us behavior. The saint being of
a mild disposition, bore with it for some time, in hopes of bringing
them to a right sense of their duty. At length, finding all his
endeavors to reform them ineffectual, he came to a resolution of leaving
them, and went to the emperor, then besieging Tivoli, to acquaint him of
it; whom, when he could not prevail upon to accept of his resignation,
the saint, in the presence of the archbishop of Ravenna, threw down his
crosier at his feet. This interview proved very happy for Tivoli; for
the emperor, though he had condemned that city to plunder, the
inhabitants having rebelled and killed duke Matholin, their governor,
spared it at the intercession of St. Romuald. Otho having also, contrary
to his solemn promise upon oath, put one Crescentius, a Roman senator,
to death, who had been the leader in the rebellion of Tivoli, and made
his widow his concubine; he not only performed a severe public penance
enjoined him by the saint, as his confessor, but promised, by St.
Romuald's advice, to abdicate his crown and retire into a convent during
life; but this he did not live to perform. The saint's remonstrances had
a like salutary effect on Thamn, the emperor's favorite, prime minister
and accomplice in the treachery before mentioned, who, with several
other courtiers, received the religious habit at the hands of St.
Romuald, and spent the remainder of his days in retirement and penance.
It was a very edifying sight to behold several young princes and
noblemen, who a little before had been remarkable for their splendid
appearance and sumptuous living, now leading an obscure, solitary,
penitential life in humility, penance, fasting, cold, and labor. They
prayed, sung psalms, and worked. They all had their several employments:
some spun, others knit, others tilled the ground, gaining their poor
livelihood by the sweat of their brow. St. Boniface surpassed all the
rest in fervor and mortification. He was the emperor's near relation,
and so dear to him, that he never called him by any other name than, My
soul! he excelled in music, and in all the liberal arts and sciences,
and after having spent many years under the discipline of St. Romuald,
was ordained bishop, and commissioned by the pope to preach to the
infidels of Russia, whose king he converted by his miracles, but was
beheaded by the king's brothers, who were themselves afterwards
converted on seeing the miracles wrought on occasion of the martyr