Montaigne would occasionally throw a hard word at the Jesuits, and probably he disliked them as a body, but, however this might be, he seldom failed to seek out any member of the order who might be resident in the cities he visited; no doubt because he knew he would meet a well-educated man, and one able to converse with him on the topics he had most at heart. At Rome he gives high praise to the diligence and ability of the Jesuits, probably for the reason that he found the practical drift of their policy congenial to his own humour. He certainly showed no sign of enthusiasm in contemplating the scenes of the more emotional phenomena of Catholicism, for he made no reference to S. Catherine when describing Siena, and Assisi he did not deem worth a visit. He probably went to Loreto on account of the historic fame of the Santa Casa, and he was certainly much more impressed by the material aspect of the prevalent legend, the crowds of pilgrims, the shops for the sale of candles and _ex votos_, the riches of the treasury, and the profit of the pilgrimage to the townsfolk, than by the spiritual aspect of the same. Montaigne, sceptic as he was in dealing with religious questions, never allowed this disposition to induce him to take up an unqualified attitude of hostility. Over the claims of the miraculous he kept his judgment in suspense, and did not condemn as a necessary imposture what he could not accept as a proven truth. Joseph Glanvil, in _Sadducismus Triumphatus_, holds a similar position in condemning what he calls “the credulity of unbelief,” that is, when sceptics, by way of discrediting phenomena which they cannot accept, suggest, as an alternative explanation, something still harder to believe. At Loreto, in commenting on the alleged miraculous cure of a certain M. Marteau, Montaigne shows a marked inclination to accept the popular version of the story, and omits to appraise the divers subjective influences which invariably play an important part in remedial phenomena of this description. Again, he is swayed by the same humour in writing concerning the peculiar virtue of the earth in the Campo Santo at Pisa, which was fabled to preserve human remains from corruption for any length of time.