to Lorettan farm-servants, the company of so
ragged and filthy a person as the blessed Benoit.
The difficulty was overcome by lodging the
pilgrim in the oven. Perhaps they thought that
afterwards it would be more suitable for the
baking of fancy bread. During his last three
visits to Loretto he was accommodated with a
fixed lodging by a married couple named Sori.
They prepared for him an upper chamber with
a bed; but he found the chamber much too
comfortable, preferring one that was below the
level of the street.

Signor Sori, perceiving that his diet consisted
entirely of a few leaves of salad, bits of cabbage,
and other offal, which he picked up in the town
for his evening's repast, aid not like to see him
living so wretchedly, and oifered him meat, fish,
or a little good soup. But lie always refused to
taste it." Those," he said, "are not paupers'
dishes. I am a pauper, and I may not eat of
them." On Easter-day only, and that for the
great motive of obedience, he accepted a morsel
of lamb and drank a little wine. Ordinarily, he
would only take hard and dry bits of bread, such
as no one else would eat. If they offered him a
whole loaf, he declined to touch it, observing,
"A loaf is not for paupers; paupers eat remnants.
"His hosts used to play him a charitable trick,
for they more than suspected they were lodging
a saint. They took a whole loaf and broke it into
little pieces. The holy man, not gifted with
clairvoyance, took them for remnants, and
swallowed them without straining.

Signora Sori was a woman, and distantly
related to Bluebeard's wife. Benoit changed
his habits in one respect at Loretto; the bundle
which elsewhere never left him was there
deposited in his sleeping-room. For Signora Sori
not to open and inspect it, was impossible. She
found a few ragged shirts, a breviary, some
religious books, and a tin box containing
certificates of confession, and of having been a
novice for several months at the monastery of the
Seven Fountains. He also changed his habits
in another way. His small-clothes being full of
holes, the sacristan enabled him to substitute
others that were less permeable to the winds of
heaven. Clad and comforted with these, he
turned his back on the Holy House, never to
return to it.

The man of God (as his canonisers call him)
absolutely refused everything that exceeded
strict necessaries. He would accept no regular
alms or fixed allowance. When he had a choice
of the three first of human wants—food,
clothing, lodging—he invariably chose the worst.
He courted contempt; he got himself to be
regarded as the off-scouring of the earth; he
purposely wore filthy and disgusting rags which
inspired repugnance at his approach. He had no
objection to peltings with stones, beard-pluckings,
and blows. Somebody gave him an alms
of two very small pieces of money, which he
instantly handed over to another pauper. The
Somebody, taking it as an affront to himself,
gave him a blow with his stick, asking," Did
you expect I was going to give you a sequin?"
Patient Benoit walked on without saying a word.
Through a sentiment of humility and extraordinary
mortification, he took no measures to avoid
the consequences of his perennial uncleanliness,
but endured that degrading form of torture
during all the latter days of his life. The
wooden bowl in which he received his soup at
convent doors, was cracked in two, mended with
rusty iron wire, broken on one side, and expressly
untidy. He almost always came last to receive
that soup, and occasionally had to go without it.
One day, entering into the court of Monseigneur
della Porta's palace, he saw on a dunghill, a lump
of coagulated soup which the cook had thrown
out. Benoit looked round in all directions, to
see whether he were observed. Believing that
no one was watching him, he went down on his
knees on the dunghill and ate the remnant
of sour soup, to the astonishment of the cook and
butler, who were peeping at him through the
window.

He was sparing of his speech; he would pass
a month or more without uttering a syllable that
was not absolutely necessary. He was diffident
of his own opinion. A single word from persons
who, in his eyes, held their authority from God,
ufficed to vanquish any repugnance he might
feel, and to lead him whithersoever they would.
He was as submissive to the voice of his
spiritual father — his director or confessor—as
he had been firm and determined when his parents
tried to dissuade him from the career to which
he believed himself called by Divine inspiration.
He  considered himself a monster of ingratitude
towards God, and a great sinner. He more than
thought it; he said it with an intimate persuasion.
He went so far as to find the greatest satisfaction
in passing for a vagabond, a useless fellow,
a hypocrite, an ignorant creature, a madman.
He regarded the authors of such humiliations,
as his brethren, and as instruments sent by
the Divinity to purify his imperfections.
During the continual journeys which he took
through picturesque countries to remarkable
sites, the peculiar spirit of his devotion would
never allow him to enjoy the legitimate and
innocent pleasure of examining the beauties,
the edifices, the rarities, or the monuments. He
spoke no more of his own country or of his
parents and relations, than if he had no one
on earth belonging to him.

Such are what his admirers and beatifiers call
the Christian virtues of the last new saint!

He believed, with Saint Theresa, that imperfect
confessions precipitate multitudes of Christians
into the place not mentioned to ears polite.
When he was nothing but a skeleton covered
with skin, he still did his utmost to mortify
his body. He fell a martyr to his asceticism.
He died of weakness and exhaustion. In
reward, are attributed to him not merely ordinary
graces, but also those which Roman theologians
call gratuitous; such as the discernment of
spirits, the penetration of the secrets of hearts,
the gift of miraculous cures, the spirit of
prophecy, and others. He foresaw the honours
that would be rendered to him after death.