with great difficulty. Besides
the journeys which the reformation he established in many monasteries
obliged him to undertake, he made one to Orbe, to wait on the empress
Alice. That pious princess burst into tears upon seeing him, and
taking hold of his habit, kissed it, and applied it to her eyes, and
declared to him she should die in a {070} very short time. This was in
999, and she died on the 16th of December the same year. Massacres and
plunders were so common in that age, by the right which every petty
lord pretended of revenging his own injuries and quarrels by private
wars, that the treaty called the truce of God was set on foot. By
this, among other articles, it was agreed, that churches should be
sanctuaries to all sorts of persons, except those that violated this
truce; and that from Wednesday till Monday morning no one should offer
violence to any one, not even by way of satisfaction for any injustice
he had received. This truce met with the greatest difficulties among
the Neustrians, but was at length received and observed in most
provinces of France, through the exhortations and endeavors of
St. Odilo, and B. Richard, abbot of St. Vanne's, who were charged with
this commission.[1] Prince Casimir, son of Miceslaw, king of Poland,
retired to Cluni, where he professed the monastic state, and was
ordained deacon. He was afterwards, by a solemn deputation of the
nobility, called to the crown. St. Odilo referred the matter to pope
Benedict IX., with whose dispensation Casimir mounted the throne in
1041, married, had several children, and reigned till his death in
1058.[2]

St. Odilo being moved by several visions, instituted the annual
commemoration of all the faithful departed, to be observed by the
members of his community with alms, prayers, and sacrifices, for the
relief of the suffering souls in purgatory; and this charitable devotion
he often much recommended. He was very devout to the Blessed Virgin; and
above all sacred mysteries, that of the divine Incarnation employed his
particular attention. As the monks were singing that verse in the
church, "thou being to take upon thee to deliver man, didst not abhor
the womb of a virgin;" melting away with the tenderest emotions of love,
he fell to the ground; the ecstatic agitations of his body bearing
evidence to that heavenly fire which glowed in his soul. Most of his
sermons and little poems extant, treat of the mysteries of our
redemption, or of the Blesse