alous act of sacrilegious and
burglarious robbery. And an amusing sequel to the story proves that,
where relics were concerned, his friend Hildoin, another high
ecclesiastical dignitary, was even less scrupulous than himself.

On going to the palace early one morning, after the saints were safely
bestowed at Seligenstadt, he found Hildoin waiting for an audience in
the Emperor's antechamber, and began to talk to him about the miracle
of the bloody exudation. In the course of conversation, Eginhard
happened to allude to the remarkable fineness of the garment of the
blessed Marcellinus. Whereupon Abbot Hildoin observed (to Eginhard's
stupefaction) that his observation was quite correct. Much astonished
at this remark from a person who was supposed not to have seen the
relics, Eginhard asked him how he knew that? Upon this, Hildoin saw
that he had better make a clean breast of it, and he told the
following story, which he had received from his priestly agent, Hunus.
While Hunus and Lunison were at Pavia, waiting for Eginhard's notary,
Hunus (according to his own account) had robbed the robbers. The
relics were placed in a church; and a number of laymen and clerics, of
whom Hunus was one, undertook to keep watch over them. One night,
however, all the watchers, save the wide-awake Hunus, went to sleep;
and then, according to the story which this "sharp" ecclesiastic
foisted upon his patron,

it was borne in upon his mind that there must be some great
reason why all the people, except himself, had suddenly
become somnolent; and, determining to avail himself of the
opportunity thus offered (_oblata occasione utendum_), he
rose and, having lighted a candle, silently approached the
chests. Then, having burnt through the threads of the seals
with the flame of the candle, he quickly opened the chests,
which had no locks;[41] and taking out portions of each of
the bodies which were thus exposed, he closed the chests
and connected the burnt ends of the threads with the seals
again, so that they appeared not to have been touched; and,
no one having seen him, he returned to his place. (Cap. iii.
23.)

Hildoin went on to tell Eginhard that Hunus at first declared to him
that these purloined relics belonged to St. Tiburtius; but afterwards
confessed, as a great secret, how he had come by them, and he wound up
his discourse thus:

They have a place of honour besi