The Hermit in question lived in the neighbourhood of Florence. He was a great favourite with the Ladies; and the most distinguished at Court flocked daily to the place of his retreat. The report of the licentious life he led, reached the ears of the Grand Duke, who ordered the Man to be seised and brought before him: and as it was well known he had been connected with the first Ladies at Court, he was commanded by the Secretary of State to declare the names of all the Ladies whose favours he had received: when he named three or four, and said there were no more. The Secretary insisted upon his telling the whole truth, and as he was very hard upon him, the Hermit named a few more, assuring that now he had told all. The Secretary then gave him threats, and again insisted with great warmth upon his declaring the names of all the Ladies; when the Hermit, fetching a deep sigh, said, _Well then, Sir, write down your own_: which words confounded the Secretary, and afforded much merriment to the Grand Duke and his Courtiers. CHAP. VIII. _A few more of the Abbé Boileau’s arguments are introduced. It does not appear that self-flagellation made a part of the duties prescribed in the first Monasteries, during the times of the first establishments of that kind. The only positive instances of flagellations suffered by Saints, or the Candidates for that title, in the days we speak of, are those which the Devil has inflicted upon them._ In the antient Monasteries of Egypt, and of the East, that is to say, in the first regular religious establishments which took place among Christians, it does not seem that self-flagellations were in use, and that they had any notion of those frequent lashings and scourgings with which Monasteries have since resounded. In fact, we find that that Rule which commonly goes under the name of St. Anthony, who lived about the year 300, and was the very first professor of Monastic Life, is entirely silent on that subject. The same is to be observed of the Rules framed by the Abbot Isaiah, who lived in much the same time as St. Anthony; of those composed by the Fathers Serapion, Macarius, Paphnutius, another Macarius, and several other very antient Rules, framed in the Monasteries of the East, which the learned Lucas Holstenius, Librarian of the Vatican, has published in his _Code of Rules_.