Great Christians of France: Saint Louis and Calvin

by François Guizot

St. Louis, King Of France.

Born At Poissy, Near Paris,

April

25, 1215. Died Before Tunis,

August

25, 1270.

Chapter I.
Origin Of The Title 'most Christian King,' As Given To The Kings Of France.
Canonization Of Charlemagne And St. Louis.

It was one of the chief glories of the kings of France to be called 'Most Christian King.' This was a title of traditionary honour rather than a testimony to their personal and religious merits, for, to tell the truth, the majority of these monarchs were very indifferent Christians. It is not mere external profession which makes the Christian, but the condition of a man's soul and the manner of his life.

By a startling coincidence, it was under the reign of one of the most villanous, knavish, and yet able sovereigns France ever had—Louis XI.—that the title 'Most Christian King' became the permanent and official attribute of French royalty. Before the middle of the fourteenth century we sometimes find it in letters from the popes to the kings of France, but rarely and casually, or else in documents of questionable authenticity. In 1286, Pope Honorius IV. writing to Philip the Fair, styled him 'the Catholic King,' a name, he said, 'belonging specially to the kings of France.' And even in 1456, Pope Calixtus III. addressed a brief to Charles VII. under no other title than that of 'Illustrious King of the Franks.' Twelve years after, in 1468, Pope Paul II., in replying to the complimentary address which had been conveyed to him by Guillaume de Montreuil, envoy of Louis XI., recalled all that the kings of France had done for the Holy See since the days of Pepin le Bref and Charlemagne, and declared that, if his predecessors had not always given the title of 'Most Christian' to these sovereigns, he himself had begun, and intended to continue so to designate them. Since that time, both at home and abroad, the French monarchs have claimed and received this august title.

Another title, more august still—that of 'Saint'—has been received by only two, Charlemagne and Louis IX., out of this long line of sovereigns. We must not exact a very strict proof of the right of Charlemagne to this title in the Catholic Church. He was only canonized in 1165 or 1166 by the Antipope Pascal III. and through the influence of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Since then, not one of the legitimate popes has ever officially recognised or proclaimed his canonization, but still they have tolerated and tacitly admitted it, no doubt on account of his services to the Papacy. Nevertheless, besides emperors and popes, Charlemagne had warm and powerful admirers; he was the great man, the popular hero, of nearly the whole German race, who acknowledged his sanctity with enthusiasm, and have always religiously honoured it. From the earliest days of the University of Paris, Charlemagne has been the patron-saint of all the German students there. In France, however, his position in the calendar remained obscure and uncertain until the end of the fifteenth century, when, from some motive which we cannot now discover, (perhaps to snatch from his great enemy, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, possessor of the finest German provinces in Charlemagne's empire, the exclusive privilege of showing reverence to the memory of so great a man,) Louis XI. ordained saintly honours to be paid to the illustrious emperor, and fixed as his fête-day the 28th of January, threatening with death all who refused to acknowledge this new object of worship. In vain: the sanctity of Charlemagne has never been generally recognised by the Church of France; but the University of Paris has remained faithful to her tradition, and in 1661, two centuries after the death of Louis XI.—without expressly bestowing the title of Saint—she publicly proclaimed Charlemagne her patron, and ordered his fête-day to be solemnly kept every year. In spite of the hesitations of the 'Parlement' [Footnote 1] of Paris, and the revolutions of our century, it is still celebrated as the chief fête-day of the great classical schools in France.

[Footnote 1: The French 'Parlement' was not a representative assembly like the English Parliament. It consisted originally of the great vassals of the King, who were called together to deliberate on the general affairs of the kingdom on the 1st of March or the 1st of May every year, or if any urgent necessity arose, were summoned whenever the King had need of their advice. By degrees this assembly was transformed into a great judicial court; at first it also preserved its political character, and this was strongly manifested even as late as the sixteenth century, in the so-called religious wars. But starting from the reigns of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., the 'Parlement' became merely a court of justice, which was joined on solemn occasions by the royal princes, and the dukes and peers of the realm.]

Thus the University of France has repaid her emperor for his benefits towards her: he protected her students and her learning, she has protected his saintship.

That of Louis IX. did not require such pertinacious and erudite defence, nor suffer such uncertainties of fate. Proclaimed immediately after his death, not only by his son, Philip the Bold, and the barons and prelates of the kingdom, but by the public voice of France and of Europe, it became immediately the object of papal inquiry and deliberation. For twenty-four years, nine popes—Gregory X., Innocent V., John XXI., Nicholas III., Martin IV., Honorius IV., Nicholas IV., St. Celestine, and Boniface VIII.—swift successors in the papal chair, pursued the customary inquiry into the faith and life, virtues and miracles of the defunct king; and it was at last Boniface VIII. (afterwards destined to maintain a fierce conflict with the grandson of St. Louis, Philip the Fair) who, on August 11, 1297, decreed the canonization of the most Christian of all the monarchs of France, nay, of one of the truest Christians, monarch or peasant, that either France or Europe ever knew.

Chapter II.
Education Of St. Louis.
Influence Of His Century, And Of His Mother, On The Formation Of His Character.

Born to a throne, a powerful monarch, a valiant soldier, and a noble knight, the object of devoted attachment to those about his person and of admiring respect to those further removed from him, whether friends or enemies,—these honours and pleasures failed either to dazzle or intoxicate King Louis. They held the first place neither in his thoughts nor his actions. Before all things and above all things, he desired to be—and was—a Christian, a true Christian, guided and governed by the determination to keep the faith and fulfil the law of Christianity. If he had been born in the lowest worldly estate, or if he had occupied a position in which the claims of religion would have been most imperative; if he had been poor, obscure, a priest, a monk, or a hermit, he could not have been more constantly and passionately pre-occupied with the desire to live as Christ's faithful servant, and to insure by pious obedience upon earth his eternal salvation hereafter. It is this peculiar and original feature in the character of St. Louis,—the rare, perhaps the sole instance of the kind in the annals of monarchs,—which I wish now to bring forward into the light.

The causes which could influence and produce such a character have been sometimes sought in the general or special influences of the age in which St. Louis lived. The thirteenth century was one of faith and religious observances. The creeds and ordinances of Christianity exercised a very strong influence over all classes. The mother of Louis IX., Queen Blanche of Castile, was a remarkable woman in mind and character, and as pious as she was clever. She gave her son a sound Christian education in his youth, and wise counsel and valuable support during the whole course of her life. Some writers have considered that these facts are sufficient to account for the spiritual development and life of the King. But this is a very superficial view, for neither the religious spirit of the thirteenth century nor the influence of Queen Blanche could have produced such a lofty moral nature as that of St. Louis; nor will they suffice to account for its existence.

Though the thirteenth century was fruitful in faith and Christian observances, still the Christians of that age were neither so numerous nor so influential as, in order to shame our present day, is often averred. The Crusades, that great outbreak of Christian zeal, had introduced tastes, passions, and habits of great licence into all classes. I find, in a learned and judicious 'History of St. Louis,' to which the French Academy has lately awarded a prize, the following faithful and authentic summary of the moral disorders of the time: '"People start on these sacred expeditions in order to become holy," says Rutebeuf, the contemporary poet, "and they come back—those who do come back—reprobate vagabonds." Their faith was tainted by association with the Mussulmen, and their lives by the manners and customs of the East. The clergy even did not escape corruption. … The priests were so despised by the laity that they looked down upon them as if they had been Jews, saying, "I'd rather be a priest than do so-and-so." The young priests, when they appeared in public, hid the tonsure, which they wore close to the forehead, by drawing the hair from the back of the head over it. The nobles no longer allowed their sons to take holy Orders; they found it more convenient to appoint to the churches the children of their vassals, from whom they could exact some share of the pecuniary dues. The bishops had no chance of choosing their own priests, but were reduced to accept any who would condescend to enter such a discreditable profession.'

