Whenever a prince had offended the Church, he made his peace by presenting some precious offering which was beyond price; as, for instance, in 1109, the Duke of Aquitaine, father of Elionore, after having been pardoned for one of his numerous offences, caused to be enclosed in a magnificent shrine of gold, _two bones_ and _part of the beard_ of the blessed Saint Peter, prince of apostles, which St.Hilaire himself had brought to his church.

Soon after, to prove his repentance of some new peccadillo, Guillaume gave certain _dismes_ to the monks and priests of St.Hilaire, with the use of the forest of Mouliere.
St.Bernard himself was obliged on one occasion to come to Poitiers to admonish the refractory duke, who chose to have an opinion of his own in acknowledging the pope, and many miracles were performed during his stay.

Once St.Bernard severely reprimanded the duke at the altar, in the cathedral, who was for the moment terrified at his denunciations; but no sooner had he left the church than he ordered the altar at which the saint had stood to be demolished; and a priest to proclaim and command the adherence of all persons to whatever pope their duke had adopted; but this impiety was signally visited, for the priest fell down dead at the altar as he was uttering the words.

Also the dean, under whose auspices St.Bernard's altar had been destroyed, _fell sick_ immediately, and died mad and in despair, for he cut his throat in his bed: besides which, one of the refractory bishops--he of Limoges--fell from his mule to the ground, and striking his head against a stone, was killed on the spot; and for these _reasons_ and _evident signs_, Duke William acknowledged his error, and replaced the Bishop of Poitiers, whom he had deposed, in his chair.
This is the William, known by his romantic adventures as "The Armed Hermit," who, no doubt, disgusted with the tyranny of the Church, whose members at that time never ceased to interfere with the monarchs of Europe, resolved to abandon his kingdom, and embrace a life of quiet, as he supposed, "in some _horrible desert_." He was encouraged in the idea by interested persons, and _feigning to die_, left a will, by which his young daughter, Elionore, became the heiress of Aquitaine; he then secretly quitted the court, directing his steps to the shrine of St.
James, in Galicia, where he joined a holy hermit, and put himself under his tuition.

By _diabolic temptation_ it seems, however, that he could never be content in any of the deserts; where, still clothed in armour, _cap-a-pie_, he endeavoured in vain to forget his belligerent propensities, for, every now and then, when he heard of a siege toward, he would suddenly sally forth, and having assisted in the skirmish, again seized with a fit of repentant devotion, would hurry back to some desolate retreat, and endeavour, by penitence and fasts, to obliterate the sin he had committed.
His death was attended by so many miracles that it became necessary to canonize him; and orders of hermit monks rose up in every quarter, bearing his name of Guillemins, the chief of which were the Blanc Manteaux of Paris.