Page:History of the Franks.djvu/238

 2o6 HISTORY OF THE FRANKS blind and lame but he did not attempt to cure them by holiness but to fool them with the delusion of necromancy. For he ordered paralytics and other cripples to be vigorously stretched as if he were going to cure by taking pains those whose limbs he could not straighten by the blessing of the divine virtue. And so his attend- ants would lay hold of a man's hands and others his feet, and pull in opposite directions so that one would think their sinews would ^be broken, and when they were not cured they would be sent off half-dead. And the result was that many died under this torture. And the wretch was so presumptuous that he said he was blessed Martin the younger and put himself on a par with the apostles. And it is no wonder that he compared himself with the apostles when that author of wickedness from whom such things proceed is going to assert toward the end of the world that he is Christ. Now it was known from the following fact that he was versed in the wicked art of necromancy as we have said above, because, as they say who observed him, when any one said any evil of him far away and secretly he would rebuke them publicly and say : "You said so and so about me and it was not right to say such things of a holy man like me." Now how else could he have learned of it except that demons were his messengers ? He wore a hood and a goat's-hair shirt and in public he was abstemious in eating and drinking, but in secret when he had come to his lodgings he would stuff his mouth so that his servant could not carry food to him as fast as he asked for it. But his trickery was exposed and stopped by our people and he was cast out from the territory of the city. We did not know then where he went, but he said he was a citizen of Bordeaux. Now seven years before there had been another great impostor who deceived many by his tricks. He wore a sleeveless shirt and over it a robe of fine stuff and carried a cross from which hung little bottles which contained as he said holy oil. He said that he came from the Spains and was bringing relics of the blessed martyrs Vincent the deacon and Felix. He arrived at Tours at the church of Saint Martin in the evening when we were sitting at dinner, and sent an order saying : "Let them come to see the holy relics." As the hour was late I replied: "Let the blessed relics rest on the altar and we will go to see them in the morning." But he arose at the first break of day and without