'"Truly," said he, "that is well spoken, for the answer you have given is written down in the book which I hold in my hand. Now I wish to ask," he continued, "which you would prefer to be, a leper or to have committed a mortal sin?" And I, who never told him a lie, I answered I would rather commit thirty mortal sins than be a leper. When the monks had gone, he called me to him alone, made me sit down at his feet, and said, "How could you tell me what you did yesterday?" And I answered that I should say the same thing over again. Then he said, "You spoke rashly and foolishly, for there is no leper so hideous as he who is in a state of mortal sin. When a man dies he is set free from the leprosy of the body, but when a man dies who has committed a mortal sin, he does not know, nor can he be quite sure, that his repentance has been such as to secure the forgiveness of God. And for this reason he ought to be greatly afraid lest this leprosy of sin should last as long as God is in heaven. {119} Therefore I entreat you, as urgently as I can, for the love of God and the love of me, to teach your heart to choose rather that any ill should happen to your body, by leprosy or any other disease, than that mortal sin should attack your soul." 'Another day he asked me,' says Joinville, 'if I wished to be honoured in this world and to go to Paradise when I died; and I said, "Yes." Then he said, "Beware, then, of doing or saying anything wittingly which, if all the world knew, you would be ashamed to own, and would hesitate to acknowledge, I did this, I said that."' Tillemont says, 'Even in his early youth he had a great dislike to profane oaths in conversation; he contented himself with affirming a thing in the simplest and plainest terms, without introducing the name of God, or of the saints or evangelists, or using a single word which could diminish the respect due to things sacred, whatever cause he might have for anger. When he wished to affirm a thing very strongly, he would say, "Truly it is so," or "Truly it is not so." In order to avoid using other oaths he used at one time to say, "_By my name!_" but hearing that a religious person found fault with this expression, he never after made use of it' [Footnote 49] [Footnote 49: Tillemont, vol. v. p. 371.] M. Faure says: 'It was with the utmost sincerity that he placed the name of Christian high above his title as king. One day, at the Castle of Poissy, the place of his birth, he said to those around him: "In this castle God granted me the greatest blessing and the greatest honour I ever received in this world." {120}