At the same time, the luxury of the higher orders of the clergy was a subject of great scandal. 'The councils of the Church had often attempted to check it, and in 1179 the third Council of Lateran suggested the following regulation as a reform: "The archbishops on their journeys shall have at the utmost from forty to fifty horses, the cardinals twenty-five, the bishops twenty or thirty, the arch-deacons seven, and the deans and their inferiors two." The progress of the legates of the Holy See was justly dreaded as causing absolute ruin. "Wherever they went," says Abbe Fleury, "they exacted magnificent entertainment from the bishops and abbots; and in order to defray these expenses the monasteries were sometimes even compelled to sell the sacred vessels from their churches." [Footnote 2]

[Footnote 2: Faure, 'Histoire de Saint Louis,' vol. i. p. 38.]

Such a clergy,' adds the historian, 'was unable to check the evil tendencies of the age, either by setting the example of a life of self-denial or by teaching a pure and enlightened religion.' Nor could such a period produce religious kings. The history of the thirteenth century gives a striking proof of this fact, for the grandfather and grandson of Louis IX., though able and energetic princes, who served both the throne and the nation well, showed much more tendency towards worldly policy and keen self-interest than towards Christian faith. Philip Augustus was no type of St. Louis, and Philip le Bel no imitation of him.

Nor will the education he received from his mother, and her influence over him, both during a regency of ten years and even after he had attained his majority and assumed the reins of power, fully account for the profoundly Christian character of St. Louis, both in word and deed. Queen Blanche was a sincere believer and a pious woman, and she was very anxious to secure the moral and religious welfare of her son. We cannot doubt this, because it is proved by numerous facts, by many documents of the period, and by the testimony of the King himself. On the day of his birth, the 25th of April, 1215, when the feeble new-made mother noticed that the bells of the church of Poissy did not ring as usual, and was told they had been stopped that she might take repose, Blanche immediately commanded that she herself should be moved to a distance if necessary, but that nothing should hinder the summoning of the faithful to prayer. She herself took charge of the early education of her boy 'as being the future ruler of so great a kingdom, and her own favourite child.' As soon as he entered his fourteenth year, she gave him a strict and careful preceptor, 'who followed him about everywhere, even in his amusements, by wood or stream, so that he might always be teaching him, and who even sometimes used to beat him—which he bore with patience,' say the contemporary chronicles. Later still, when the King related to his intimate friends his recollections of his mother: 'Madame used to say,' he often repeated, 'that if I were sick unto death, and could only be cured by committing some mortal sin, she would let me die rather than utterly offend my Creator.' [Footnote 3]

[Footnote 3: 'Vie de Saint Louis,' by the Confessor of Queen Marguerite, in Bouquet's 'Recueil des Historians des Gaules et de la France;' Tillemont, 'Vie de Saint Louis,' &c. &c.]

A guardianship so careful, firm, and righteous, joined to rare skill in the difficult task of ruling France during a long minority, could not fail to secure to Queen Blanche great influence over her son's character and actions; an influence so great and so lasting that we are sometimes tempted to be surprised at it, and to fancy that Louis, when he was not only a king but a great king, was too weak and too dependent as a son. He had the deepest respect for his mother, great confidence in her political ability, and very lively gratitude for her invaluable energy and maternal devotion. But mother and son were so unlike, both by nature and instinct, that there could be no spontaneous and familiar intercourse between them; none of that communion which is the truest bond of two human souls, because it adds the charm of mutual sympathy to the strong power of affection.

Blanche was ambitious, proud, imperious. These qualities appeared in her youth both towards her husband, Louis VIII., and her father-in-law, Philip Augustus. In 1216 she strongly urged the former to accept the English crown, offered him by the barons of England when at war with King John on the question of Magna Charta; and when Philip Augustus prudently refused to assist his son openly in this hazardous enterprise, the Princess Blanche recruited a band of knights who were to uphold the cause of the French prince on the other side of the Channel, and she herself was present at their meeting and at their departure. Ten years later, when the death of Louis VIII. made her Regent of France, she had to battle for ten years more, until her son's majority, with intrigues, plots, insurrections, open wars; and with what was much worse for her, the secret insults and calumnies of the principal vassals of the Crown, who were eager to snatch back from the rule of a woman the power and independence of which Philip Augustus had deprived them. But Queen Blanche resisted them, either with direct, masculine, and most persevering energy, or with the adroit finesse and ingenious fascination of a mere woman. Although forty years of age when her regency began, she was still beautiful, graceful, abounding in attractions, both of manner and conversation; gifted with the power to please, and the will to use that power with a coquetry that was sometimes a little too obvious to be prudent. Her enemies spread the most odious reports concerning her. One of the highest vassals of the kingdom, Thibaut IV. Count of Champagne, a clever and voluminous poet, a gay and brilliant knight, was declared to be madly in love with her—her slanderers said, not in vain; and added that she had with his aid assassinated the king her husband. In 1230, some of the principal barons of France—the Count of Bretagne, the Count of Boulogne, and the Count of St. Pol—united to attack Count Thibaut and to seize Champagne; whereupon the Queen Regent, with her young son, came to his rescue, and arriving near Troyes, commanded the barons in the King's name to retire. 'If you have any complaint against the Count of Champagne,' said she, 'present it, and I will grant you justice.' 'We will not plead before you,' was their scornful reply. 'We know it is the way of women to fix their choice above all men upon the man who has killed their husband.' Nevertheless, in spite of this cruel insult, the barons left the field.

Five years after, in 1235, the Count of Champagne himself took up arms against his sovereign. But he was compelled to make peace on very hard terms in order to escape an ignominious defeat, and an interview took place between him and the Queen Regent. '"Par Dieu!" said Blanche; "Count Thibaut, you ought not to be our adversary. You should remember all the goodness of my son, and how he went to your aid when all the barons of France were against you, and would have burnt your lands to charcoal." The Count looked at the Queen, who was so wise and so fair, till he was quite abashed by her great beauty, and he answered, "By my faith, Madame, my heart and my body and all my domain are at your command. There is nothing you may deign to desire that I will not gladly do, and, if it please God, never will I fight against you or yours." He departed pensively from her presence, and the sweet looks of the Queen, and her beautiful presence, came often to his mind, so that tender and yearning thoughts entered his heart. But when he remembered how noble a lady she was and how good, and of such a great purity that she would never return his love, his tender and yearning thoughts changed to a great sadness. And because these sad thoughts engender melancholy, he was advised by several wise men to study song and poesy. And he made after that time the most beautiful songs and the most delectable and melodious that were ever heard.' [Footnote 4]

[Footnote 4: Jubainville, 'Histoire des Dues et des Comtes de Champagne,' vol. iv, p. 249; 'Chroniques de St. Denis;' Bouquet's 'Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France,' vol. xxi. p. 111.]

