Isabelle of France

Daughter of Louis VIII and Blanche of Castile, born in 1225, she was promised to Conrad of Hohenstaufen, the future emperor; Pope Innocent IV wrote urging her to accept, pleading the good of Christendom. She refused, and no one pressed further. Remaining a laywoman and at court, she lived as a penitent, nursed the sick herself, and used her fortune to found the abbey of Longchamp in 1256 for Poor Clares, having the rule softened on one point that mattered to her: that the sisters might own enough to live without begging. She withdrew there but never took vows, refusing to be its abbess. She died in 1270, the year her brother died at Tunis. Her cult was confirmed by Leo X in 1521; she is blessed, not canonised.