224 ST. DELPHINE shocked to find her husband dressed as gaily as the most worldly of his com- panions, and feared that the life of court and camp had rubbed the bloom off his piety and sullied the purity of his soul. He saw the sadness of her look, and, divining its cause, soon revealed to her that beneath his embroidered silk coat and yelvet mantle he wore the rough woollen shirt of his former days, and under that his cilicium. In their new abode they practised the same holiness and patience, charity to the poor, and earnest efforts for the moral and spiritual welfare of those under their authority, that had characterized their life at Puy- Michel. Delphine soon found that, being one of the great ladies of the court, she had to wear the magnificent dress that her station demanded ; but under her gay attire she wore a cilicium. She was always very generous to friends and attendants, and, finding two ladies of the court who were too poor to dress like their companions, she gave her green gown to one and her violet gown to the other, and thus enabled them to appear at court as became their rank. St. Elz6ar was much impressed with the duty of doing justice to all the creditors of his fcimily, and discharging the different obligations his father had left him ; and he thought that when all these afi^irs were settled, God would release him from his earthly life. As Master Justiciary of the Abruzzi, he might have enriched himself to any extent. Presents were a recognised form of profit to those holding high offices; but the line between a present and a bribe is so faint that an avaricious man cannot see it, and Elz^ar was too up- right and too scrupulously conscientious to see it either. One day the nun Alasacie, who was in constant attend- ance on her sister Delphine, and always had access to her room, found St. Elzear there, saying his prayers aloud. She heard him say, " Lord God, Thou wilt have to repay me in Thy paradise a hundred ounces of gold and two pieces of scarlet." Alasacie asked him afterwards what he meant, and he told her it was a present he had refused for love of God. Many touching instances are related of the impartiality and kindness with which he attended to the petitions of the poorest, as well as of the good influence the saintly couple exercised over their equals and superiors at court, including the Duke of Calabria, heir to the throne. During these years Elz6ar travelled about a good deal, sometimes on warlike, but oftener on pacific errands for King Bobert, and, like all the nobles who had estates in both Italy and France, he had to go from one country to the other to attend to his own property. Accord- ingly, in 1316, he and Delphine asked and obtained from the king a year's leave of absence, and went to visit each of their estates — Ansouis, Cucurron, Yaugine, Eobians, Cabri^res, la Motte d*Aigues, which belonged to the Sabrans, and Delphine's estates of Glandeve, I'Hospitalet, Puy-Michel, etc. In the following year they returned to their places at the court of Naples. It seems to have been during this visit to Provence that they were enrolled as members of the Third Order of St Francis, and bound themselves by a solemn vow of celibacy. It must have been about 1321 that Elzear, finding all his debts paid and his worldly embarrassments set to rights, told his wife he was sure God would soon call him away. In 1323 the King and Queen of Sicily were at Avignon, where the Pope also resided at this date, and where the Count and Countess of Ariano joined them immediately after they had attended the last moments of Catherine of Habsburg, duchess of Calabria. As the duchess left no chil- dren. King Robert was impatient to have his son married again without delay, and Elz6ar was chosen to go to Paris and ask, in the name of the Duke of Calabria, the hand of the Princess Mary of Valois. He was to marry her as proxy, and bring her away. Ho could not refuse this service to his friend and sovereign, but before leaving Delphine at Avignon he said to her, <* If it please God that I return from this mission, we will with- draw from temporal cares and business, and live in our own house at Ansouis, and there, far from the tumult and
