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ST. CATHERINE 155 went back to Siena, and resumed her life of charity and devotion. The Pope at the same time made the long-deferred jonmey to Rome. Soon afterwards he desired her to go to Florence, where she lived for some time amid daily crimes, riots, and confiscations. Daring this period there occurred an insurrection of the people, chiefly directed against the Guelphs. The houses of some of Cathe- rine's friends were sacked and burnt. A mob of some of the lowest of the populace suddenly took the fancy to blame Catherine as the author of all their misfortunes. They cried out, '^ Let us take Catherine and bum her ; let us cut that wicked woman in pieces." Those who had given her hospitality were afraid, and some of her fnends tried to get her away secretly from the house where she was living. As she was praying in the garden, she heard the cries of the rioters, and went joyfully forward. The flrst man she met was a furious ruffian, brandishing a sword and shouting, '* Where is Catherine ? " She knelt down before him and said quietly, "I am Catherine. Do to me whatever God may permit." The man was em- barrassed, and could only adjure her to fly. She said, " Why should I fly ? Where would you have me go ? I ask nothing better than to be sacrificed for Ood and the Church, so if you are going to kill me, I will not resist." The man and his followers withdrew in confusion. This happened in KJ78. On the death of Gregory XI., in the same year, began the Great Schism. Catherine considered Urban YI. duly elected, and influenced the Florentines to come to terms with him and to reject the claims of the anti- pope Clement VII. She wrote, however, to Urban, exhorting him to restrain a temper that made him so many enemies, and tended to perpetuate the scandal of the schism. He took her advice in good part, and sent for her to Rome. She went there with her mother and several of her friends. The Pope proposed to send her with St. Catherine of Sweden, to bring over to his party Joan, queen x}f Sicily. Catherine of Siena was eager to go, but the project was set aside. Catherine^ however, helped to keep Urban on the throne by writing to Queen Joan, to the King of France, the King of Hungary, and other personages, entreating them to return to their righf ul master. While she was working in the cause of the Church, she died at Rome, 1380, at the age of thirty-three, and was buried in the church of the Minerva. She was canonized by Pius II. in 1461. Her house in the Contrada d'Oca, at Siena, is still shown with reverent love, and many pilgrims resort to the little chapel attached to it, and delight to see the stone that served her for a pillow, her veil, and other mementoes of this holy woman. It is counted for righteousness to some of the saints that they never looked anybody in the face ; Catherine, on the other hand, looked straight at any one she spoke to. Her countenance was frank, her eyes very bright, her cbin and jaw very strong and somewhat prominent. She had considerable mus- cular strength and immense energy, but during the greater part of her life she sufifered from a complaint of the stomach, which made it impossible for her to eat without suffering great pain and sick- ness. But neither pain nor weariness ever prevented her being on the alert to seize any opportunity of winning a soul to God or doing any corporal act of mercy. She would go as simply and readily to a royal palace or a plague- infested slum, to meet a friendly depu- tation or a hostile mob. During the last year of her life she went with unflagging energy about the streets of Rome, so emaciated that she looked like one who had returned from the grave. She comes into contemporary history as a quite exceptional and important personage. She was a mediator not only between Florence and the Pope, but also between Rome and Venice, and between Venice and Hungary. Families who cherished hereditary feuds as points of honour, and regarded the vendetta as a duty, were reconciled by her. Niocolo Tommaseo publishes 373 of her letters. Among those are a dozen to Gregory XI. and nine to Urban VI. ; others are to the King of France, the King of Hungary, the Queen of Naples,