I can find nothing in history to justify the accusations of Queen Blanche's enemies. I do not know if the songs of Count Thibaut ever touched her heart; certainly they never influenced her conduct. She continued to oppose the claims and plots of the great vassals of France, whether her foes or her lovers, and to increase the possessions and the power of the Crown in spite of them. Though a sincere believer and a wise, devoted mother, she was essentially a politician, engrossed by the love of power, the claims of her position, and her temporal success. I can find in her no trace of the lofty moral impulses, the sensitive conscience, the enthusiasm and sympathy, which are characteristic of Christian piety, and which guided the whole life of St. Louis. He derived these noble impulses neither from the teaching nor the example of his mother; and if we would understand how they existed in him, we must consent to acknowledge one of the mysteries of creation: we must recognise the distinct individuality of each human soul, the separate personality and infinite diversity of disposition given by the Creator in accordance with an unknown and impenetrable design. Enthusiasm, sympathy, and conscientiousness,—these words describe the condition of that man whose whole nature is entirely penetrated and influenced by Christianity; for Christianity says to a man, 'There is none good but one, that is, God; and so leads him to put his trust and hope in God; it lifts him above the interests and chances of this life, and this is the true and essential character of enthusiasm. Christianity teaches a man to love his neighbours as himself, and thus calls out in him that tender, ready, and universal charity which is justly called sympathy. It gives him a profound conviction of his own moral infirmity, makes him therefore keep watch and guard over his actions, and fills him with doubt lest with all his efforts he should not keep abreast of his duties. In a word, it makes him conscientious. The true Christian, be he great or small, rich or poor, is such a man as this; and Louis IX. was such a man and a king. But neither the general influence of his contemporaries nor the personal influence of his mother could have made him what they themselves were so far from being.

What St. Louis really owed to Queen Blanche, and this was not little, was the authority she gained and kept during her regency over the great vassals, either by force of arms or negotiations, and the predominance which she secured to the Crown, even amidst the fierce contests of the feudal system. She had an instinctive knowledge of what powers and what alliances would strengthen the royal authority against its rivals. When, on the 29th November, 1226, three weeks only after the death of her husband, Louis VIII., her young son was crowned at Rheims, Blanche invited to the ceremony not only the hierarchy and nobility of the kingdom, but the common people of the neighbourhood; she wished to show the royal child to the great vassals, supported and surrounded by the people. Two years afterwards, in 1228, there was an insurrection of the barons assembled at Corbeil, and they proposed to seize the person of the young King, whose progress had been arrested at Montlhéry, on his march to Paris. The Queen Regent summoned around her, besides those lords who remained faithful, the burgesses of Paris and of the country round, who hastened to respond to her call. 'All armed, they started for Montlhéry, where, having found the King, they conducted him to Paris, marching in battle array. From Montlhéry to Paris the road was lined the whole way with armed men and others, who prayed aloud that God would grant the young King a happy and prosperous life, and preserve him from all his enemies. Then the great vassals, hearing of this and not being able to oppose such a mass of the people, withdrew to their own homes, and by the mercy of God, who orders all things according to His will, they dared not attack the King any more during the rest of that year.' [Footnote 5]

[Footnote 5: Tillemont, 'Vie de St. Louis,' vol. ii. p. 354.]

Chapter III.
Majority Of St. Louis
His Marriage,
The Commencement Of His Government.

In 1236, Louis attained his majority and received from his mother's hands the full royal power; a power held in fear and respect, even by the vassals of the Crown, turbulent and aggressive as they still were. But they were also disunited, enfeebled, intimidated, and somewhat fallen into discredit; while for the last ten years they had been invariably baffled in all their plots.

When she had secured his political position, and he was approaching his majority, Queen Blanche began to busy herself with her son's domestic life. She was one of those who like to play the part of Providence towards the objects of their affection; to plan, rule and regulate everything in their destinies. Louis was nineteen years old; handsome, though with that kind of beauty which indicates more moral than physical strength. He had delicate and refined features, a brilliant complexion, and fair hair—shining and abundant—which, through Isabella, his grandmother, he inherited from his ancestors, the Counts of Hainault. He was a man of refined tastes and high spirits; he loved amusement; delighted in games of all sorts and in hunting; was fond of dogs and falcons; took pleasure in rich clothes and magnificent furniture. Nay, a monk is said to have once reproached his mother for having tolerated in the young man some love-fancy which threatened to become an irregular connexion; upon which Queen Blanche determined to have her son married immediately. She found no difficulty in inspiring young Louis with the same creditable wish. Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence, had an eldest daughter, who, according to the chronicles, 'was at that time said to be the noblest, fairest, and best brought up princess in all Europe.' By the advice of his mother and of the wisest counsellors of the kingdom, the young King demanded her in marriage. Her father received the offer with great joy, but was a little troubled at the thought of the large dowry which he was told would be expected with her. However, his most intimate friend and adviser, a Provençal gentleman named Romée de Villeneuve, said: 'Count, let me manage the matter, and do not let the heavy expenses weigh upon your mind. If your eldest daughter makes this royal marriage, the connexion will be so desirable that all the others will marry the better for it, and at less expense.' So Count Raymond followed this advice, and soon recognised its wisdom. He had four daughters, Margaret, Eleanor, Sancia, and Beatrix. After Margaret was Queen of France, Eleanor became Queen of England; Sancia married the Earl of Cornwall, and was afterwards Queen of the Romans; and Beatrix was first Countess of Anjou and Provence, and ultimately Queen of Sicily. Princess Margaret of Provence entered France, escorted by a brilliant embassy, which Louis had sent to fetch her; and the marriage was celebrated at Sens on the 27th of May, 1234, in the midst of great public festivities, and public charities likewise.

When he was married and in the enjoyment of domestic happiness Louis renounced of his own accord his former pleasures, both royal and worldly. His entertainments, his hunting, his magnificent ornaments and dress gave place to simpler pleasures and the good works of a Christian life. From that time the active duties of royalty, earnest and scrupulous attention to his religious duties, the tender and vigilant cares of charity, the pure and intense delights of conjugal love, combined with the noble projects of a true knight—a soldier of the Cross—filled up the whole life of this young king, who was humbly striving to become a saint and a hero.

But trouble came to him sometimes in the midst of his felicity. As soon as her son was married, Queen Blanche became jealous of the wife and the happiness which she herself had procured for him—jealous as mother and as queen, who saw a rival both in affection and in sovereignty. This odious sentiment led her on to acts equally undignified, malignant, and unjust.

'The cruelty of Queen Blanche to Queen Margaret was,' says Joinville, 'so great that she would not allow her son to enjoy his wife's companionship during the daytime at all, if she could prevent it. The favourite abode of the King and Queen was at Pontoise, because there the apartments of the King were above those of the Queen, and they had arranged so well that they used to sit and talk on a winding staircase which led from one story to the other, and they had contrived all so cleverly that when the King's guard saw the Queen-mother coming to the apartment of her son the King, they used to knock with their rods against his door, and the King would come running to his own room, that his mother might find him there. Likewise the guard of Queen Margaret learned to apprise their mistress when her mother-in-law was approaching, in order that she might be in her own apartment. Once, when the King was sitting beside the Queen, his wife, who had been in great peril of childbirth, the Queen-mother entered, and saying, "Come away, you can do nothing here," took him by the hand, and carried him off. Whereupon Queen Margaret cried out, "Alas! you will not let me see my lord whether I am living or dying!" and fainted, so that they thought she was dead; and the King, who believed that she was dead, returned, and after great difficulty she was restored.'

Louis, in this strait, comforted his wife, but yet did not desert his mother. In the noblest of souls and the happiest of lives, there are oftentimes some incurable wounds and some griefs which can only be accepted in silence.

