LAURENTIUS BONHOMME. 



207 



^^•^m 





i^. 



y 



us as more numan. 

 ^^MAm ' He lived there in the 



latter half of the seventeenth 

 century. He carried on 

 all sorts of little industries, was 

 alwa\'s at work, kept bees, sold the 

 wax and hone\' and divided the money 

 he earned among the poor. He did not 

 shut himself off from other men, and not 

 unfrequently walked into Frejus followed 

 b\' a doe. His bishop asked for the deer and 

 it remained at Frejus. Later on, when Laur- 

 entius came again to Frejus and was speak- 

 ing in a loud voice outside the palace, the doe 

 heard him, sprang out of the window and 

 licked his hands. Then the man felt happ^'; he 

 enjo^-ed "le bonheur du parfait solitaire", so the 

 story relates. His hermitage was constantly 

 visited h\ numbers of birds to which he 

 gave water, in times of drought, among the 

 recesses of the rocks. One day he surprised 



Glohttlaria ,. ii. i*i i* T i 



Atrpu,,,. thieves robbmg his bee-hives, in terror the 



evil doers saw him approaching. But he 



brought theTU the beehives, which the^' had left behind, 



with the remark that those were the best. Such boundless 



