were those whose experiences touched her to the heart, and helped her
to correct her failings. Thus the learned Catherine, of high birth,
enchanted her by her great scientific knowledge, when, only eighteen
years of age, she was called by the Emperor Maximus to discuss certain
questions with fifty rhetoricians and grammarians. She astonished and
convinced them. "They were amazed and knew not what to say, but they
remained quiet. And the Emperor blamed them for their weakness in
allowing themselves to be so easily conquered by a young girl." The
fifty professors then declared that they were converted. "And as soon
as the tyrant heard that, he had so terrible a fit of anger, that he
commanded they should all be burned to death in the public square."
In her eyes Catherine was the invincible learned woman, as proud and
dazzling in intellect as in beauty, just as she would have liked to
be, that she might convert men, and be fed in prison by a dove, before
having her head cut off. But Saint Elizabeth, the daughter of the King
of Hungary, was for her a constant teacher and guide. Whenever she was
inclined to yield to her violent temper, she thought of this model of
gentleness and simplicity, who was at five years of age very devout,
refusing to join her playmates in their sports, and sleeping on the
ground, that, in abasing herself, she might all the better render homage
to God. Later, she was the faithful, obedient wife of the Landgrave of
Thuringia, always showing to her husband a smiling face, although she
passed her nights in tears. When she became a widow she was driven from
her estates, but was happy to lead the life of poverty. Her dress was so
thin from use, that she wore a grey mantle, lengthened out by cloth of
a different shade. The sleeves of her jacket had been torn, and were
mended with a material of another colour. The king, her father, wishing
her to come to him, sent for her by a Count. And when the Count saw her
clothed in such a way and spinning, overcome with surprise and grief, he
exclaimed: "Never before did one see the daughter of a Royal House in