The young King's accession to royal power caused no change in the royal policy, nor in the management of public affairs. There were no innovations dictated by mere vanity; no change in the acts and words of the sovereign or in the choice of his advisers and the amount of consideration shown to them. The son's reign was but the continuation of the mother's regency. Louis continued to oppose the power of the great vassals in order that he might establish the supremacy of the Crown: he succeeded in subduing Pierre Mauclerc, the turbulent Count of Bretagne; won from Thibaut IV. Count of Champagne, the right of suzerainty in the lands of Chartres, Blois, Sancerre, and Châteaudun; and bought from their owner the fertile lands of Mâcon. It was almost invariably by pacific measures, negotiations ably conducted, and treaties scrupulously fulfilled, that he thus extended the domains of the Crown.

Queen Blanche, during her regency, had practised a far-sighted economy which placed large funds at the disposal of her son. Following her example, Louis was economical at ordinary times, but liberal when policy demanded it. The property, and the rights belonging thereto, which he purchased from the Count of Champagne, cost him a sum which would now in English money be as nearly as possible equivalent to £144,000 paid down, and an annual ground-rent of £7,200. [Footnote 6]

[Footnote 6: 40,000 livres Tournois paid down, and a ground-rent of 2,000 livres Tournois, or in modern French money about 3,600,000 francs paid down, and a ground-rent of 180,000 francs.]

The learned language of the political economy of our time—the terms 'sound system of taxation,' 'financial responsibility,' and 'balance of receipts and expenditure' cannot be applied to the thirteenth century, and to feudal royalty. But we may truly say, that St. Louis, free from all frivolous fancies, and desiring only the well-being of his subjects, managed to maintain order in his royal treasury, and knew both how to economize and how to spend freely for the success of his designs.

I notice here one fact characteristic of both the King and his century. Many of these amicable transactions with his great vassals were almost immediately followed by the departure of the latter on a new crusade. The Christian world had not renounced the hope of freeing Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre from the yoke of the Mussulman. The desire to astonish the world by startling acts of penance, and the love of military adventure, still agitated both the highest and lowest ranks of feudal society. Pope Gregory IX. continued to preach a crusade—a double crusade—to Jerusalem for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre, to Constantinople for the succour of the recently established Latin Empire, which was already tottering. The King of France found, doubtless, that it was very convenient to extend his dominion thus without war at the expense of his vassals, and to get rid of these turbulent individuals. But to these reasons of general or private interest was certainly added the personal influence of Louis, already passionately absorbed in the thought of the glory and religious salvation which he hoped to win for himself in one of these expeditions.

As early as 1239, some of the principal vassals with whom he had just concluded advantageous treaties—the Counts of Champagne, Bretagne, and Mâcon—started for Palestine at the head of an army of Crusaders, numbering (so it is said) fifteen hundred knights and forty thousand squires. Louis was not content simply with encouraging and promoting this enterprise. 'He desired,' says De Tillemont, 'that Amaury de Montfort, his constable, should in this war serve Jesus Christ in his stead. Therefore he gave him his arms and granted him a daily sum of money, for which Amaury thanked him on his knees. That is, he did him homage after the custom of the time. The Crusaders were much rejoiced to have this noble lord with them.'

The heavy sickness from which the King suffered five years after, and his pious thankfulness for his cure, are said to have given rise to his resolve to take the Cross. But this is a grave mistake, for from the year 1239, when he saw his chief vassals departing for Palestine with the cross embroidered on their shoulder, the heart of St. Louis had already taken flight towards Jerusalem.

Chapter IV.
Relations Of St. Louis With His Vassals.
His Feudal Conflicts.
War With Henry III. Of England.

While awaiting the time when he should be able to gratify his pious hope of becoming a Crusader, Louis diverted himself and feudal France by royal and knightly festivities. He had assigned the province of Poitiers to his second brother Alphonse, but the young prince had not yet received his investiture as a knight, nor had he been put in possession of his domain. In order to perform this double ceremony, the King summoned to Saumur his full court—that is, all his noble vassals, lay and ecclesiastic. There were political motives for this assemblage and for the place of its meeting. The monarch of France displayed all his power and all his magnificence on the confines of Poitiers, and in the centre of a district formerly possessed by the kings of England.

'The King,' says Joinville, who was present, 'gave this feast in the halls at Saumur, which the great King Henry of England [Footnote 7] had erected, it was said, for his own banquets.

[Footnote 7: Henry II. son of Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou.]

This edifice is built after the fashion of cloisters belonging to the White Monks' (monks of the Cistercian order), 'but I doubt if any cloisters could ever have been nearly so large. And I will tell you why I think so: in that aisle of the hall at Saumur where the King banqueted, surrounded by all his knights and officers, who occupied a great deal of space, there was a table where twenty bishops and archbishops were feasted. And beyond the bishops and archbishops there was another table at which was the Queen-mother, Blanche: this was at the further end of the cloisters, and not where the King was eating. In waiting upon Queen Blanche were the Count of Boulogne, afterwards King of Portugal; the good Count of St. Pol, and a German, aged about eighteen, who was said to be the son of the holy Elizabeth of Thuringia. On this account it was said that Queen Blanche used to kiss him on the forehead, out of religious devotion, because she thought his mother must many times have kissed him there. At the furthermost part of the cloister, moreover, there were kitchens, butteries, pantries, and other offices; from this part bread, meat, and wine were served out to the King and Queen. In the other aisles and in the open space in the centre of the cloisters there feasted such a harvest of good knights that I could not attempt to number them, and the people who looked on said they had never seen such a number of surcoats and other vestments of cloth of gold at any banquet as there were there, and they say that above three thousand knights and cavaliers were present.'

From the festivities at Saumur, Louis went to Poitiers, where the new-made Count, his brother Alphonse, was to receive in his presence the homage of the neighbouring lords who had become his vassals. But ill news came to disturb their pleasures; a confidential letter was received, addressed, not to the King but to his mother, who was regarded by many faithful subjects as the true sovereign of the kingdom, and who doubtless still had her own confidential and secret agents. An inhabitant of La Rochelle wrote to tell Queen Blanche of the existence of a conspiracy among various powerful lords of La Marche, La Saintonge, L'Angoumois, and still further districts, who proposed to refuse homage to the Count of Poitiers, and thus to rebel against the King himself. This unpleasant warning was as true as it was circumstantial. Hughes de Lusignan, Count of La Marche, the principal vassal of the new Count of Poitiers, if he had not originated was certainly the leader of the plot. His wife, Isabella of Angoulême, widow of the late King John of England, and mother of the reigning sovereign, Henry III., was indignant at the idea of becoming a vassal to a prince who was himself the vassal of the King of France, and furious at finding herself, once a queen and still the widow and mother of a king, placed in rank below a mere Countess of Poitiers. When her husband, the Count of La Marche, returned to Angoulême, he found his lady melting from wrath into tears, and from tears rising back again into wrath.

'"Did you not perceive," said she, "that when in order to gratify your king and queen I waited three days at Poitiers, and then appeared before them in their chamber, the King was seated on one side of the bed, and the Queen with the Countess of Chartres and her sister the Abbess at the other, and they never summoned me to sit beside them. They did it designedly, to disgrace me before all these people. And neither on my entrance nor my departure did they so much as rise from their seats; putting me to shame, as you must have seen yourself. I can scarcely speak of it, so overcome am I with grief and shame. I shall die of it; it is even worse than the loss of our lands, of which they have so disgracefully robbed us. But at least, by God's grace, they shall repent of this, or I may see them miserable in their turn, and deprived of their own lands, as I am of mine. And for this end, I, for my part, will strive whilst I have life, even though it should cost me all that is mine."

