The Lives of the Saints Author:S Baring-Gould Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: One day Childebert, King of the Franks, according to some; according to others, Wamba, King of the Goths,1 was following the chase in the forests on the side of ... more »the Rhone where it flows into the Mediterranean, when a doe was started, and pursued by the hunters, fled for refuge to a cave, and penetrated into it; an arrow was shot after it. The hunters entered the grotto, and found a white- haired hermit sheltering the doe, with the arrow in his shoulder. For the old man had lived long in this solitary place, nourished by the milk of the doe. The king, touched, as these wild but simple natures almost always were, by the sight of this grand old man, almost naked, caused the wound to be dressed, returned often to see him, and at last made him consent to the erection of a monastery upon the site of his grotto, of which he became abbot. The fame of the venerable Giles reached the ears of Charles Mattel, and he sent for him to Orleans. The abbot made the journey, saw and conversed with the iron hero. On his return to Provence, he was greeted with the news that two cedar doors had been washed up on the strand. They were at once, by his orders, removed and fitted to entrances of the church of his abbey. Such was the origin of that celebrated and powerful abbey of S. Giles, whict1 became one of the great pilgrim shrines of the Middle Ages, and gave birth to a town, the capital of a district whose name was borne with pride by one of the most powerful feudal races, and which retains still a venerable church, classed amongst the most remarkable monuments of sculpture and architecture. S. Giles is represented in art in monastic habit with his 1 The Lives say King Flavian; no such name is known among the Visigolhic kings. Wamba reigned from 671 to 680. hind at his side, his hand r...« less