Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 1.djvu/397

B. HILDEBURG 383 Tho ammonites with which the Whitby rocks aboand were thoaght by the country people to be snakes beheaded and turned into stone by the prayers of St. Hilda. Bede. Brit, Sancta, Eobert Spence Watson, Csedmon, Bntler. Mrs. Jameson. Montalembert, Monks of the West, iv. B. Hildeburg, June 3, + 1115, is sometimes called " Saint." In the reign of Philip I. of France, there lived at Chartres a rich nobleman, named Herve do Grallardon. His wife Beatrice was as nobly descended as himself, and both were still more dis- tinguished for their yirtnes than for their worldly advantages. They had a daughter Hildeburg, whom they married to Bobert of Ivrey, a good and wealthy old man. By this marriage she had three sons. In course of time Hobert began U> reflect that all human honour and pleasure pass away, and as he lost his taste for the ambition and amuse- ment of the world, which leads to de- struction, he resolved to betake himself to religion, and look after his soul ; so he became a monk in the abbey of Bee, in Normandy, and there ended his days. When he was dead, Hildeburg's parents, sons, and friends decided that it was not respectable for a widow so yoimg and pretty to remain unmarried ; and although she had hitherto conducted herself with the utmost propriety, she was too humble not to listen when they said that some temptation of the world or the devil might iuduce her to disgrace her family by her conduct She there- fore accepted as her second husband a certain warrior of rank, wealth, and valour, equal to the highest expectations of her family. On the day appointed for the wedding, the bridegroom came with a goodly train of noble knights to bear him company and do honour to the occasion. The bride received him in a magnificent dress of many colours ; but as she was coming out of the house on her way to the church, the wooden steps gave way, and she fell to the ground, severely bruising both her hips and sus- taining other injuries. She looked upon this accident as a direct warning from Heaven that she was not to contract a second marriage, and steadfastly refused to fulfil her engagement or form any other of the same sort. She now spent all her time and money in works of piety and charity ; she asked and obtained a place to live in near each of the Benedictine monasteries of St. Peter of Chartres, St. Mary of Colonns, St. Mary of Beo, where her husband had been a monk, and St. Taurinus of Evreux. At the latter place she built and endowed a hospice for the reception of pilgrims and poor people at her own expense and that of her son Guellus. As she found that she could not live there in peace on account of the wars in which her sons were fre- quently engaged with their neighbours, she asked Guellus to give her a country place near Jouy on the Oise. Then she went to Theobald, abbot of St. Martin's, at Pontoise, and, with his consent, had a humble little dwelling made for her- self near the monastery, at the same time contributing handsomely to the embel- lishment of the church, making a new infirmary within the cloister, and sup- plying the monks with many things of which they stood in need. She loved this residence better than any house or castle she had ever lived in. Her generosity to others was only equalled by her niggardliness to herself. She lived in the greatest privation of anything like personal comfort; she endured heat, cold, hunger, and dirt; said her prayers lying on the ground lest she should regret her married life. Wishing to enlarge the church of St. Martin, she begged her son, for the good of his own soul and those of his wife, children, and forefathers, to give to the monks the estate at Jouy, where he had already given her a house. This he refused, and as she importuned him again and again, at last he agreed that they should have it during his mother's life and for one year afterwards. She died in a good old age, and was buried in the church of St. Martin, where her tomb was honoured with many miracles. When the time drew near for the monks to give up the estate, their beue- fjEUJtress having been dead nearly a year, Guellus dreamt one night that he was in