Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/405

MONASTIC REFORMS. 381 that he should be allowed to conform in every re- chapter . V. spect to the obligations of his order, and to remain . '■ — in his own monastery when his official functions did not require attendance at court. ^^ Martyr, in more than one of his letters dated at this time, notices the impression made on the cour- tiers by the remarkable appearance of the new con- fessor, in whose wasted frame, and pallid, care-worn countenance, they seemed to behold one of the primitive anchorites from the deserts of Syria or Egypt. '^ The austerities and the blameless purity of Ximenes's life had given him a reputation for sanctity throughout Spain ; ^° and Martyr indulges the regret, that a virtue, which had stood so many trials, should be exposed to the worst of all, in the seductive blandishments of a court. But Ximenes's heart had been steeled by too stern a discipline to be moved by the fascinations of pleasure, however it might be by those of ambition. Two years after this event, he was elected pro- Elected pre. A vincial. vincial of his order in Castile, which placed him at 18 ri6chier, Hist, de Ximenes, fateris ? " Opus Epist, epist. 105. pp. 18, 19. — Peter Martyr, Opus ^o " Todos hablaban," says Ovi- Epist., epist. 108. — Robles, Vida edo, " de la sanctimonia e vida de de Ximenez, ubi supra. — Oviedo, este religiose." The same writer Quincuagenas, MS. says, that he saw him at Medina 19 Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., del Campo, in 1494, in a solemn epist. 108. procession, on the da}"^ of Corpus " Praeterea," says Martyr, in a Christi, his body much emaciat- letter to Don Fernando Alvarez, one ed, and walking barefooted in his of the royal secretaries, "" nonne coarse friar's dress. In the same tu sanctissimum quendara virum a procession was the magnificent car- solitudine abstrusisque silvis, macie dinal of Spain, little dreaming how ob abstinentiam confectum, relicti soon his proud honors were to de- Granatensis loco fuisse suffectum, scend on the head of his more scriptitasti ? In istius facie obduc- humble companion. Quincuage- ta, nonne Hilarionis te imaginem nas, MS. aut primi Pauli vultum conspexisse