John sent one of his" knights to expel them from the con-vent and take possession of their revenues. The affair went on with admonitions from the spiritual father, and defiant retorts from the refractory king, till Inno-cent III. laid an interdict upon the realm. This terrible man-date at once covered the whole nation with the garb and the gloom of mourning. The priests with pious reverence stripped the altars of their ornaments, collected the crosses and relics, took down the images and statues of saints and apostles, and laying them upon the ground carefully cover-ed them from the eyes of the profane. No matin chime awoke the pious to their devotions, no vesper bell summoned the youths and maidens to unite in the evening hymn ; no joyous peal invited the happy throng to the nuptial ceremony, no solemn toll gathered the sor-rowing multitudes to the burial service. The bridegroom took the hand of his bride and whispered his vows with boding fear, standing in the churchyard, surrounded by the silent witnesses, whose very presence was a terror. The father relinquished the dead body of his child to unhallow-ed hands, that made for it an obscure and unconsecrated grave by the wayside ; the tender infant was not presented at the font for baptism, but received the holy rite in the pri-vacy of the monkish cell, and the dying, man partook of the last sacrament under circumstances that rendered still more terrible the approach of death. Men neglected their usual avocations, feeling that the curse of God rested upon them ; children relinquished their amusements, subdued by the mysterious fear that pervaded all ranks of society. But the tyrant John and his thoughtless queen felt no sympathy with the afflictions of their people, no reverence for the ordinances of religion. They made no concessions, they manifested no signs of repentance. Each was en-gaged in the pursuit of pleasure, without regard to the other's feelings, or the laws of God. If the fickle and wounded affections of Isabella wandered from her lord to some noble knight, who compassionated her wrongs, her 294 HEROINES OF THE CRUSADES.