sanctity after some time drew the eyes of men upon them. To shun which they resolved to forsake a place where they were no longer able to live in humiliation and obscurity. They performed barefoot a pilgrimage to Compostella, and returned into Germany.

Passing through Triers, it happened that Theobald there met his father count Arnoul; but with his tanned face, and in his ragged clothes, passing for a beggar, he was not known by him. He was strongly affected, and was scarcely able to stifle the tender sentiments with which his heart was quite overcome at the sight of so dear and affectionate a parent. However, he suppressed them; but to quit the neighborhood where he might be again exposed to the like trial, he undertook a pilgrimage to Rome. The two fervent penitents travelled everywhere barefoot; and after they had visited all the holy places in Italy, they chose for their retirement a hideous woody place called Salanigo, near Vicenza, where with the leave of the lord of the manor they built themselves two cells, near an old ruinous chapel. Prayer and the exercises of penance were their constant employment, till after two years God called Walter to himself. Theobald looked upon this loss as a warning that he had not long to live, and he exerted his whole strength, redoubling his pace to run with greater vigor as he drew near the end of his race. He had lived on oat bread and water, with roots and herbs, but at length he interdicted himself even the use of bread, taking no other food but herbs and roots. He always wore a rough hair shirt; his bed was a board, and for the five last years of his life he took his rest sitting on a wooden seat. The bishop of Vicenza promoted him to priest’s orders, and several persons put themselves under his direction. His lineage and quality being discovered, his aged parents were no sooner informed that their son was alive, and that the hermit of Salanigo, the reputation of whose sanctity, prophecies, and miracles filled all Europe, was that very son whose absence had been to them the cause of so long a mourning; but they set out with great joy to see him. His frightful desert, his poor cell, his tattered clothes, and above all his emaciated body, made so strong impressions upon their hearts at the first sight that they both cast themselves at his feet, and for a considerable time were only able to speak to him by their tears. When they were raised from the ground, and had recovered from their first surprise, faith overcame in them the sentiments of nature, and converted their sorrow into joy. The sight of so moving an example extinguished in their hearts all love of the world, and they both resolved upon the spot to dedicate themselves to the divine service. The count was obliged by his affairs to return into Brie, but Gisla, the saint’s mother, obtained her husband’s consent to finish her course near the cell of her son. The saint made her a little hut at some distance from his own, and took great pains to instruct her in the practice of true perfection. He was shortly after visited with his last sickness; his body was covered over with blotches and ulcers, and every limb afflicted with some painful disorder. The servant of God suffered this distemper with a most edifying patience and joy. A little before his death he sent for Peter the abbot of Vangadice, of the order of Camaldoli, from whose hands he had received the religious habit a year before. To him he recommended his mother and his disciples: and having received the viaticum he expired in peace on the last day of June, 1066, being about thirty-three years old, of which he had spent twelve at Salanigo and three in Suabia, and in his pilgrimages. His relics were translated to the church dependent on the abbey of St. Columba, at Sens, and afterward to a chapel near Auxerre called St. Thibaud aux Bois. He was canonized by Alexander III. and his name is in great veneration at Sens, Provins, Paris, Auxerre, Langres, Toul, Triers, Autun, and Beauvais. See his life faithfully written by a contemporary author.