St. Isabel of France


February 26

Sister of St. Louis and daughter of King Louis VIII of and Blanche of Castile, she refused offers of marriage from several noble suitors to continue her of consecrated to God. She ministered to the sick and the poor, and after the death of her mother, founded the Franciscan Monastery of the of the Blessed Virgin at Longchamps in Paris. She lived there in austerity but never became a nun and refused to become abbess. She died there on February 23, and her cult was approved in 1521