Old Book Illustrations features “Devil Turned Hermit,” from an early 19th-century book titled Cent Proverbes.
The book describes the illustration:
“The Devil, in the guise of an old man with horns, has a female visitor shown to the door and his worldly paraphernalia swept away while he immerses himself in prayer among symbols of asceticism.” Adds the website editors: “The caption reads in the original French: Quand le Diable devient vieux, il se fait ermite.
This proverb has a loose English equivalent in The Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be.
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