When Saint Barbara is to be taken naked through the streets, an angel brings her a white tunic.

These Agneses and these Dorotheas, these Catherines and these Margarets, this legion of innocent conquerors prepared men's minds to believe in the miracle of a virgin stronger than armed men.

Had not Saint Genevieve turned away Attila and his barbarian warriors from Paris?
The fable of the Maid and the Unicorn, so widely known in those days, is a lively expression of this belief in a special virtue residing in the state of virginity.
The unicorn was half goat and half horse, of immaculate whiteness; it bore a marvellous sword upon its forehead.

Hunters, when they saw it pass in the thicket, had never been able to reach it, so rapid was its course.

But if a virgin in the forest called the unicorn, the creature obeyed, came and laid its head on her lap, and allowed such feeble hands to take and bind it.