richer ones was put up to auction every year, and those who promised to pay the highest premium to the funds of the hospital were adjudicated the privilege of begging there. This curious arrangement was in full vigour until the latter half of the eighteenth century, when the foundation was removed. Twelve blind brothers and twelve seeing brothers--husbands of blind women who were lodged there on condition that they served as leaders through the streets--had a share in the management of the institution. Luxury seems to have sometimes invaded the hostel, for in 1579 a royal degree forbade the sale of wine to the brethren and denounced the blasphemy with which their conversation was often tainted. In 1631 they were forbidden to use stuffs other than serge or cloth for their garments, or to use velvet for ornament. [Footnote 53: On account of the cord they wore round their habit.] [Footnote 54: St. Louis loved the Franciscans, and in the _Fioretti_ a beautiful story is told how the king, in the guise of a pilgrim, visiting Brother Giles at Perugia, knelt with the good friar in an embrace of fervent affection for a great space of time in silence. They parted without speaking a word, marvellously comforted.] [Footnote 55: The innocence of Marie Antoinette in this scandalous affair has been clearly established. See _L'affaire du Collier_, by M. Funck Brentano. Paris, 1903.] [Illustration: REFECTORY OF THE CORDELIERS.] The establishment of the abbeys of St. Antoine, of the Friars of the Holy Cross, and of the Sisters of St. Bega or Beguines, were also due to the king's piety, and the whole city was surrounded with religious houses. "Even as a scribe," says an old writer, "who hath written his book illuminates it with gold and silver, so did the king illumine his kingdom with the great quantity of the houses of God that he built." St. Louis was, however, firm in his resistance to ecclesiastical arbitrariness. The prelates complained to him on one occasion that Christianity was going to the dogs, because no one feared their excommunications, and prayed that he would order his sergeants to lend the secular arm to enforce their authority. "Yes," answered the king, "if you will give me the particulars of each case that I may judge if your sentence be just." That, they objected, appertained to the ecclesiastical courts, but St. Louis was inflexible, and they remained unsatisfied.