'"The Count," adds Queen Blanche's secret correspondent, "who is a good man as you know, seeing the Countess in tears, said to her, deeply moved, 'Madame, give your commands, and I will do all that I can: be sure of that.' 'If you do not,' said she, 'you shall never enter my presence more, and I will never see you again.' Whereupon the Count, with many oaths, swore that he would do everything his wife desired."' [Footnote 8 ]

[Footnote 8: This letter, the original of which is in the Bibliothèque Impériale at Paris, was discovered and published by M. Léopold Delisle, with a learned commentary, in the' 'Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Chartres.']

He was as good as his word. In late autumn of the same year 1241, 'the new Count of Poitiers, holding his court for the first time, did not fail to summon all the nobles who were his vassals; and as the chief among them, the Count and Countess of La Marche. They went to Poitiers. But four days before Christmas, when all the guests had assembled, the Count of La Marche was seen advancing towards the prince mounted on his war steed, his wife behind him on a pillion, escorted by a troop of men-at-arms also on horseback, their cross-bows in their hands, as if ready for battle. Everybody waited eagerly for what was going to happen. Then the Count of La Marche, addressing the Count of Poitiers in a loud voice, said, "In a forgetful and weak moment I did once think of paying thee homage, but I now swear with a resolute heart that thy liege servant I will never be. Unjustly thou callest thyself my lord: unworthily hast thou stolen these lands from my son-in-law, Count Richard, while he was faithfully fighting for God in the Holy Land, where by his prudence and tender mercy he delivered many captives." After this insulting speech, the Count of La Marche caused his men-at-arms to disperse roughly all those who were in his way; rushed, as a last insult, and set fire to the quarters which his host had assigned him, and, followed by all his people, quitted Poitiers at full gallop.'

This meant war without doubt: and in early spring of the following year it broke out. But King Louis was found well prepared and fully resolved to carry it on. However, with all his determination, he lacked neither justice nor prudence; he respected popular opinion and wished for the approval of those whom he must needs call upon to compromise themselves with him and for him. He called together the vassals of the Crown. 'What think you?' asked he. 'What ought to be done to a vassal who wishes to hold his lands independent of any liege lord, and who refuses the faithful homage which has been paid time out of mind by him and his forefathers?'

They answered that the lord of the soil ought then to resume this fief as his own property.

'By my royal name,' said the King, 'this Count of La Marche pretends to hold lands after such a fashion—lands which have been a fief of France ever since the time of the brave King Clovis, who took all Aquitaine from unbelieving Alaric, King of the Goths, and conquered the whole country up to the Pyrenees.' The vassals promised their king active help against his foe.

The Count of La Marche began the contest. He had powerful allies, but the chief of them, his stepson, Henry III. of England, and his neighbour, Raimond III. Count of Toulouse, were tardy in their movements. Provoked by the devastations committed on his lands, Louis suddenly took the field. He had made great preparations, had provided large stores of provisions, means of transport and encampment, and machinery for carrying on a siege. Four thousand knights and twenty thousand men-at-arms followed him. The provincial militia joined: in short, as it neared the enemy's country, the King's army swelled apace, says the old chronicler, 'like rivers when they approach the sea.' Many fortresses in La Saintonge and L'Angoumois were carried by assault. Furious and desperate with her ill success, the Countess Isabelle of La Marche tried another form of warfare: she gave two of her serfs a poison which they undertook to mix either with the food or wine of the King and his brothers. But when they reached the royal camp, the two poor wretches were discovered, taken, and hanged.

At length the King of England landed at Royan, at the mouth of the Gironde. His Parliament, disliking this war, had refused him any assistance in it; but he brought with him seven of his principal vassals, three hundred knights, and, above all, the treasure which he had succeeded in amassing: 'thirty hogsheads full of esterlings,' says Matthew Paris, 'enough to pay a whole army of Poitevins and Gascons.'

A truce had subsisted for some time between France and England. Henry sent messengers to Louis, informing him that this truce was now broken, since he considered it his duty to defend his step-father, the Count of La Marche, by force of arms. Louis replied, that on his part he had scrupulously respected the truce, and had no thought of breaking it; but that he considered himself quite at liberty to punish a rebellious vassal. So the war began with ardour on both sides; and this young king, docile son of so capable a mother, soon showed himself to be an unsuspected hero.

Near two towns in Saintonge, Taillebourg and Saintes, on a bridge which commanded the approach to the one and before the walls of the other, Louis fought two battles, where his brilliant personal valour and the enthusiastic devotion of his troops decided the victory and caused the surrender of both places.

'At sight of the numerous banners above which the Oriflamme was floating in front of Taillebourg, and of the multitude of tents pitched close together so as to look like one great populous city, Henry III. turned quickly round to the Count of La Marche. "My father," said he, "is that what you promised me? Is this the countless army which you engaged yourself to raise for me; while my sole care should be to provide the money?" "I never said that," replied the Count. "Yea, truly," observed the Earl Richard of Cornwall, brother of Henry III. "I have in my possession a letter in your own hand upon this point." And when the Count of La Marche energetically denied having either signed or sent such a letter, the English king reminded him with some bitterness of his many messages and anxious solicitations for help. "I swear these were never with my knowledge," said the Count. "Blame your mother, who is my wife. Par la gorge de Dieu, it has all been managed without my knowledge."'

Henry III. was not alone in his disgust at the war into which his mother had thus drawn him. The greater part of his English knights quitted him, and asked of Louis permission to travel home to England through France. Some persons about the court objected to this. 'Let them depart,' said Louis. 'I only wish I could get rid of all my foes thus peacefully.' And when he heard his courtiers making a mock of Henry III. who, deserted by the English and pillaged by the Gascons, had taken refuge in Bordeaux, 'Cease,' said he. 'I forbid you either to ridicule him, or to cause him to hate me for your folly. His charity and piety will save him from all danger and all disgrace.'

When the Count of La Marche himself begged for peace, it was granted by the King with all the prudence of a far-seeing politician, and the pitying kindliness of a Christian. He only exacted that the conquered lands should remain the property of the Crown, and, under the suzerainty of the Crown, should belong to the Count of Poitiers; and that with regard to the rest of his estates, the Count of La Marche, his wife, and children should come and ask them as a grant from the mere will of the King. To this the Count added, as a pledge of his future fidelity, that he would maintain in three of his castles a royal garrison at his own expense.

His submission being thus fully made, the Count was brought into the presence of the King with his wife and children, 'where' (it is chronicled) 'they fell upon their knees and broke into sobs and tears, and began to cry aloud, "Most courteous sire, take away thy anger and displeasure from us, and have pity on us, for we have sinned grievously and haughtily against thee. Sire, according to the multitude of thy great mercies, pardon us our misdeeds!" At which the King, who could not contain himself at the sight, bade them rise, and forgave the Count frankly all the evil he had done.'

