Still later biographers improved the account further,
declaring that Xavier promised Vellio that the strong box should
always contain money sufficient for all his needs. In that warm
and uncritical atmosphere this and other legends grew rapidly,
obedient to much the same laws which govern the evolution of
fairy tales.[[16]]
In 1682, one hundred and thirty years after Xavier's death,
appeared his biography by Father Bouhours; and this became a
classic. In it the old miracles of all kinds were enormously
multiplied, and many new ones given. Miracles few and small in
Tursellinus became many and great in Bouhours. In Tursellinus,
Xavier during his life saves one person from drowning, in
Bouhours he saves during his life three; in Tursellinus, Xavier
during his life raises four persons from the dead, in Bouhours
fourteen; in Tursellinus there is one miraculous supply of water,
in Bouhours three; in Tursellinus there is no miraculous draught
of fishes, in Bouhours there is one; in Tursellinus, Xavier is
transfigured twice, in Bouhours five times: and so through a long
series of miracles which, in the earlier lives appearing either
not at all or in very moderate form, are greatly increased and
enlarged by Tursellinus, and finally enormously amplified and
multiplied by Father Bouhours.
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