Constantine of Flctiry. 291 



energy, the monk Letaldus.i An old friend ofAbbo, as the latter's 

 correspondence shows,'- Letaldus could still discern some virtues in 

 Bishop Arnulf of Orleans. ^ He had joined in the expulsion of 

 Robert from St. Mesmin, and had been taken to task for it by 

 Abbo, who even accused him of heading the revolution. On Robert's 

 return he too left St. Mesmin and journeyed to the abbey of La 

 Couture, near Le Mans, reaching it while Gosbert (f 1007) was still 

 its abbot. •i His departure must have been preceded by Constantine's 

 or shortly followed b}^ it, for the next reference to Constantine 

 which the documents contain is made by Letaldus himself. At 

 a date unknown to us, the latter priest sends to the monks of the 

 abbey of Nouaille, near Poitiers, and to their abbot, Constantine, 

 an account of miracles which were performed by the relics of 

 St. Junian, the first abbot of Nouaille, at a council held in the 

 abbey of Charrovix.^ 



In distant Nouaille the old scolasticus of Fleury finds final refuge 

 from monastic quarrels and ecclesiastical vengeance. Perhaps it 

 was the last eftbrts of the dogged, uncompromising Abbo which had 

 driven him far away from his fatherland, to which he had clung 

 through so many bitter years of strife and oppression. Should this 

 conjecture prove true he would have reached Nouaille by the end 

 of 1004. A gentle soul he may have been, certainly not a purpose- 

 ful one, for he had fallen before every onslaught. Yet he clearly 

 possessed the faculty of winning devoted friends, first Gerbert and 

 his comrades at Rheims, afterwards Letaldus. Perhaps his tempera- 

 ment was preeminently sympathetic. Undoubtedly it was emotional, 

 for he was both a poet and a musician. And this artistic tempera- 

 ment may have been the real cause of his trials, his defeats, and 

 also the reason for the good fortunes which retrieved his successive 

 disgraces. Some stronger will than his stood ever ready to rescue 

 him from his enemies. As an administrator he probably was a 

 failure. Even in the congenial surroundings of Nouaille he could 

 not cope with the situation, and the intervention of Odilo of Cluny 

 eventually became necessary to reform the community.^ Still our 



* B. Haureau, Histoire Utteraire du Maine^ vol. vii, pp. 188—200 ; Migne, 

 cp. at., vol. 137, col. 781 f£. 



2 Migue, op. at., vol. 139, col. 438. 4.39. 



* Letaldus, De Miraculis S. Maximini, in Migne, op. ci't., vol. 137, col. 816. 



* Gallia Christiana, vol. xiv, p. 470. 

 5 Migne, op. cit., vol. 137, col. 823. 



" Gallia Christiana, vol. ii, p. 1240. Odilo's mission may have been per- 

 formed in 1011. 



