of this her obedience; for the authors of her life relate, that
being called away four times in beginning the same verse of a psalm in
our Lady's office, returning the fifth time, she found that verse
written in golden letters. She treated her domestics not as servants,
but as brothers and sisters, and future co-heirs in heaven; and studied
by all means in her power to induce them seriously to labor for their
salvation. Her mortifications were extraordinary, especially when, some
years before her husband's death, she was permitted by him to inflict on
her body what hardships she pleased. She from that time abstained from
wine, fish, and dainty meats, with a total abstinence from flesh, unless
in her greatest sicknesses. Her ordinary diet was hard and mouldy bread.
She would procure secretly, out of the pouches of the beggars, their dry
crusts in exchange for better bread. When she {551} fared the best, she
only added to bread a few unsavory herbs without oil, and drank nothing
but water, making use of a human skull for her cup. She ate but once a
day, and by long abstinence had lost all relish of what she took. Her
garments were of coarse serge, and she never wore linen, not even in
sickness. Her discipline was armed with rowels and sharp points. She
wore continually a hair shirt, and a girdle of horse-hair. An iron
girdle had so galled her flesh, that her confessor obliged her to lay it
aside. If she inadvertently chanced to offend God in the least, she
severely that instant punished the part that had offended; as the
tongue, by sharply biting it, &c. Her example was of such edification,
that many Roman ladies having renounced a life of idleness, pomp, and
softness, joined her in pious exercises, and put themselves under the
direction of the Benedictin monks of the congregation of Monte-Oliveto,
without leaving the world, making vows, or wearing any particular habit.
St. Frances prayed only for children that they might be citizens of
heaven, and when she was blessed with them, it was her whole care to
make them saints.

It pleased God, for her sanctification, to make trial of her virtue by
many afflictions. During the troubles which ensued upon the invasion of
Rome by Ladislas, king of Naples, and the great schism under pope John
XXIII. at the time of opening the council of Constance, in 1413, her
husband, with his brother-in-law Paulucci, was banished Rome, his estate
confiscated, his house pulled down, and his eldest