He wore "long locks down to his shoulders, and particolored hose and a colored cap. And...he usually appeared in public in a leather cuirass and breastplate, carrying sword, dagger, musket, and all other sorts and descriptions of weapons." He is also recorded as being of an amorous bent...In other words, he was a typical Spanish gallant of his era and his station.
...It was fighting in battle on a disadvantaged side that altered the course of his aspirations.
Defending the garrison at Pamplona against an overwhelming regiment of French invaders, he was wounded in both legs by a cannon ball. The chivalrous French, recognizing in him an enemy worth of regard, did what they could for his injuries and sent him back to Loyola on a litter. At home again, the young captain found he could expect no rapid recovery. That cherished right leg which had gone so jauntingly stockinged had to be broken again and reset. There began for Ignatius what even he, who despised complaining, later referred to as "that butchery." His Spanish doctors seem to have been no cleverer than the French. The left leg healed but on the right one, bone still protruded below the knee. So the first operation was followed by another, and that was followed by a session with a rack, a sort of primitive traction designed to pull the fracture back into place so both legs might eventually be again the same length. Considering that this was long before the age of aesthetics, the whole process seems to us an ordeal almost beyond human strength. But Ignatius endured it in stoic--and Spanish--silence. If he was to win fame as a soldier, he must walk again no matter what the cost in brutal pain.
...While he waited out the time until he could move about once more, he began to read. Reading is the invalid's diversion....The Loyola household, however, did not own much of a library. The only books at hand, dusty and unread, were the preposterous stories of Amadis de Gaul and a few devotional works such as the Flowers of the Saints.
Well, a book is a book. Ignatius read what the family brought to his bedside and at length found himself particularly enjoying the more pious of the sagas. After all, they were peopled by heroes who endured in the face of danger, who fought battles of the soul and achieved celestial victories. (They were also no doubt heavily embroidered with legend). Ever a romantic, the ruined soldier found his imagination catching fire of a new sort. Perhaps there were higher roles a man might play on earth that that of warrior. Remember, he was weakened and susceptible. Remember also that this was an age when to be a loyal Spanish gentleman meant to be a Christian and a Catholic. For all his cockerel lustiness, he had never been a cynic about religion. He had merely never given it much thought. If he had to go limping all his days, if he was to be thwarted in worldly matters, why not, he wondered, enlist in another sort of regiment?
--Phyllis McGinley, Saint-Watching (from the chapter on Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits)