The Soldiers Who Beat Martin

“In the same way, some time afterward, we made a journey with him while he was visiting the various parishes of his diocese. He had gone on a little ahead by himself, while some need or other, I do not know what, made us stay behind. Meanwhile a state wagon full of soldiers was coming along the public highway. When the animals on the near side saw Martin in his shaggy garment, with a long black cloak over it, they took fright and swerved a little the other way. Then the reins got tangled and threw into confusion those long lines in which, as you have often seen, those wretched creatures are harnessed together; and since it took a great deal of trouble to put them right, the travelers in their hurry were of course delayed. Enraged at this, the soldiers leaped hastily to the ground and began to beat Martin with whips and staves. He offered his back to their blows in silence and with incredible patience, and this roused these wretches to greater fury; they grew all the more violent because he seemed to despise the blows rained on him, as if he did not feel them. He fell almost lifeless to the ground, and soon afterward we found him covered with blood and wounded all over his body. We lifted him up at once and put him on his own donkey, and, cursing the place of that cruel bloodshed, we hurried away as fast as we could. [a]

“Meanwhile the soldiers, their fury satisfied, went back to their wagon and urged the animals on in the direction they had been going. But all the animals stayed fixed to the spot, as stiff as bronze statues. Though their masters shouted at them and the crack of their whips echoed on every side, the animals never moved. Next they all set to with the lash; in fact, in punishing the mules they wear out every Gallic whip they have. They lay hold of the whole wood nearby, and the beasts are beaten with huge cudgels; but those cruel hands still accomplished nothing. The animals went on standing in one and the same place like fixed images. The wretched men did not know what to do, and they could no longer hide from themselves that some higher power was somehow at work in these brute beasts, so that they were in fact being held back by the intervention of a deity.

“At last, then, coming to their senses, they began to ask who it was they had flogged at that same place a little earlier. When, on looking into it, they learned from people on the road that it was Martin they had beaten so cruelly, the cause of their misfortune became plain to all, and they could no longer doubt that they were being held back because of the injury done to that man. So they all rushed after us at full speed. Conscious of what they had done and what they deserved, overwhelmed with shame, weeping, their heads and faces smeared with the dust they had sprinkled over themselves, they threw themselves at Martin’s feet, begging his pardon and asking him to let them go on. They added that their conscience alone had punished them enough, and that they felt deeply that the earth might swallow them alive on that very spot, or rather that they might justly lose all sense and be stiffened into immovable rocks, just as they had seen their beasts of burden fixed to the places where they stood. But they begged and implored him to grant them pardon for their crime and to let them go on their way. The blessed man had known, before they came up to us, that they were being held fast, and had already told us so. He kindly granted them forgiveness, released their animals, and let them continue their journey.