oes not, however, appear to have received the full
measure of its ancient veneration, and a new Crown of Thorns, alleged
to be that of the passion, held at this period a far higher rank with
the public.

In the year 1238, the pressure of poverty and impending ruin compelled
the Emperor Baldwin the Second, to sell what the piety of St. Louis,
King of France, induced him as eagerly to purchase.[18] A very
considerable sum was given in exchange for the holy wood and on its
arrival in Paris, it was deposited by King Louis in a chapel which he
built on this occasion. There, the Cross remained for above three
hundred years, until at length, on the 20th of May, 1575, it disappeared
from its station. The most anxious researches failed in tracing the
robber, or recovering the spoil, and the report which accused King Henry
the Third of having secretly sold it to the Venetians may be considered
as a proof of the popular animosity rather than of royal avarice.[19]
To appease in some degree the loud and angry murmurs of his subjects,
Henry, the next year, on Easter day, announced that a new Cross had been
prepared for their consolation, of the same shape, size, and appearance
as the stolen relic, and asserted, most probably with perfect truth,
that in Divine powers, or claim to religious worship, it was but little
inferior to its model. "The people of Paris," says Estoile, an
eye-witness of this transaction, "being very devout, and easy of faith
on such subjects" (he is speaking of the sixteenth century,) "gratefully
hailed the restoration of some tangible and immediate object for their
prayers." Of the original fragment I can discern no further authentic
trace; and here, then, it seems to have ended its long and adventurous
career.

Before I conclude, I ought, perhaps, to make some mention of the
pretended nails of the passion, which were obtained by Constantine the
Great at the same time with the cross. He melted a part of them into a
helmet for himself; and the other part was converted into a bridle for
his horse, in supposed obedience to a prophetic text of Zechariah:
"In that day shall there be upon the bells (bridles) of the horses,
holiness unto the Lord."[20] Yet, though the helmet alone might appear
to have required all the nails which could possibly be employed in a
crucifixion, it is not unusual in southern Europe to meet with fragments
of old iron, for which the same sacred origin is claimed. Thus, for
instance, at Cat