death of the saint. They buried St. William's body in
his little garden, and studied to live according to his maxims and
example. Some time after, their number increasing, they built a chapel
over their founder's grave, with a little hermitage. This was the origin
of the Gulielmites, or Hermits of St. William, spread in the next age
over Italy, France, Flanders, and Germany. They went barefoot, and their
fasts were almost continual: but pope Gregory IX. mitigated their
austerities, and gave them the rule of St. Benedict, which they still
observe. The order is now become a congregation united to the hermits of
St. Austin, except twelve houses to the Low Countries, which still
retain the rule of the Gulielmites, which is that of St. Benedict, with
a white habit like that of the Cistercians.

The feast of St. William is kept at Paris in the Abbey of
Blancs-Manteaux, so called from certain religious men for whom it was
founded, who wore white cloaks, and were of a mendicant Order, called of
the Servants of the Virgin Mary: founded at Marseilles, and approved by
Alexander IV., in 1257. This order being extinguished, by virtue of the
decree of the second council of Lyons, in 1274, by which all mendicants,
except the four great Orders of Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and
Austin friars, were abolished, this monastery was bestowed on the
Gulielmites, who removed hither from Montrouge, near Paris, in 1297. The
prior and monks embraced the order of St. Bennet, and the reformation of
the Congregation of St. Vanne of Verdun, soon after called in France, of
St. Maur, in 1618, and this is in order the fifth house of that
Congregation in France, before the abbeys of St. Germany-des-Prez, and
St. Denys.[1]

Footnotes:
1. Villefore confounds this saint with St. William, founder of the
hermits of Monte Virgine in the kingdom of Naples, who lived in
great repute with king Roger, and is commemorated in the Roman
Martyrology, June 25. Others confound him with St. William, duke of
Aquitaine, a monk of Gellone. He was a great general, and often
vanquished the Saracens who invaded Languedoc. In recompense,
Charlemagne made him duke or governor of Aquitaine, and appointed
Toulouse for his residence. Some years after, in 806, having
obtained the consent of his duchess, (who also renounced the world,)
and or Charlemagne, though with great difficulty, he made his
monastic profession at Gellone, a mo