“My daughter,” said he, “your sins are so great that to atone for them I command you the penance of wearing my cord upon your naked flesh.”

The maiden, who was unwilling to disobey him, made answer—­

“Give it to me, father, and I will not fail to wear it.”

“My daughter,” said the good father, “it will be of no avail from your own hand.  Mine, from which you shall receive absolution, must first bind it upon you; then shall you be absolved of all your sins.”

The maiden replied, weeping, that she would not suffer it.

“What?” said the confessor.  “Are you a heretic, that you refuse the penances which God and our holy mother Church have ordained?”

“I employ confession,” said the maiden, “as the Church commands, and I am very willing to receive absolution and do penance.  But I will not be touched by your hands, and I refuse this mode of penance.”

“Then,” said the confessor, “I cannot give you absolution.”

The maiden rose from before him greatly troubled in conscience, for, being very young, she feared lest she had done wrong in thus refusing to obey the worthy father.

When mass was over and the Countess of Aiguemont had received the “Corpus Domini,” her lady of honour, desiring to follow her, asked her daughter whether she was ready.  The maiden, weeping, replied that she was not shriven.

“Then what were you doing so long with the preacher?” asked her mother.

“Nothing,” said the maiden, “for, as I refused the penance that he laid upon me, he on his part refused me absolution.”

Making prudent inquiry, the mother learnt the extraordinary penance that the good father had chosen for her daughter; and then, having caused her to be confessed by another, they received the sacrament together.  When the Countess was come back from the church, the lady of honour made complaint to her of the preacher, whereupon the Countess was the more surprised and grieved, since she had thought so well of him.  Nevertheless, despite her anger, she could not but feel very much inclined to laugh at the unwonted nature of the penance.

Still her laughter did not prevent her from having the friar taken and beaten in her kitchen, where he was brought by the strokes of the rod to confess the truth; and then she sent him bound hand and foot to his Warden, begging the latter for the future to commission more virtuous men to preach the Word of God.

“Consider, ladies, if the monks be not afraid to display their wantonness in so illustrious a house, what may they not do in the poor places where they commonly make their collections, and where opportunities are so readily offered to them, that it is a miracle if they are quit of them without scandal.  And this, ladies, leads me to beg of you to change your ill opinion into compassion, remembering that he (3) who blinds the Grey Friars is not sparing of the ladies when he finds an opportunity.”