During all this time De la Salle's attention does not seem to have been turned to that which ultimately became the great work of his life. As not unfrequently happens, the real bent was given to his energies by what might be described as accidental circumstances. The friend whom he consulted when in doubt concerning holy orders was one Canon Roland. This good man had interested himself much about an orphanage for girls at Rheims, which had fallen under bad management, and urgently needed reform. Canon Roland was taken ill just before De la Salle's ordination, and, dying not long after, left the young priest his executor, commending to his special care the orphanage just mentioned. De la Salle could not refuse the charge; it was not much to his taste, but it was the bequest of his friend; it was the leading of God; and he girded himself to the task. He applied through the Archbishop to the King for letters patent recognizing the institution, and thus put it upon a lasting foundation; he bore the expense of the whole transaction; then he supplemented the funds out of his own means; and having thus satisfied his obligations to his deceased friend, he returned to his quiet devotional life. The thought that this orphanage for girls would constitute a valuable training school for schoolmistresses seems already to have crossed his mind. Now comes the turning-point of De la Salle's life, and it comes in a curious way. There was a certain rich, fashionable, and extravagant married lady living in Rouen, who, like the rich man in the parable, was clothed in fine linen and fared sumptuously every day, while Lazarus lay at the gate. One day a poor beggar, who had been harshly repulsed from the door, touched the heart of a servant by his manifest misery, and was received into the stables, where he died the same night. The dead man must needs be buried; so the servant went to the mistress, confessed his fault, received some violent language and notice of dismissal, but at the same time procured a sheet to serve as a shroud for the corpse. At dinner-time the lady perceived the very sheet, which she had given for the burial, folded up and lying in her own chair; some mysterious hand had brought back the ungracious present, as though the deceased beggar would not receive a favour in death from one who had been so cruel to him in life. This strange and apparently not very important occurrence changed the whole course of the lady's life. She gave up all her old habits of magnificence and extravagance, lived the life of a devotee, and soon succeeded in separating from herself all her old companions and friends, who, in fact, deemed her mad. After her husband's death she became still more strict in her habits, and devoted to the service of the poor a large part of her fortune.