, rather than serve for pay or plunder, went about teaching philosophy for nothing. St. John, the Patriarch of Alexandria, might have been known as a conqueror, but he preferred being handed down, under the title of the Almoner. He was like that St. Cadoc who chose rather to be abbot _in_, than prince _of_, Wales. St. Poppo of Stavelo exhibited similar humility. He was rapidly rising in the Flandrian army when he suddenly sunk into a cell, and became a sort of Flemish John Wesley. He preached against all tournaments, but only succeeded in abolishing the very exciting combats between a knight and a bear, which were greatly patronized by Flemish ladies, and at which parties staked great sums upon their favorite animal. St. Francis of Sales, on the other hand, that gentlemanly saint, was saved from the knightly career which his noble birth seemed to promise him, by a vow made by his mother, before he was born. She was resolved that he should be a saint and not a soldier, and as all things went as the lady desired, she placed her son in a position direct for the Church, and the world certainly lost nothing by the matron’s proceeding. I respect St. Francis of Sales all the more that he had small human failings, and did not scatter damnation over men whom he saw in a similar concatenation. Sulpicius Severus was, in many respects, like him, save that he had some experience of a soldier’s life. But he laid down the sword for the pen, and gave us that admirable historical romance, in which he details so graphically the life of another noble warrior, who quitted the command of soldiers, to take up the teaching of men--St. Martin of Tours. There was a lady, St. Aldegonde, of the royal blood of France, in the seventh century, who at least encouraged young knights to abandon their fancied vocation, and assume that of monks or friars. She was, most undeservedly, I dare say, assailed by scandalizing tongues accordingly. Indeed, I never heard of lady more persecuted in this way, except perhaps this particular lady’s namesake, who once belonged to the gay _troupe_ of the Varietés, and to whom the most rattling of _chansonniers_ alluded, in the line of a song, which put the significant query of Que fait Aldegonde avec le monde entier?