Curiosities of Olden Times
wall, when in doubt whether to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land or not, was decided by opening his Bible at the passage in Isaiah, "Et erit sepulchrum ejus gloriosum." A similar story is told of St. Poppo, a Belgian saint of the eleventh century.
The anecdote is well known of King Charles and Lord Falkland consulting the Sortes Virgilianæ in the library at Oxford. The lines they met with and which were so singularly verified afterwards, are marked with their initials in the book, which is still preserved.
Rabelais refers to the Sortes Virgilianæ when he makes Panurge consult them on the subject of his marriage.
Gregory of Tours, sad at heart because of the desolation produced by the ravages of Count Leudaste in and around the city, entered his oratory; "and," as he tells us himself, "full of trouble, I took up the Psalms of David, in hopes of finding, when I opened the book, some verse which might bring me consolation. And I found this: 'He brought them out safely, that they should not fear; and overwhelmed their enemies with the sea.'"
Gregory relates another story akin to the subject. Clovis, at the moment when he was marching against Alaric, king of the Visigoths, sent his deputies to the Church of St. Martin, at Tours, saying to them, "Go, and maybe, in the holy temple you will find some presage of victory." After having given them presents for the sacred place, he added: "O Lord
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