The Blessed Baldwin, archdeacon of Laon, in the reign of Dagobert, was the son of Basus, a nobleman, and Salaberga, who is numbered among the Saints. His sister's name was Astruda, who is also reckoned a Saint. Baldwin having incurred the enmity of certain evil men, was by them treacherously murdered. The details are not known. S. FRODOBERT, AB. OF TROYES. (7TH CENT.) [Gallican and German Martyrologies. S. Frodobert died on Jan. 1st, but his body was translated on Jan. 8th, and on that day, accordingly, his festival is observed at Troyes, and by the Benedictine Order. His life was written by his disciple, Lupellus, and used in the compilation of a later life, by a monk of Moutier la Celle, near Troyes, about 872.] S. Frodobert, the son of parents of the middle class, from the earliest age was inspired with the love of God, and a wondrous gentleness and child-like simplicity. He is said, as a little boy, to have healed his mother of blindness, as, in a paroxysm of love and compassion for her affliction, he kissed her darkened eyes, and signed them with the cross. At an early age he entered the abbey of Luxeuil, where his singleness of soul and guilelessness exposed him to become the butt of the more frivolous monks. During the time that he was there, a certain Teudolin, abbot of S. Seguanus, was staying at Luxeuil for the purpose of study, and Frodobert was much with him, being ordered to attend on the wants of the visitor, and obey him implicitly. This Teudolin diversified his labours with playing practical jokes on his gentle assistant; but Frodobert never resented any jest. One day the abbot Teudolin sent Frodobert to another monk, who was also fond of practising jokes on Frodobert, for a pair of compasses, saying that he wanted them for writing. The lay brother took the message without in the least knowing what compasses were. The monk, suspecting that the abbot had sent Frodobert on a fool's errand, put a pair of stones off a hand-mill round his neck, and told him to take them to Teudolin. Frodobert obeyed, but was scarcely able to stagger along the cloister under the weight. On his way, the abbot of Luxeuil, his own superior, met him, and amazed to see the poor brother bowed to earth under this burden, bade him throw down the mill-stones, and tell him whither he was taking them. Frodobert obeyed, and said that the abbot Teudolin had sent him for them, as he wanted them for literary purposes. The superior burst into tears, grieved that the good, simple-minded lay brother should have been thus imposed upon, and hastening to the visitor, and then to the monk who had put the "compasses" about Frodobert's neck, he administered to them such a sharp rebuke, that from that day forward no more practical jokes were played upon him.