As long as the war lasted, Louis had conducted it vigorously and heroically; but he was at the same time a true and generous knight towards his adversaries, full of respect for the laws of chivalry and for feudal honour. His brother Alphonse had been grievously wounded at the siege of Fontenay, and when, after a brave resistance, the place was taken, the son of the Count of La Marche was among the prisoners. Some persons counselled the King to inflict cruel punishments upon the vanquished, in order to avenge the wound which Count Alphonse had received and the obstinate defence of the town. 'No,' said he, 'how can a son merit death for having simply obeyed his father, or vassals for having faithfully served their lord?' Later on, 'Hertold, lord of Mirebeau—a strong castle in Poitou—and vassal of Henry III., seeing the rapid success of the French king, and finding himself unable to resist him, went to seek the King of England at Blaye, where he had taken refuge. "My Lord King," said he, "your excellence may perceive that fortune is against us. What shall I do? Can you help me in such great danger, or deliver me if I am besieged? Or shall I, like my neighbours, be overwhelmed by a general disaster and forced to yield to the hated French yoke, which my ancestors resisted for so long?" "Hertold," replied the English king, with a dejected aspect, "thou seest that I can hardly deliver even myself from danger. Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was betrayed by His disciple Judas: who then can be secure? The Count of La Marche, whom I looked upon and honoured as my father, has given you all a pernicious example. I leant on a broken reed, and it has pierced me. Thou alone, in consulting me thus, thou hast acted with honour. The lands which thou holdest as my vassal, I will gladly give thee as thy own possessions. Freely therefore do that which seems to thee best." Hertold quitted, weeping, the presence of the English sovereign; and went to the King of France, before whom he presented himself with dishevelled hair and reddened eyes. "My Lord King," said he, "God has in His anger poured out upon me so many misfortunes, that I am constrained, much against my own will, to take refuge under your merciful protection. Abandoned and alone, I throw myself in great sorrow before your royal excellence, begging you to accept and receive my castles, and the homage of my service." To which the King of France replied with a gracious air, "Friend, I know that thou hast been with the King of England, and all that thou hast said to him. Thou alone hast acted faithfully. I receive thee heartily, and will protect thee and thy possessions. Men like thee are those of whom I most approve, and the merciful heart should never be closed against them." Therefore Hertold gave up to the King of France the noble Castle of Mirebeau, with all its lands, and it was immediately restored by Louis, after the Count had taken an oath of fidelity to him. After this example, the whole country, with the exception of Montauban and a few other places, passed into the possession of the French.' [Footnote 9]

[Footnote 9: Matthew Paris.]

A prince who knew so well how to conquer and how to treat his vanquished enemies might have been tempted to abuse both victory and clemency, and to seek exclusively his own aggrandizement, but Louis was too entirely a Christian for this. Unless war was a necessity or a duty, this valiant and distinguished knight, from the very equity and goodness of his soul, preferred peace to war. The success of his campaign in 1242 did not lead him to make this the first step in a career of glory and conquests; his chief aim was rather to consolidate his victories by securing the benefits of peace to Western Europe, obtaining it for his enemies as well as for himself. He negotiated successively with the Count of La Marche, the King of England, the Count of Toulouse, the King of Arragon, and the divers princes and great feudal lords who had been more or less openly engaged in this war. The latest and most appreciative of his biographers, M. Felix Faure, says that, in January 1243, 'the Treaty of Lorris marked the end of all the feudal troubles so long as the reign of St. Louis lasted. He never again drew his sword save against the Mussulmans, those enemies of the faith and of Christian civilization.'

Chapter V.
Attitude Of St. Louis In The Struggle Between The German Empire And The Papacy.

If ambition had been the ruling passion of King Louis, he might have fostered the dissensions of his neighbours to his own advantage, for he had many opportunities of interfering in their affairs when his influence would have had considerable weight. The whole of Christendom was agitated at this time by the great struggle between the secular and sacerdotal powers, represented by Frederick II. and the two Popes Gregory IX. and Innocent IV. The Emperor and the Pope claimed the right of entire control over each other's actions, and asserted their power of determining each other's destiny.

Louis IX. had only just attained his majority when, in 1237, he received an invitation from Frederick II. to meet him at Vancouleurs, and come to an understanding as to the course which the lay sovereigns ought to pursue with regard to the claims of the Holy See. The King of France had good reason for distrusting the Emperor of Germany. Frederick II. had not long previously married the sister of Henry III. of England, and had on several occasions shown an inclination to help his brother-in-law of England to regain his French provinces. Louis did not decline the meeting at Vancouleurs, but he took the precaution of commanding that an escort of 2,000 knights should accompany him thither. When Frederick heard of this he adjourned the interview to the following year, and there was then no further mention of it. Louis, after this, tried to induce the two sovereigns to restore peace to Christendom, but he failed, and thenceforward maintained an attitude of strict neutrality towards them.

The Pope had very recently pronounced a sentence of excommunication against the Emperor, and had declared him to be deposed from his throne. And now, in order to enlist Louis on his own side, the Holy Father suggested the possibility of the election of the Count of Artois (brother of Louis) as Emperor of Germany, and promised to assist the Count not only with influence but with money.

Louis consulted the barons of the kingdom. 'If the crimes of the Emperor,' they said, 'make it necessary that he should be deposed, his sentence can be pronounced by a General Council only.'

Louis acquainted the Emperor with the proposal which he had received from Rome and the answer which he intended to make to it, and also informed him of the religious offences which the Pope alleged against him as a justification of the sentence of excommunication. 'We do not intend,' said the French envoys to Frederick, 'to attack you without lawful grounds. As to any advantages which the imperial crown may bring, we think that our sovereign, the King of France, who is raised to the throne by the hereditary nobility of his royal blood, is high above an Emperor who owes his elevation to an election which may be refused. Count Robert thinks it honour enough to be the brother of our King.'

The Emperor did not protest against these words; for though they were haughty enough, they were at the same time reassuring.

The Pope convoked a General Council. The Emperor, who foresaw the result of a meeting of his enemies, declared that he would oppose it by force of arms. On the 3d of May, 1241, his fleet attacked and completely defeated the Genoese fleet, which had on board the prelates who were summoned to the Council at Rome. Legates, archbishops, bishops, abbots, delegates from the chapters, more than a hundred eminent ecclesiastics, were seized, thrown into the holds of the victorious vessels, and conveyed to Naples, where the Emperor kept them imprisoned in the castle of San Salvatore. Many French ecclesiastics were among those who suffered from this act of violence. Louis peremptorily demanded their liberty: Frederick refused it, not without a touch of irony: 'Let not your royal Majesty be astonished,' he wrote to Louis, 'if Cæsar keeps in tribulation the prelates of France who came to cause Cæsar tribulation.'

Again Louis remonstrated, this time haughtily and with threats: 'Hitherto,' he said, 'we have had a sure trust that, owing to the reciprocal affection, established for so long a time, no cause either of hatred or variance could arise between the empire and our kingdom; for all the kings of blessed memory, our predecessors, showed themselves eager to contribute to the honour and glory of the empire, and we, who by the grace of God have succeeded them, were animated by the same sentiments. Therefore this is a thing that surprises us greatly. We are deeply moved, and not without reason. You have no cause, no pretext even, of offence against us, and yet you have seized the prelates of our kingdom on the sea. They were on their way to the Apostolic seat, to which they are bound both by faith and obedience, so that they dare not disobey its commands, and yet you detain them in prison. We are more deeply wounded than your Majesty may probably suppose. Their letters have clearly shown us that they entertained no designs against your imperial Majesty, nor would they have taken any share in the less legitimate steps which the sovereign Pontiff may have contemplated. Since, then, their captivity is owing to no fault of their own, your Majesty must restore their rightful liberty to the prelates of our realm. By doing this you will put an end to all estrangement on our part, for be assured that we look upon their detention as a wrong done to our own self. Our royal power must be strangely diminished and debased if we could patiently endure such treatment. Turn your eyes upon the past, and remember how, as every one knows, we repulsed the offers of the Bishop of Palestrina and the other legates of the Church when they endeavoured to obtain our co-operation against you. They could obtain no help in our kingdom against your Majesty. We pray you, therefore, in your imperial prudence, to pause and reflect, and we counsel you to weigh what we have written in the balance of your royal judgment; do not listen only to the promptings of power and to your own will, and so reject our demand, for the kingdom of France is not so exhausted or so weak that you may venture to prick us with your spurs.'

