Debonnair, and Charles the Bald, bore a great sway in the government, and had a principal hand in bringing every thing into order and discipline—

Then he has been as great, said my uncle, in the field, as in the cabinet— I dare say he has been a gallant soldier—He was a monk—said the sacristan.

My uncle Toby and Trim sought comfort in each other’s faces—but found it not: my father clapped both his hands upon his cod-piece, which was a way he had when any thing hugely tickled him: for though he hated a monk and the very smell of a monk worse than all the devils in hell—yet the shot hitting my uncle Toby and Trim so much harder than him, ’twas a relative triumph; and put him into the gayest humour in the world.

—And pray what do you call this gentleman? quoth my father, rather sportingly: This tomb, said the young Benedictine, looking downwards, contains the bones of Saint Maxima, who came from Ravenna on purpose to touch the body—

—Of Saint Maximus, said my father, popping in with his saint before him,— they were two of the greatest saints in the whole martyrology, added my father—Excuse me, said the sacristan—’twas to touch the bones of Saint Germain, the builder of the abbey—And what did she get by it? said my uncle Toby—What does any woman get by it? said my father—Martyrdome; replied the young Benedictine, making a bow down to the ground, and uttering the word with so humble, but decisive a cadence, it disarmed my father for a moment. ’Tis supposed, continued the Benedictine, that St. Maxima has lain in this tomb four hundred years, and two hundred before her canonization—’Tis but a slow rise, brother Toby, quoth my father, in this self-same army of martyrs.—A desperate slow one, an’ please your honour, said Trim, unless one could purchase—I should rather sell out entirely, quoth my uncle Toby—I am pretty much of your opinion, brother Toby, said my father.

—Poor St. Maxima! said my uncle Toby low to himself, as we turn’d from her tomb: She was one of the fairest and most beautiful ladies either of Italy or France, continued the sacristan—But who the duce has got lain down here, besides her? quoth my father, pointing with his cane to a large tomb as we walked on—It is Saint Optat, Sir, answered the sacristan—And properly is Saint Optat plac’d! said my father: And what is Saint Optat’s story? continued he. Saint Optat, replied the sacristan, was a bishop—

—I thought so, by heaven! cried my father, interrupting him—Saint Optat!- -how should Saint Optat fail? so snatching out his pocket-book, and the young Benedictine holding him the torch as he wrote, he set it down as a new prop to his system of Christian names, and I will be bold to say, so disinterested was he in the search of truth, that had he found a treasure in Saint Optat’s tomb, it would not have made him half so rich: ’Twas as successful a short visit as ever was paid to the dead; and so highly was his fancy pleas’d with all that had passed in it,—that he determined at once to stay another day in Auxerre.

—I’ll see the rest of these good gentry to-morrow, said my father, as we cross’d over the square—And while you are paying that visit, brother Shandy, quoth my uncle Toby—the corporal and I will mount the ramparts.