the fame of his holiness was spread throughout the entire kingdom, and
there was not a prince or princess but showed him high honour when he
came to visit them. There was further no monkish reform that was not
wrought by his hand, so that people called him the "father of true
monasticism." (2)

He was chosen visitor to the illustrious order of the "Ladies of
Fontevrault," (3) by whom he was held in such awe that, when he visited
any of their convents, the nuns shook with very fear, and to soften his
harshness towards them would treat him as though he had been the King
himself in person. At first he would not have them do this, but at last,
when he was nearly fifty-five years old, he began to find the treatment
he had formerly contemned very pleasant; and reckoning himself the
mainstay of all monasticism, he gave more care to the preservation of
his health than had heretofore been his wont. Although the rules of
his order forbade him ever to partake of flesh, he granted himself a
dispensation (which was more than he ever did for another), declaring
that the whole burden of conventual affairs rested upon him; for which
reason he feasted himself so well that, from being a very lean monk he
became a very fat one.

2 This prior was Stephen Gentil, who succeeded Philip
Bourgoin on December 15, 1508, and died November 6, 1536.
The _Gallia Christiana_ states that in 1524 he reformed an
abbey of the diocese of Soissons, but makes no mention of
his appointment as visitor to the abbey of Fontevrault.
Various particulars concerning him will be found in Manor's
_Monasterii Regalis S. Martini de Campis, &c. Parisiis_,
1636, and in _Gallia Christiana_, vol. vii. col. 539.--L.