The Normans gave little heed to the calumny, and, in fact, the open, generous temper of Robert was by no means likely to belong to a secret murderer. The splendor of his court, and munificence of his gifts, acquired for him the name of Robert the Magnificent, and the following, among other instances, is recorded of his liberality:
When attending mass at the Abbey of Cerizy, his own foundation, he one day remarked a stranger knight, when asked for his alms at the offertory, reply sadly, that he had nothing to give. He beckoned to a squire, and sent him to present the poor stranger with a purse containing a hundred pounds, which the knight immediately offered on the altar. After the mass was over, the sacristan came to ask him if he knew bow large the sum was, or if he had given it by mistake, to which he replied, that he had offered it wittingly, since it was for no other end that the Duke had sent it to him. His answer was reported by the sacristan to the Duke, who instantly sent the high-minded stranger a second purse, containing the same sum for his own use.
Robert founded nine monasteries, and made large gifts to all the churches in his duchy, entreating the prayers of the clergy and of the poor, for the pardon of the sins of his youth; but his conscience was ill at ease, and in the sixth year of his dukedom he resolved to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, a journey which was then even more perilous than in subsequent years, when the Crusades had, in some degree, secured the safety of the pilgrims, and he seems to have been fully persuaded that he should never return alive.
His chief care was for the welfare of his son, William, a boy of seven years old, whose situation was the more precarious, because there was a stain on his birth, his mother being the daughter of a tanner of Falaise, so that it was more than probable that his right to the succession would be disputed by the numerous descendants of Richard Sans Peur. Robert did his best to secure his safety by calling together the vassals to do homage to him, and placing him under the especial protection of Henry I. of France, at whose court at Paris he left him.
Robert then set out on his pilgrimage, with a few companions, all wearing the coarse garb of pilgrims, with staves in their hands, and their feet bare. As they were passing the gates of a small town in Franche Comté, Robert walking last, an insolent warder, tired of holding the gate open, struck him such a blow on the shoulders with a halbert that he reeled under it, but so changed was his once violent temper, that, seeing his friends about to revenge the insult, he called out, “Let him alone; pilgrims ought to suffer for the love of God. I love his blow better than my city of Rouen.”