nts, or to use velvet
for ornament.

[Footnote 53: On account of the cord they wore round their habit.]

[Footnote 54: St. Louis loved the Franciscans, and in the _Fioretti_ a
beautiful story is told how the king, in the guise of a pilgrim,
visiting Brother Giles at Perugia, knelt with the good friar in an
embrace of fervent affection for a great space of time in silence.
They parted without speaking a word, marvellously comforted.]

[Footnote 55: The innocence of Marie Antoinette in this scandalous
affair has been clearly established. See _L'affaire du Collier_, by M.
Funck Brentano. Paris, 1903.]

[Illustration: REFECTORY OF THE CORDELIERS.]

The establishment of the abbeys of St. Antoine, of the Friars of the
Holy Cross, and of the Sisters of St. Bega or Beguines, were also due
to the king's piety, and the whole city was surrounded with religious
houses. "Even as a scribe," says an old writer, "who hath written his
book illuminates it with gold and silver, so did the king illumine his
kingdom with the great quantity of the houses of God that he built."

St. Louis was, however, firm in his resistance to ecclesiastical
arbitrariness. The prelates complained to him on one occasion that
Christianity was going to the dogs, because no one feared their
excommunications, and prayed that he would order his sergeants to lend
the secular arm to enforce their authority. "Yes," answered the king,
"if you will give me the particulars of each case that I may judge if
your sentence be just." That, they objected, appertained to the
ecclesiastical courts, but St. Louis was inflexible, and they remained
unsatisfied.

Many were St. Louis' benefactions to the great hospital of Paris, the
Hotel Dieu. Rules, dating from 1217, for the treatment of the sick
poor were elaborated in his reign with admirable forethought. The
sick, after confession and communion, were to be put to bed and
treated as if they were the masters of the house. They were to be
daily served with food before the nursing friars and sisters, and all
that they desired was to be freely given if it could be obtained and
were not prejudicial to their recovery. If the sickness were dangerous
the patient was to be set apart and to be tended with especial
solicitude. The sick were never to be left unguarded and even to be
kept seven days after they were healed, lest they should suffer a
relapse. The friars and sisters were to eat twice a day: the sick
whenever they had n