Page:The Voyage Of Italy Or A Compleat Journey through Italy, The Second Part.pdf/93

 an Embassadour from thence into France, and were to return within a few dayes. In this time, I had leisure to make a little excursive Voyage to the famous place of Devotion called La sainte Beaume, where S. Mary Magdalen lived a most penitential life in these Mountains and deserts, even after she had been assured of her pardon by our Saviour himself. The place it self is able to make any man that considereth it well, melt into some pennance too, and sigh at least, to see how much she (a woman) did, and how little he (a man) doth; for excellentissima animadvertenti, ne mediocria quidem prætare, rubori oportet esse, saith a great Author, In Marseilles it self there remain some prints of her begun pennance: but the that had been a sinner in the City (and perchance by that occasion onely) thought the Desert a safer place; and so shewed her conversion to be true, by flying the occasions of her former sins.

IF you ask me, how Mary Magdalen came hither; I must ask