The threat uttered by Louis was not without effect. The Emperor hesitated a little longer, and then set the French prelates at liberty.

Gregory IX. died, and under the pontificate of Innocent IV. the struggle between the Papal See and the Empire became more and more fierce. The two parties and the two adversaries divided the whole of Christendom; sovereigns and peoples were to be found first in one camp and then in the other, now estranged by the Pope's acts of violence and now by those of the Emperor. Doubt and indecision at length affected even the clergy. In 1245, Frederick II. was excommunicated for the third time, and at Paris the Curé of St. Germain de l'Auxerrois announced the sentence in the following words:—

'Listen, all of you! I am commanded to pronounce a solemn sentence of excommunication—tapers lighted and bells tolling—against the Emperor Frederick. I do not know the reason of this. I know there is a fierce quarrel, and that inexorable hatred has grown up between him and another. I know that one of them is doing injustice to the other. But which of them? And to which?—I cannot tell. Therefore, so far as it is in my power, I hereby excommunicate, and declare to be excommunicated, that one who has done wrong to the other; and I absolve him who suffers the wrong—a wrong which embitters the whole Christian world.' [Footnote 10]

[Footnote 10: Matthew Paris, ed. 1644, p. 442.]

In the midst of this conflict of passions, and at a time of such great perplexity in the minds of men, the conduct of Louis remained unchanged. He took the part of neither one adversary nor the other; he preserved the most scrupulous neutrality in his relations with the Empire and the Papal See, and laboured hard to establish peace.

In the thirteenth century the principles of national law, especially that of the right of intervention on the part of one government in the struggles either of the sovereigns or the subjects of its neighbours, had not been as systematically laid down and defined as they are now. But the good sense and moral rectitude of St. Louis led him to follow the right path, and no temptation, not even his own fervent piety, ever induced him to swerve from it. It was his constant care not to allow either the State or Church of France to take any part in the struggle between the Papacy and the Empire, and he strove to uphold the dignity of his crown and the well-being of his subjects by using his influence to secure the establishment of a just and peaceful policy throughout Christendom.

Chapter VI.
Christian Europe And Mahometan Asia In The Thirteenth Century.

A just and peaceful policy throughout Christendom was the great need of Christianity in the thirteenth century, for it had to struggle with two enemies, and was exposed to two very formidable dangers.

The Crusaders had inaugurated a fierce and bitter struggle with the Mahometans in Asia; and towards the middle of the thirteenth century, in the very heat of the conflict, and from the depths of Asia itself, a barbarous and almost pagan people—the Mongol Tartars—spread like a foul flood over Eastern Europe. They swept over Russia, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and Germany, ravaging and threatening with total destruction every province through which they passed. M. Abel Rémusat has studied all the documents relating to these terrible invasions, which he describes with the accuracy of a scholar. He writes as follows:—

'According to the laws established by their first great chief Tchinggis Khan, the Mongols were commanded to show mercy to those princes and nations that gave proof of their submission by surrendering their towns and consenting to pay tribute. All others were given up to the fury of the soldiers, and massacred without distinction of age or sex, the very animals being often included in an indiscriminate slaughter. It was impossible to negotiate with the Tartars in their early invasions; men had either to submit or die, and countless pyramids of human bones, which they erected on the sites of ruined cities, testified to the danger of resistance. These ghastly monuments were to be seen long afterwards, and were the terror of our travellers who passed through the regions which the Tartars had swept over and made desolate.'

The chronicles of the thirteenth century describe the Tartars as—

'A terrible race rushing down from the mountains of the North; an impious multitude who fear nothing, believe nothing, and worship nothing but their king—him they call the great King of kings and Lord of lords; men, or rather brutes, who are relentless; monsters having nothing human about them; greedy for blood, and drinking it with delight; tearing and devouring the raw flesh of animals, of dogs—nay, even of human beings; having an enormous head on a misshapen body, huge chests, large arms and short strong legs; clothed in the skins of cattle, and armed with iron lances; untiring warriors, unequalled archers, and of astounding courage, riding on great and strong horses which are so swift that they can go three days' journey in one day, and require no other food than leaves and the bark of trees. These horses they mount by means of three stirrups suspended one from the other, for they need this ladder on account of the shortness of their legs; crossing the broadest and most rapid rivers without delay or difficulty by means of boats made of ox-hide which they carry about with them: and for the matter of that, it gives them no more trouble to swim than to eat' [Footnote 11]

[Footnote 11: M. Felix Faure has also very ably collected the characteristic features of the Mongol portraits, and put them together so as to form a striking picture. He has taken his materials from the chronicles of the time, and especially from the works of Matthew Paris and Albéric des Trois Fontaines.]

The name and description of these barbarians, the report of their devastations, and the terror which they inspired, were soon spread throughout Christendom. The princes of Eastern Europe wrote to their relatives and allies in the West, warning them of the danger which threatened them, relating their own troubles, and imploring help against the common enemy.

'What must be done in so sad a case?' said Queen Blanche to her son the King of France. Louis answered, the chronicles say, 'with mournful voice, and yet not without a certain divine inspiration.' 'My mother,' he said, 'there is one heavenly consolation in which we may find support. If these Tartars, as we call them, come here, either we shall send them back to Tartarus, the place from whence they come, or they will send us up to Paradise.'

M. Abel Rémusat says: 'This play upon the words Tartarus (the infernal regions) and Tartar, which is here attributed to St. Louis, is found in almost all the documents of the period, and it is just possible that it affords the true explanation of the change made in the word Tatars by all the nations of the West. These tribes are called Tatari in the Russian chronicles, Tattari by Christophorus Manlius, and Tatari or Tattari in a letter written by Ives of Narbonne to Giraud, Archbishop of Bordeaux. But, as a rule, we find that they were called Tartars from the very first, and "Tartari, imò Tartarei"—Tartars from the depths of Tartarus—as the Emperor Frederick called them, became a favourite expression. There was certainly a very general impression that these Mongols were either demons sent to chastise mankind, or men who had dealings with demons.' [Footnote 12]

[Footnote 12: Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, tome vi. p. 408.]

Another incident of less importance for Europe had, however, a more personal interest for Louis, and had already turned all the ardent piety of his inquiring spirit more and more towards the East. In the summer of 1237 he was at Compiègne, celebrating the marriage of his brother Robert, whom he had invested as knight and endowed with the province of Artois for an appanage. In the midst of the festivities people remarked with surprise that four strangers were present, men of foreign race and unfamiliar appearance, whom the King seemed to treat with great consideration. These, say the chronicles, were emissaries from the Old Man of the Mountain, the chief of an Arab sect and tribe which had sprung up in the midst of the religious, political, and warlike agitations of Islamism. This tribe had established itself in the mountains of Anti-Lebanon, between Antioch and Damascus, and its members had been known in the East for more than a century under the name of Assassins. It is said that they owed this name to the blind fanaticism with which they executed the orders of their sheikh (a word which means both chief and old man), who insured their passionate devotion to himself by all kinds of material indulgences, and made use of them to get rid of his enemies, near and far, Christian and Saracen. In 1190 they assassinated Conrad, Marquis of Montserrat, then about to ascend the throne of Jerusalem, and the great Saladin himself, in spite of all his victories over the Christians, had twice nearly fallen a victim to their blows.

