While Eloi was working at the court of King Clothaire II., St. Quen was there as well.  The two youths struck up a close friendship, and afterwards Ouen became his biographer.  His description of Eloi’s personal appearance is worth quoting, to show the sort of figure a mediaeval saint sometimes cut before canonization.  “He was tall, with a ruddy face, his hair and beard curly.  His hands well made, and his fingers long, his face full of angelic sweetness....  At first he wore habits covered with pearls and precious stones; he had also belts sewn with pearls.  His dress was of linen encrusted with gold, and the edges of his tunic trimmed with gold embroidery.  Indeed, his clothing was very costly, and some of his dresses were of silk.  Such was his exterior in his first period at court, and he dressed thus to avoid singularity; but under this garment he wore a rough sack cloth, and later on, he disposed of all his ornaments to relieve the distressed; and he might be seen with only a cord round his waist and common clothes.  Sometimes the king, seeing him thus divested of his rich clothing, would take off his own cloak and girdle and give them to him, saying:  ’It is not suitable that those who dwell for the world should be richly clad, and that those who despoil themselves for Christ should be without glory.’”

Among the numerous virtues of St. Eloi was that of a consistent carrying out of his real beliefs and theories, whether men might consider him quixotic or not.  He was strongly opposed to the institution of slavery.  In those days it would have been futile to preach actual emancipation.  The times were not ripe.  But St. Eloi did all that he could for the cause of freedom by investing most of his money in slaves, and then setting them at liberty.  Sometimes he would “corner” a whole slave market, buying as many as thirty to a hundred at a time.  Some of these manumitted persons became his own faithful followers:  some entered the religious life, and others devoted their talents to their benefactor, and worked in his studios for the furthering of art in the Church.

He once played a trick upon the king.  He requested the gift of a town, in order, as he explained, that he might there build a ladder by which they might both reach heaven.  The king, in the rather credulous fashion of the times, granted his request, and waited to see the ladder.  St. Eloi promptly built a monastery.  If the monarch did not choose to avail himself of this species of ladder,—­surely it was no fault of the builder!

St. Quen and St. Eloi were consecrated bishops on the same day, May 14, St. Quen to the Bishopric of Rouen, and Eloi to the See of Noyon.  He made a great hunt for the body of St. Quentin, which had been unfortunately mislaid, having been buried in the neighbourhood of Noyon; he turned up every available spot of ground around, within and beneath the church, until he found a skeleton in a tomb, with some iron nails.  This he proclaimed to be the sacred body,