Page:Goldenlegendlive00jaco.djvu/226

 enamoured of the love of God, as Phineas, punished them right grievously.

Whereof it befell that a citizen of Paris who loathly swearing had blasphemed Jesu Christ, against the act or statute royal, which S. Louis by the counsel of the prelates and princes had ordained and made for the swearers and blasphemers, at the commandment of the said saint he was marked or tokened, at the lips of him with a hot and burning iron, in sign of punition of his sin, and terror and dreadfulness to all others. And how for cause of that, he hearing some say and cast in on him many cursings, said: 'I would fain sustain on my lips such laidure or shame as long as I shall live, so that all the evil vice of swearing were left and cast out from all our realm.'

He had the signacle or figure of the holy cross in so great reverence that he eschewed to tread on it, and required of many religious that, within their churchyard and tombs they ne should from thence orthon portray ne depict the form or figure of the cross and that the crosses so portrayed and figured, they should make to be planed. O how great reverence he had! He also went every year on the good Friday to the chapel within the palace royal for to worship there the holy cross, kneeling, both feet and head bare.

Of diligent discussing of causes and matters he rendered or yielded just judgment. Of very dilecion or love, he doubting that the strife, actions and pleadings of the poor should come only to the presence and knowledge of his councillors, he went and presided among them at the least twice in a