verted many paynims to the faith, and he being there, the christians out of the paynim hands ditched and fortified many towns and castles with strong walls. He found then about Sidon many dead bodies of christian men, of which many one was dismembered and eaten with beasts and stank over much; the which he gathered and assembled with his own hands, with the aid and help of his meiny, which unnethe might endure ne suffer the stench of them, and humbly and devoutly betook them to the burying of holy church.
And after this, understanding the sickness of the queen his mother, by the counsel of his barons he assented to return into France. And as he was upon the sea, on the third night after, nigh the rising of Aurora, the ship where the king was in, hurted and smote twice against the rock so strongly that the mariners and other there weened that the ship should have broken and been plunged in the sea. And then the priests, clerks, and the other folk there, abashed with so great hurting of the said ship, found the holy king devoutly praying before the body of our Lord; wherefore they firmly believed that God Almighty, by the merits and prayers of this holy king, had saved them from the foresaid peril of death. Then the said saint, so returned into France, was received of all there with great joy, and the more ardently or burningly profiting from virtue into virtue, became to all manner perfection of life. And howbeit that miseration and pity was growing in him from his youth, nevertheless he showed then more evidently his charitable deeds on the poor folk,
O
