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Piety of Count Elzéar de Sabran (1285-1323).
It would be difficult to express how great were the tribulations through which God tested and purified the virtue of St. Elzéar, baron of Ansouis and count of Ariano, who was unjustly stripped of his possessions, his honor, and had other evils to endure. In the midst of all his sorrows, he was never seen to give the slightest sign of trouble; never the most subtle impatience. One day the Countess Delphine, his wife, asking him whence could come this unruffled serenity, he replied:
“When anything afflictive comes to me, at once I hide myself in the wounds of Jesus Christ; I consider there all that He has suffered for me, and from then on my sorrows seem light.”
Another day, to comfort the Countess his wife, who was in sorrow on his account, he mandated that when she had the desire to find him, she should look for him in the wound of the Heart of Jesus, because that was the place where he usually withdrew, that he was safe there, and that he tasted bitter sweetness and bitterness full of sweetness, from which his soul received unspeakable consolation.
