Pietro Orseolo had been married at the age of eighteen to a maiden as virtuous as himself, and when one son had been born to the pair they had exchanged vows of chastity, and had afterwards given up their lives to the care of the poor, and to visiting the hospices and hospitals. And now, long after that, Warin argued with Pietro and urged him more and more to renounce the world altogether; but Pietro was as wise as he was good, and he knew that it was his duty to leave everything in order for his successor, and he accordingly claimed a year in which to prepare for his retirement. The monk Warin had to admit that he was right, and they parted on the first of September. On that same day, one year later, Warin returned and waited for the Doge in the monastery of Sant’ Ilario. Pietro left his house alone in the night and joined him, dressed as a pilgrim; at midnight they mounted swift horses and set out upon their long journey westwards, and the fugitive was not missed till late on the following morning. Some accounts say that Orseolo’s wife had [Illustration: HALL OF THE GLOBES, DUCAL PALACE] already taken the veil in the nunnery of Saint Zacharias; others assure us that she was dead. It matters little, for the one fact stands undenied, that Pietro Orseolo fled from the dogeship of Venice to be a novice in France, in one of the most rigid religious orders of that time. There he lived in peace for nineteen years till he died in the odour of sanctity; but over seven hundred years passed before he was officially canonised and took his place in the calendar, after which the French king returned his bones to Venice. There is a picture in the Museo Civico representing him and his wife dressed as monk and nun, and kneeling before a Madonna.