abomination. The abbot there present, which unnethe might see that, wept and sighed piteously. And howbeit that to all indigent he opened the bosom of misericorde, nevertheless to them that watched in divine services, and that prayed for souls, he made greater alms and often And by the great alms that he dealt every year to the convents in Paris, both of the friars predicators and minors, said sometime to his familiars: 'O God, how this alms is well set or bestowed on so much and so great number of friars affluing and coming to Paris out from all lands for to learn the divine scriptures, and to the end they might show and utter them through all the world to the cure and salvation of souls!'
Other alms that he did through the year, no tongue should suffice for to rehearse it. He worshipped the holy relics with much great devotion, and assiduously grew the cultiving of God and the honour of the saints. He builded in Paris a fair chapel within the palace royal, in which he purposed and put right diligently the holy crown of thorns to our Lord, with a great part of the holy cross. Also the iron or head of the spear wherewith the side of our Lord was opened, with many other relics which he received of the emperor of Constantinople. He would speak to nobody while that he was at church hearing the divine service, without it were for great need or great utility of the commonweal, and then with short and substantious words uttered that he would say, to the end that his devotion should not be letted. He might not hear, ne forbear the reproaches or blasphemies done to the christian faith, but he,
