h
of January, having associated his son, Lewis le Debonnaire, in the
empire in the foregoing September. While our saint lived in his
monastery, dead to the world, intent only on heavenly things,
instructing the ignorant, and feeding the poor, on whom he always
exhausted his whole revenue, Lewis declared his son, Lothaire, his
partner and successor in the empire, in 817: Bernard, who looked upon
that dignity as his right, his father Pepin having been eldest brother
to Lewis, rebelled, but lost both his kingdom and his life. Lewis was
prevailed upon, by certain flatterers, to suspect our saint to have been
no enemy to Bernard's pretensions, and banished him to a monastery,
situated in the little island Heri, called afterwards Hermoutier, and
St. Philebert's, on the coast of Aquitain. The saint's brother Wala (one
of the greatest men of that age, as appears from his curious life,
published by Mabillon) he obliged to become a monk at Lerins. His sister
Gondrada he confined in the monastery of the Holy Cross, at Poitiers;
and left only his other sister Theodrada, who was a nun, at liberty in
her convent at Soissons. This exile St. Adalard regarded as his gain,
and in it his tranquillity and gladness of soul met with no
interruptions. The emperor at length was made sensible of his innocence,
and, after five years' banishment, called him to his court towards the
close of the year 821; and, by the greatest honors and favors,
endeavored to make amends for the injustice he had done him. Adalard
(whose soul, fixed wholly on God, was raised above all earthly things)
was the same person in prosperity and adversity, in the palace as in the
cell, and in every station: the distinguishing parts of his character
were, an extraordinary gift of compunction and tears, the most tender
charity for all men, and an undaunted zeal for the relief and protection
of all the distressed. In 823, he obtained leave to return to the
government of his abbey of Corbie, where he with joy frequently took
upon himself the most humbling and mortifying employments of the house.
By his solicitude, earnest endeavors, and powerful example, his
spiritual children grew daily in fervor and divine love; and such was
his zeal for their continual advancement, that he passed no week without
speaking to every one of them in particular, and no day without
exhorting them all in general, by pathetic and instructive discourses.
The inhabitants of the country round his monaste