Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/343

 ST. ELIZABETH OF THURINGIA. 327 austerities in her twenty-fourth year, Elizabeth was the rarest type of womanly gentleness and self-abnegation, of aU Christian virtues and spiritual aspirations. When but eighteen years of age she placed herself under Conrad's direction, and he proceeded to dis- cipline this heavenly spirit with a ferocity worthy of a demon. Such implicit obedience did he exact that on one occasion when he had sent for her to hear him preach, and she was unable to do so on account of an unexpected visit from her sister-in-law, the Margravine of Misnia, he angrily declared that he would leave her. She went to him the next day and entreated for pardon ; on his continuing obdurate, she and her maidens, whom he blamed for the matter, cast themselves at his feet, when he caused them all to be stripped to their shifts and soundly scourged. It is no wonder that he inspired her with such terror that she was wont to vsay " If I so much dread a mortal man, how is God to be rightly dreaded V After the death of Louis, whom she tenderly loved, and when his brother Henry despoiled her and drove her out, pen- niless, with her children, she submitted with patient resignation and earned her living by beggary ; and when he was forced to compound for her dower-rights with money, she made haste to distribute it in charity. Under the influence of the diseased piet- ism inculcated by Conrad, she abandoned her children to God and devoted herself to succoring casual outcasts and lepers ; and the depth of her humility was shown when scandal made busy with her fame in consequence of her relations with Conrad. On being warned of this and counselled to greater prudence, she brought forth the bloody scourge which she used, and said, '' This is the love the holy man bears to me. I thank God, who has deigned to accept this final oblation from me. I have sacrificed everything —station, wealth, beauty— and have made myself a beggar, intend- ing only to preserve the adornment of womanly modesty ; if God chooses to take this also, I hold it to be a special grace." ' It was this spirit, so self-abased and humble, that Conrad's brutal fanaticism sought systematically to break, contradicting her of set purpose in all things, and demanding of her every possible sacrifice. Mere- ly to add to her afflictions he di-ove awav, one bv one, the faithful serving-women who idolized her, finally^ expeUing Guda, who had been her loved companion since infancy in Hungary ; as they themselves said, "He did this with a good intention, ''because he