assion was enclosed in a golden vase. The reluctant Venetians
yielded to justice and power: the emperor Frederic granted a free and
honorable passage; the court of France advanced as far as Troyes in
Champagne, to meet with devotion this inestimable relic: it was borne in
triumph through Paris by the king himself, barefoot, and in his shirt;
and a free gift of ten thousand marks of silver reconciled Baldwin to
his loss. The success of this transaction tempted the Latin emperor to
offer with the same generosity the remaining furniture of his chapel;
[52] a large and authentic portion of the true cross; the baby-linen of
the Son of God, the lance, the sponge, and the chain, of his Passion;
the rod of Moses, and part of the skull of St. John the Baptist. For
the reception of these spiritual treasures, twenty thousand marks were
expended by St. Louis on a stately foundation, the holy chapel of Paris,
on which the muse of Boileau has bestowed a comic immortality. The truth
of such remote and ancient relics, which cannot be proved by any human
testimony, must be admitted by those who believe in the miracles which
they have performed. About the middle of the last age, an inveterate
ulcer was touched and cured by a holy prickle of the holy crown: [53]
the prodigy is attested by the most pious and enlightened Christians of
France; nor will the fact be easily disproved, except by those who are
armed with a general antidote against religious credulity. [54]

[Footnote 50: Under the words _Perparus_, _Perpera_, _Hyperperum_,
Ducange is short and vague: Monetae genus. From a corrupt passage of
Guntherus, (Hist. C. P. c. 8, p. 10,) I guess that the Perpera was
the nummus aureus, the fourth part of a mark of silver, or about ten
shillings sterling in value. In lead it would be too contemptible.]

[Footnote 51: For the translation of the holy crown, &c., from
Constantinople to Paris, see Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c. 11--14,
24, 35) and Fleury, (Hist. Eccles. tom. xvii. p. 201--204.)]

[Footnote 52: Melanges tires d'une Grande Bibliotheque, tom. xliii.
p. 201--205. The Lutrin of Boileau exhibits the inside, the soul
and manners of the _Sainte Chapelle_; and many facts relative to the
institution are collected and explained by his commentators, Brosset and
De St. Marc.]

[Footnote 53: It was performed A.D. 1656, March 24, on the niece of
Pascal; and that superior genius, with Arnauld, Nicole, &c., were on the
spot, to believe and