Isabelle of France (saint)

Isabelle of France
St. Isabelle at the Church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois in Paris, a neo-gothic replica of the original statue
Born	March 1224
Died	23 February 1270 (aged 45) Longchamp, Pays de France, Kingdom of France
Burial	Monastery of St. Clare, Longchamp, Pays de France, Kingdom of France
House	Capet
Father	Louis VIII of France
Mother	Blanche of Castile

Isabelle of France (March 1224 – 23 February 1270) was the daughter of Louis VIII of France and Blanche of Castile. She was a younger sister of King Louis IX of France (Saint Louis) and of Alfonso, Count of Poitiers, and an older sister of King Charles I of Sicily. In 1256, she founded the Poor Clare Monastery of Longchamp in the part of the Forest of Rouvray (now called the Bois de Boulogne), west of Paris. She is honored as a saint by the Franciscan Order.

Isabelle's father died and it was Isabelle's mother, Blanche, who oversaw her education. She could read both Latin, and the vernacular, and enjoyed tales of chivalry as well as devotional texts. While pursuing the traditional feminine interests such as embroidery, she took special pleasure in working on priestly vestments.

When still a child at court, Isabelle was already devoted to religion. By the papal bull of 26 May 1254, Pope Innocent IV allowed her to retain some Franciscan friars as her special confessors. She was even more devoted to the Franciscan Order than her royal brother.

By virtue of the Treaty of Vendôme in March 1227, Isabelle was betrothed with Hugh, eldest son and heir of Hugh X of Lusignan, with the marriage contract being signed on June 1230; however, she refused to celebrate the formal wedding due to her fixed determination to remain a virgin, although she never became a nun. Later, she refused the hand of Conrad IV of Germany, son of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, although was pressed to accept him by everyone, even by Innocent IV.

As Isabelle wished to found a monastery of Poor Clares, her brother King Louis began in 1255 to acquire the necessary land in the Forest of Rouvray, not far from the Seine, west of Paris. On 10 June 1256, the first slide of the monastery church was laid. The building appears to have been completed about the beginning of 1259, because Pope Alexander IV gave his sanction on 2 February 1259, to the new Rule which was composed especially for this monastery by the Franciscan Mansuetus base on the Rule of St. Clare. Not as strict as that rule, the community was allowed to hold property. The monastery was named the Monastery of the Humility of the Blessed Virgin. In the Rule the nuns were called the Sisters of the humble order of servants of the most Blessed Virgin Mary. The nuns were subject to the Friars Minor. Some of the first nuns came from the Poor Clare monastery in Reims.