Dambrooka, daughter of the despotic Boleslav, Duke of Bohemia, and wife of a duke of Poland whose hardness of heart she succeeded in softening, afterwards mother of Boleslav the Great, together with the Princess Adelaide of Poland, mother of St. Stephen I., the most famous of the Hungarian kings, were both celebrated for their charity and self-devotion, and, with St. Margaret of Scotland, Matilda of England, Matilda of Germany, and Adelaide of Germany, they prepared the way for St. Elizabeth of Hungary (1207–1231), who reflected so faithfully the angelic disposition of her aunt Hedwiga, the patron-saint of the kingdom of Poland. It would seem, indeed, as if they all followed the same programme of benevolence. St. Hedwiga, daughter of the Duke of Carinthia, who by her marriage with Boleslav the Modest became Duchess of Poland and Silesia, created a new kind of charitable institution which was calculated to bring about the best results. She founded a convent of the Carthusian order at Trebnitz, of which her daughter Gertrude became an inmate, with the view of devoting it specially to the education, the marriage, and the dowry of girls who had been left unprovided for. She enriched it with very large donations, and a thousand needy persons were fed there every day, exclusive of the abundant alms and relief in kind which the community distributed without its walls. At this epoch, the Abbey of Longchamps, near Paris, began its existence with the modest and touching title of “the Humility of our Lady.” Isabella, the only sister of Louis IX., whom the saintly monarch made the minister of his bounty and kindness to the suffering, was the foundress of this institution. The nuns at Longchamps educated and maintained poor girls, and distributed the rest of their revenues in alms. Their rules, a model of good sense, wisdom, and charity, approved of by St. Bonaventura, were copied by several similar establishments. Isabella, who had consecrated herself to the service of God by taking the veil, besides instructing, caring for, and feeding the poor, also worked for them with her own hands. She established in the abbey a kind of workshop in which ladies of the highest rank, while singing hymns and reciting prayers, spun wool and made garments for the poor.