s, St. Jerom, and others, Tillemont and
De Prato doubt of this circumstance. Sulpicius suffered much from the
censures of friends, who condemned his retreat, having chosen for his
solitude a cottage at Primuliacus, a village now utterly unknown in
Aquitaine, probably in Languedoc. In his kitchen nothing was ever
dressed but pulse and herbs, boiled without any seasoning, except a
little vinegar: he ate also coarse bread. He and his few disciples had
no other beds but straw of sackcloth spread on the ground. He set at
liberty several of his slaves, and admitted them, and some of his old
servants, to familiar intercourse and {304} conversation. About the year
394, not long after his retreat, he made a visit to St. Martin at Tours,
and was so much taken with his saintly comportment, and edified by his
pious discourses and counsels, that he became from that time his
greatest admirer, and regulated his conduct by his direction. Ever after
he visited that great saint once or twice almost every summer as long as
he lived, and passed some time with him, that he might study more
perfectly to imitate his virtues. He built and adorned several churches.
For two which he founded at Primuliacus, he begged some relics of St.
Paulinus, who sent him a piece of the cross on which our Saviour was
crucified, with the history of its miraculous discovery by St.
Helena.[7] This account Sulpicius inserted in his ecclesiastical
history. These two saints sent frequent presents to each other, of poor
garments or the like things, suitable to a penitential life, upon which
they make in their letters beautiful pious reflections, that show how
much they were accustomed to raise their thoughts to God from every
object.[8] Our saint recommending to St. Paulinus a cook, facetiously
tells him that he was utterly a stranger to the art of making sauces,
and to the use of pepper, or any such incentives of gluttony, his skill
consisting only in gathering and boiling herbs in such a manner that
monks, who only eat after having fasted long, would find delicious. He
prays his friend to treat him as he would his own son, and wishes he
could himself have served him and his family in that quality.[9] In the
year 399 St. Paulinus wrote to our saint that he hoped to have met him
at Rome, whither he went to keep the feast of the prince of the
apostles, and where he had stayed ten days, but without seeing any thing
but the tombs of the apostles, before which he passed th