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225 ST. DELPHINE 225 struggle of the world, devote ourselTes exclusively to spiritual tilings." Delpbine was overjoyed. She looked forward to their spending some years together in the manner ^e had always considered the best and happiest. She stayed contented with Queen Sancha, and her husband went to Paris. One day he was in the Place Saint- Jacques just as a priest was coming out of the church, carrying the sacrament to a sick person. All the people who hap- pened to be there fell on their knees, as their custom was, at the passing of the Holy Sacrament. Elz6ar idone remained standing. The Bishop of Paris, having heard so much of the piety of the Nea- politan ambassador, wondered much when this act of irreverence was repeated to him, and requested the Count of Ariano to explain his motive. Elz6ar said, " The wafer which the priest carried was not consecrated, and I should have been guilty of idolatry if I had wor- shipped it as the Body of our Lord." The bishop, more surprised than ever, sent for the priest, who confessed with tears that such was the fiEMit, and ex- plained that the person who had sent for the Holy Sacrament was, to his cer- tain knowledge, unworthy to receive it, but that, intimidated by his followers, and not daring to refuse the demand of so powerful a personage, he had, in his perplexity, thought to avoid sacrilege by the ruse which the Count of Ariano had detected. The embassy had been in Paris about three weeks, and preparations were be-, ing made to celebrate the royal marriage with due pomp and splendour, when the proxy bridegroom was seized with fever and died in a few days, at the King of Sicily's hotel, Sept. 27, 1323. He said on his death-bed that if he had any good in him he owed it to the prayers and the example of his wife. At the hour of his death, Delpbine, who was praying for him in her oratory at Avignon, had a vision of the lugubrious procession of his servants, clothed in mourning, issuing from the gates of Paris, and taking the road to Avignon. She flew to the king and queen, to see if they could give her any tidings ; but they had heard nothing, and tried to calm her. After a few days, however, the king received the sad news of the death of his ambassador, and soon afterwards the friends and servants who had accompanied the count to Paris arrived in mourning, just as Delpbine had seen them in her vision. The widow was inconsolable. She left tho court, and went to live at Cabri^res, near Eobians, her husband's birth-place, and near Ansouis, where their first home had been. About a year after his death his body was brought, according to his directions, to be buried in the Franciscan church at Apt. She went there to meet it, and, at the same time, did homage in that church for her lands, between the hands of the seneschal Scaletta. About three years after this, the Franciscans and all the clergy and people of Apt petitioned the Pope, John XXII., who was living at Avignon, to enrol the name of Elzear amongst the saints. The Pope showed himself willing, but was too much troubled by his struggles with the anti- pope, the Germans, and his other ene- mies to take at once the necessary steps ; but Delpbine, who had been assured in a vision that her husband was in paradise, worshipped him as a saint without wait- ing for his canonization, which was accomplished by his godson. Urban V. Elzear left Ansouis and Ariano to his brother William, and to Delpbine he restored all the estates she had brought him as dowry — Puy-Michel, Saint Etienne, Hospitalet, etc. ; he left her the castles of Eobians and Cabri^res absolutely, and for her life she was to have the castle and lands of Madalon, near Naples ; he also left her quantities of plate, jewels, money, silk and fur robes, flocks and herds, and furniture of various sorts. She soon resolved to sell all these appendages of luxury, henceforth useless to her; but it took some time to realize so much and such various property. Some of her relations were willing to buy the feunily estates from her, and some undertook to assist her in getting rid of her superfluities and making over the money to the different classes of poor on whom she wished to bestow it ; but this could not Q