He had already put it in pawn at Venice for a considerable loan advanced to him by the Venetians; and he now offered it to Louis in return for effectual aid in men and money.
Louis accepted the proposal with transport.

He had been scared, a short time ago, at the chance of losing another precious relic deposited in the abbey of St.Denis, one of the nails which, it was said, had held Our Lord's body upon the cross.

It had been mislaid one ceremonial day whilst it was being exhibited to the people; and, when he recovered it, "I would rather," said Louis, "that the best city in my kingdom had been swallowed up in the earth." After having taken all the necessary precautions for avoiding any appearance of a shameful bargain, he obtained the crown of thorns, all expenses included, for eleven thousand livres of Paris, that is, they say, about twenty-six thousand dollars of our money.

Our century cannot have any fellow-feeling with such ready credulity, which is not required by Christian faith or countenanced by sound criticism; but we can and we ought to comprehend such sentiments in an age when men not only had profound faith in the facts recorded in the Gospels, but could not believe themselves to be looking upon the smallest tangible relic of those facts without experiencing an emotion and a reverence as profound as their faith.

It is to such sentiments that we owe one of the most perfect and most charming monuments of the middle ages, _the Holy Chapel,_ which St.Louis had built between 1245 and 1248 in order to deposit there the precious relics he had collected.