ing his monastery. But the
inhabitants of the country where he lived, had such an opinion of his
sanctity, that they were resolved not to let him go. They therefore
formed a brutish extravagant design to kill him, that they might keep at
least his body among them, imagining it would be their protection and
safeguard on perilous occasions. The saint being informed of their
design, had recourse to David's stratagem, and feigned himself mad upon
which the people, losing their high opinion of him, guarded him no
longer. Being thus at liberty to execute his design, he set out on his
journey to Ravenna, through the south of France. He arrived there in
994, and made use of all the authority his superiority in religion gave
him over his father; and by his exhortations, tears, and prayers,
brought him to such an extraordinary degree of compunction and sorrow,
as to prevail with him to lay aside all thoughts of leaving his
monastery, where he spent the remainder of his days in great fervor, and
died with the reputation of sanctity.

Romuald, having acquitted himself of his duty towards his father,
retired into the marsh of Classis, and lived in a cell, remote from all
mankind. The devil pursued him here with his former malice; he sometimes
overwhelmed his imagination with melancholy, and once scourged him
cruelly in his cell. Romuald at length cried out: "Sweetest Jesus,
dearest Jesus, why hast thou forsaken me? hast thou entirely delivered
me over to my enemies?" At that sweet name the wicked spirits betook
themselves to flight, and such an excess of divine sweetness and
compunction filled the breast of Romuald, that he melted into tears, and
his heart seemed quite dissolved. {373} He sometimes insulted his
spiritual enemies, and cried out: "Are all your forces spent? have you
no more engines against a poor despicable servant of God?" Not long
after, the monks of Classis chose Romuald for their abbot. The emperor,
Otho III. who was then at Ravenna, made use of his authority to engage
the saint to accept the charge, and went in person to visit him in his
cell, where he passed the night lying on the saint's poor bed. But
nothing could make Romuald consent, till a synod of bishops then
assembled at Ravenna, compelled him to it by threats of excommunication.
The saint's inflexible zeal for the punctual observance of monastic
discipline, soon made these monks repent of their choice, which they
manifested by their irregular and mutino