The course of some men makes it seem as if they had chosen the devil
with more purpose than did this lawyer:
St. Evona, or Ives, of Brittany, a famous lawyer in 1300, was
lamenting that his profession had not a patron saint to look up
to. The physicians had St. Luke; the champions had St. George;
the artists each had one; but the lawyers had none. Thinking
that the Pope ought to bestow a saint, he went to Rome, and
requested his Holiness to give the lawyers of Brittany a patron.
The Pope, rather puzzled, proposed to St. Evona that he should
go round the church of St. John de Lateran blindfold, and
after he had said so many _Ave Marias_, the first saint
he laid hold of should be his patron; and this solution of the
difficulty the good old lawyer willingly undertook. When he had
finished his _Ave Marias_, he stopt short, and laid his
hands on the first image he came to, and cried out with joy,
“This is our saint--this be our patron.” But when the bandage
was taken from his eyes, what was his astonishment to find
that, tho he had stopt at St. Michael’s altar, he had all the
while laid hold, not of St. Michael, but of the figure under
St. Michael’s feet--the devil! (Text.)--CROAKE JAMES,
“Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
(761)
=Devolution=--See DOWN GRADE, THE.
=Devotion to a Leader=--See KINDNESS STIMULATING DEVOTION.
=Devotion to Christ=--See CHRIST’S FACE.
=Devotion to Duty=--See FAITHFULNESS; LIFE, A DEVOTED.
=Devotion to Science=--See SCIENCE, DEVOTION TO.