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Rh words sufficiently strong in which to eulogise the zeal and patience displayed by the Pope on this occasion. Paul, however, never lost sight of the advantage of his family. At the time of the Conference he succeeded in getting Novara from the Emperor, for his illegitimate son, Pier Luigi, for whom he had already alienated Parma, and raised it into a Duchy, at the expense of the States of the Church. The implacable jealousy entertained against one another by the two monarchs led to the war breaking out again; Francis I. entered into alliance with the Turks under Barbarossa, and a combined army laid siege to Nice in August, 1543. The Turkish cannons completely destroyed the Convent of Ste. Croix, in which Pope Paul had lodged in 1538, and broke down large portions of the city ramparts. It was then that occurred an incident that has never been forgotten in Nice. Catherine Ségurane, commonly called Malfacia (the misshapen), a washerwoman, was carrying provisions on the wall to some of the defenders, when she saw that the Turks had put up a scaling ladder, and that a captain was leading the party, and had reached the parapet. She rushed at him, beat him on the head with her washing-bat, and thrust down the ladder, which fell with all those on it. Then, hastening to the nearest group of Niçois soldiery, she told them what she had done, and they, electrified by her example, threw open a postern, made a sortie, and drove the Turks back to the shore. According to one version of the story, Catherine gripped the standard in the hand of the Turk, wrenched it from him, and with the butt end thrust him back.

The story first appears in a "Discours sur l'ancien monastère des religieuses de Nice," 1608. Honoré