ng then seventeen years old. The countess
Theodora his mother, being informed of it, set out for Naples to
disengage him, if possible, from that state of life. Her son, on the
first news of her journey, begged his superiors to remove him, as they
did first to the convent of St. Sabina in Rome, and soon after to Paris,
out of the reach of his relations. Two of his brothers, Landulph and
Reynold, commanders in the emperor's army in Tuscany, by her direction
so well guarded all the roads that he fell into their hands, near
Acqua-pendente{?}. They endeavored to pull off his habit, but he
resisted them so violently that they conducted him in it to the seat of
his parents, called Rocca-Secca. The mother, overjoyed at their success,
made no doubt of overcoming her son's resolution. She endeavored to
persuade him that to embrace such an Order, against his parents' advice,
could not be the call of heaven; adding all manner of reasons, fond
caresses, entreaties, and tears. Nature made her eloquent and pathetic.
He appeared sensible of her affliction, but his constancy was not to be
shaken. His answers were modest and respectful, but firm, in showing his
resolution to be the call of God, and ought consequently to take place
of all other views whatsoever, even for his service any other way. At
last, offended at his unexpected resistance, she expressed her
displeasure in very choleric words, and ordered him to be more closely
confined and guarded, and that no one should see him but his two
sisters. The reiterated solicitations of the young ladies were a long
and violent assault. They omitted nothing that flesh and blood could
inspire on such an occasion, and represented to him the danger of
causing the death of his mother by grief. He on the contrary spoke to
them in so moving a manner, on the contempt of the world, and the love
of virtue, that they both yielded to the force of his reasons for his
quitting the world, and, by his persuasion, devoted themselves to a
sincere practice of piety.

This solitude furnished him with the most happy opportunity for holy
contemplation and assiduous prayer. Some time after, his sisters
conveyed to him some books, viz., a Bible, Aristotle's logics, and the
works of the Master of the Sentences. During this interval his two
brothers, Landulph and Reynold, returning home from the army, found
their mother in the greatest affliction, and the young novice triumphant
in his resolution. They would needs