252 SOCIAL LIFE IN GUERNSEY. 



a disappointment. While at Rome they apparently were 

 robbed at the Abbey " de Lese " although the entry is very 

 obscure, (1) and they left Rome on the following Tuesday 

 week, thus only remaining ten days in that city. They 

 travelled down across France probably on pack horses or 

 mules. Starting from Caen they proceeded through Falaise, 

 Argenton, Seez, La Mesle, Bellesme, La Ferte, Vendome, 

 Blois, Rosmarentin, Vierson Ovin, Blac au Berry, Dun le Roy, 

 St. Pierre le Montier, across to La Palisse, Roane, St. 

 Saphorin, Tarara, Bresle, Lyons, Avignon to Marseilles. 

 There they took ship and went along the coast to Nice, Villa 

 Franca, Savona, Albenya to Genoa, where they resumed their 

 land journey and travelled via Lucca, Florence, Siena and 

 Yiterbo to Rome. 



He tells us nothing of the inevitable hardships and 

 discomforts of the journey — though a contemporary German 

 proverb runs : " Whoso would learn to pray let him go on a 

 ship." But he evidently tried to see as many holy relics as 

 possible en route. For in his love for legend and miracle he 

 was the true son of his day. Real life was then so difficult 

 and painful, protectors so few and persecutors so many, that 

 the smaller people of the world were driven for consolation to 

 visionary joys and imaginary succours. The simultaneous 

 discovery of America and the introduction of the Printing 

 Press had encouraged the " curiosity of far-off things," so that 

 we are not surprised to find him record that at Tarascon was 

 the corpse of St. Martha, at the Abbey es Monts, — at St. 

 Maximin in Provence — was the head of the Madelaine, and at 

 Genoa was the dish on which the Paschal Feast was eaten. 

 This was known as the Santa Catena, and was supposed to be 

 carved out of an emerald ; it was in later days captured by 

 Napoleon and taken to Paris, where it was tested and found 

 to be green glass, and was restored to the Cathedral of Genoa 

 in 1815. At Genoa Bouamy also records the chains with 

 which St. John and St. Peter were said to have been bound. 

 He also adds, that at Vendome was the tear which our Lord 

 shed on Lazarns (" le ladre "). (2) 



Lord Acton, himself a Roman Catholic, tells us that, 

 amidst the abuses and excesses of the Romish Church, in that 

 epoch of lax discipline and indistinct theology, was the system 

 of Indulgences applied to souls in Purgatory ; which meant 

 that, on payment of a certain sum for Masses, they were 



(1) " Nos fumes derobes allabaye de lese." 



(2) Lazarus, as the typical leper gave his name to the disease. " Maladrie" was 

 the old French name for a lazaretto, while the hospital of "St. Lazare" was 

 familiarly known as "St. Ladre." ... 



