considered a breach of contract, forfeiting the merit of the enterprise, but at the end of the second month the gaunt world-renouncer had generally strength enough left to reach his convent unassisted and smash the solar plexus of a cell-brother who ventured to question the reality of his visions. Robert de Moleme, the founder of the Cistercian brotherhood, was overcome with grief on learning the death of a female friend, and like General Boulanger, resolved to follow her to the Land of Shades. Being averse to direct suicide, he retired to the mountain-lodge of a relative, and abstained from food in the hope that one of his frequent fainting fits would fade into the sleep that knows no morning. But finding himself alive at the end of the seventieth day, he reconsidered his resolution and began to suspect a miraculous interposition of Providence. By resuming his meals, in half-ounce instalments, he contrived to recover from a condition of frightful emaciation, and in the supervision of an ever-increasing number of scattered monasteries, led an active life for the next fourteen years.
Trance-fasters, like Augusta Kerner of Ingolstadt, survived in a semi-conscious condition for nearly a quarter of a year, but it would be
