By CAROLE BRESLIN
France, because of her early and continual faithfulness to the Catholic faith, has been called the Eldest Daughter of the Church. The ties with the Catholic Church began with the conversion of King Clovis I (466-511) and continued through the Protestant Revolution until the present time — even with the persecutions France suffered during the French Revolution. One of the Catholic kings who became a saint had a sister who has also been declared a saint, St. Isabel of France.
In Pays de France, just outside of Paris, along the Seine, lived King Louis VIII and Blanche of Castile, the queen of France. The royal couple were a holy example of Christian love, and they already had several children when their daughter, Isabel, came into the world in March 1225.
When Isabel was less than two years old, King Louis VIII died, leaving her older brother to reign as king. King Louis IX was installed in 1226 and he reigned until 1270. His mother supervised the education of the young children, ensuring that Isabel not only learned the feminine arts of sewing and embroidery, but also learned Latin in order to study the fathers of the Church.
Isabel demonstrated great piety from a very early age, and, it must be noted, she received much support in practicing her faith from her mother, her brother the king, and other members of the royal court.
She dedicated her sewing skills to providing clothing for the poor and preparing vestments for liturgical celebrations. On one occasion, as she was embroidering a new hat, King Louis IX asked her to give the hat to him. She refused, explaining, “No, this is the first of its kind and I must make it for my Savior Jesus Christ.”
When she finished it, she gave it to a poor and sick person. Then she made another cap of similar design for her royal brother.
Arranged marriages, common at the time, were a part of Isabel’s life from the age of two. The Treaty of Vendome, created in March 1227 and signed in June 1230, betrothed Isabel to Hugh, the eldest son and heir of Hugh X of Lusignan. Lusignan was an area on the western coast of France.
However, Isabel refused to celebrate this marriage. Some years later, she also refused to marry another royal personage, Conrad, the son of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Her mother and brother both urged her to marry Conrad. Even Pope Innocent IV tried to persuade her to marry the son of the emperor, but again she refused.
When she learned of the Pope’s hope that she would marry Conrad, Isabel wrote to him explaining that she had consecrated her virginity to Christ and would never marry. The Pope, witnessing her steadfast faithfulness to Christ, admired her for her perseverance and agreed with her position. Her brother finally acquiesced and no longer pushed for her to marry Conrad.
Not long after this Isabel’s mother died. In 1255 Isabel asked her brother if she could leave the court and establish a home for a group of Franciscan women. Thus, King Louis IX undertook the purchase of some land in the Forest of Rouvray, not from the Seine River, just west of Paris, for this purpose.
The cornerstone was placed on June 10, 1256 and four years later the building was completed. On February 2, 1259 Pope Alexander IV gave his approval to the new rule prepared by Princess Isabel. This rule had been compiled by Mansuetus, a Franciscan, who based it on the Rule of the Order of St. Clare, also referred to as the Poor Clares.
These rules were approved by St. Bonaventure, who was minister general of the Franciscan Order at the time. The new monastery was called the Monastery of the Humility of the Blessed Virgin. The nuns of this monastery were called Sorores Ordinis humilium ancillarum Beatissima Maria Virginis.
The rules were unique and specific to this group of women, being somewhat simpler than the rules of Poor Clares in that the fasting was not as rigid and the community was allowed to hold property. But like the Poor Clares, these women also helped those less fortunate.
The first nuns to join this new monastery were from the convent of the Poor Clares at Reims, nearly 100 miles east of Paris. Although Isabel never resided at the monastery, she observed the rules in the privacy of her home.
After a few years, Isabel discerned that the rule needed to be revised. Just as King Louis IX had submitted her first rule, he submitted and obtained confirmation of the revised rule. Pope Urban IV approved the new rule on July 27, 1263, giving the nuns of Longchamp the official title of Sorores Minores inclusae. This title emphasized the close relationship with the Order of Friars Minor.
The changes in the rule were insignificant, dealing with outward practices more than with changes in piety and service. Both the French and the Italian convents adopted this new rule; but this did not represent a new or a distinct congregation of Franciscan nuns.
Isabel had refused to become the abbess of the monastery, but continued to observe the rules as well as additional mortifications. She practiced nearly total silence, fasted three days a week, and lived a life of heroic virtue.
In 1270 Isabel died at the new house in Longchamp on February 23. The nuns declared that when she died, the singing of angels could be heard. She was buried in the convent church. After only nine days, her body was exhumed and it was still supple, suffering no decay.
Not surprisingly, many miracles occurred at her gravesite. In 1521 Pope Leo X beatified Isabel, permitting the Abbey of Longchamp to celebrate her feast with a special office.
On June 4, 1637 Isabel’s body was exhumed again and it was still incorrupt. Months later, on January 25, 1688 the nuns received permission to celebrate Isabel’s feast with an octave observance.
The entire Franciscan order obtained authority to celebrate her feast on August 31 by Pope Innocent XII in 1696 when she was canonized. Now her feast is celebrated on February 26.
Dear St. Isabel, you have shown us that riches are not the treasure of this world. Rather you found your peace and joy by pursuing the treasures of eternal life. Help us to understand, to know the love of God, and the joy to be found in mortifications and penances performed for the love of God. Amen.
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(Carole Breslin home-schooled her four daughters and served as treasurer of the Michigan Catholic Home Educators for eight years. For over ten years, she was national coordinator for the Marian Catechists, founded by Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ.)
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