Louis IX had picked his men well, they paid the mortgagee instantly, and as instantly claimed the restitution of the Crown. It is rather difficult to see upon what they based their claim, but it was a pious age and they seem to have had no great difficulty in obtaining the surrender of it, for they were well on their way home before any question arose upon the subject between the Imperial government of Constantinople and the banker from whom they had redeemed the Crown. Upon their return to Paris, Louis took the Crown in procession to the Sainte Chapelle, which had been built especially to contain it, carrying it in his own hands and walking barefoot and in his shirt through the streets, and there it remained for many centuries, to attest the devotion and piety of the Royal Saint. The Venetians appear to have been ardent collectors of sacred objects at all times, for it is related that, as early as 992, a certain Pietro Barbolano, afterwards Doge, having been sent upon a diplomatic mission to the Byzantine Court, came across the remains of Saint Saba and conceived an ardent desire to transport the holy body to his own country. In parenthesis, and without in the least impugning the moral sense of either party to the transaction, the bargaining that followed between Barbolano and the officials, for the purchase of the Saint’s remains, makes queer reading. There seems to have been no hesitancy in haggling for the relics, and no sense of any sordidness or sacrilege. Even the storm that descended upon Barbolano on the night of his embarkation does not seem to have carried any message to him, but the priests were alarmed and begged him to reconsider his intention. But he, being on the spot with his two sons and some servants, soon had the casket on board, and set sail. The weather cleared up and equable winds soon brought them to the Venetian shore, when Barbolano ordered the chest to be transferred from the ship to his own house, which stood next to the Church of Sant’ Antonino at Olivolo. But the casket would not move. So heavy had it grown that no human agency could be found to lift it an inch; and, while they were still struggling with it, the bell of the Campanile began to peal so violently as to make the great tower rock. A crowd speedily assembled, and Barbolano, grasping the message of the bell and the meaning of the casket’s weight, fell on his knees and said: “We will carry it into the Church, for the will of the Saviour has been declared that the body shall rest in the shrine dedicated to his servant, St. Antoninus!”