The fame of the young King's piety and valour had reached Syria, and it was said that Louis was about to start for the East at the head of a new crusade, and to re-establish the kingdom of Jerusalem. This report caused the Old Man of the Mountain to send two of his fanatical followers to France, with orders to kill the future enemy of their country. But, on the receipt of further information, he renounced the design, and sent other two of his followers to France to prevent the execution of the murder. In this they succeeded: they not only warned Louis of his danger, but had time to return and meet the first emissaries of their master, with whom they went back to Compiègne. 'Louis, who had taken every precaution against their attempt, received them well,' say the chronicles, 'and sent them home to the Old Man of the Mountain with rich gifts.'

Voltaire ridicules the whole story with that levity and shallow common sense which so often led him to place blind confidence in his own scepticism, and made him ready to reject as absurd fables any facts which he could not easily explain. 'The great Prince of the Assassins,' says he, 'fearing lest the King of France, Louis IX., of whom he had never heard, should journey to the East at the head of a new crusade, and snatch away his dominions, sent two noble adherents from his court in the caverns of Anti-Lebanon to assassinate the King in Paris. But next day he was told what an amiable and generous prince this was; so he sent two other nobles by sea to countermand the assassination.' [Footnote 13]

[Footnote 13: Œuvres de Voltaire, tome xxvii. Edit, de Beuchot.]

But, in order to disprove the records of the thirteenth century, something more is necessary than merely to burlesque them in the language of the eighteenth. The chronicles of the time give numerous and detailed accounts of these early transactions between the Old Man of the Mountain and St. Louis. The accounts agree with all the documents of the time which refer to the relations existing between the East and West after the commencement of the Crusades. They are confirmed by other and almost contemporaneous testimony, which shows the Old Man of the Mountain, four years later, asking the help of St. Louis against the Mongol Tartars, from whose invasions Western Asia suffered as much as Eastern Europe. Without thinking of any difference of race or religion, the foes of yesterday eagerly sought each other's help against the common enemy of to-day. Such a complication of nations, princes, and events would give rise to many improbable and contradictory facts, and the true history of the period lies hidden under the many legends which exaggerate and disfigure it.

Another apprehension and another temptation were added about this time to those which already attracted the thoughts and heart of Louis to the East. The dangers of the Latin empire of Constantinople increased daily. It was assailed alike by Greek, Mussulman, and Tartar. In 1236 the young Emperor Baldwin II. resolved to solicit in person the help of the princes of the West, more especially of the young King of France, who was already renowned for his piety and his chivalrous zeal.

Baldwin was the possessor of a treasure which fascinated the imagination of the Christians of those days—the crown of thorns worn by Christ during His passion. He had pledged it at Venice as a security for a considerable loan from the Venetians, and he now offered to make it over to Louis in return for efficient help either in men or money. Louis accepted the offer with rapture. Not long before he had been greatly alarmed at the reported loss of another precious relic, one of the nails said to have fastened the body of our Lord to the cross. It had been deposited in the Abbey of St. Denis, and disappeared one day during a religious ceremony. When it was found, Louis said: 'I would rather that the earth had opened and swallowed up one of the chief cities of my kingdom than have lost it.'

He took every care to avoid the disgrace which would attend any kind of traffic in so sacred a matter, and ultimately obtained the crown of thorns for a sum which, including all expenses, would equal about 54,000l. of our money. [Footnote 14]

[Footnote 14: 12,000 livres Parisis, about 1,350,000 francs in modern French money. The French livre (like the English pound) was formerly a pound's weight of silver. Charlemagne ordained that a silver sou should be precisely the twentieth part of twelve ounces of silver, and in this way twenty sous came to be looked upon as a livre. Both weight and value have been very greatly reduced in the course of time. Again, the weight of the livre, and consequently its value, varied in different parts of France. The livre Parisis was the livre of Paris, the livre Tournois (p. 19) the livre of Tours, &c.]

We cannot, in the present day, sympathise with the eager credulity which Christian faith does not require and sound criticism entirely condemns; but we ought to and we can understand it in an age when men contemplated every fact and every tradition of the Gospel with a deep, poetic faith, and when the belief that they were in the presence of any fragment or relic of sacred times was sufficient to call forth emotion and reverence as deep as their faith.

It is to such feelings that we owe one of the most perfect and graceful monuments of the Middle Ages, the Sainte Chapelle, built by Louis between 1245 and 1248, to contain the precious relics which he had accumulated. The architect, Pierre de Montreuil, comprehended and glorified the piety of the King in a marvellous manner, and no doubt his own genius was kindled by the same strong religious feeling which animated St. Louis.

Chapter VII.
Origin Of The Passion Felt By St. Louis For The Crusades.
His Sickness In 1244.
His Vow.
His Departure On His First Crusade In 1248.

At the close of the year 1244, in the midst of all these European troubles, and when his sympathy with them was so great, Louis fell ill at Pontoise and was soon in extreme danger. The alarm and grief of his realm reached the highest point. Bishops, abbots, priests, barons, knights, citizens, and peasants hurried, some to Pontoise and some to their churches, to learn 'how it would please the Lord to deal with the King.' Louis himself thought that his last hour was come. He caused all the members of his household to be summoned, thanked them for their services to himself, bade them serve God faithfully, and 'did all that a good Christian ought to do' in sight of death. His mother, wife, brothers, and all those who were about him, prayed for him incessantly; 'his mother more than all the others,' say the chronicles, 'and she added to her prayers great austerities.'

At one time the King lay motionless and without sign of breath, so that those around him thought he was dead. 'One of the ladies watching him,' says Joinville, 'wished to cover his face, saying that he was dead; but another lady on the opposite side of the bed would not allow it, for she said that the soul had not yet left the body. The King heard these ladies speaking, and, by the grace of our Lord, he began to breathe again; he stretched out his arms and legs, and said in a voice as hollow as that of one who has risen from the grave, "The dayspring from on high hath visited me, and by the grace of God recalled me from among the dead."'

No sooner had he regained consciousness and the power of speech, than he sent for William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris, and Peter of Cuisy, Bishop of Meaux, in whose diocese he then was, and asked them to affix the holy cross to his shoulder, as a sign that he should journey beyond the seas to the Holy Land. The two bishops tried to dissuade him from this idea, and the two queens, Blanche and Margaret, implored him on their knees to wait until he was well, and after that to do whatsoever he would. But he persisted, and said that he would touch no food until he had received the cross, and at length the Bishop of Paris yielded and bestowed it upon him. The King received his cross with the deepest emotion; 'he kissed it, and laid it down very gently upon his breast.'

'When the Queen, his mother, knew that he had taken the cross,' says Joinville, 'she showed as much sorrow, according to his own account, as if she had seen him lying dead.' [Footnote 15]

[Footnote 15: Joinville, chap. xxiv.; 'Vie de St. Louis, par le Confesseur de la Reine Marguerite,' in Bouquet's 'Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France,' vol. xx. pp. 66, 67; Tillemont, 'Vie de St. Louis,' vol. iii.; Faure, 'Histoire de St. Louis,' vol. i.]

More than three years passed away before Louis was able to fulfil the engagement to which he had thus pledged himself. We might almost say that he was pledged to himself and by himself alone, and against the will of nearly every one about him.

The Crusades still possessed great fascination for the public mind, and were still the object of religious and chivalric enthusiasm; but, at the same time, they were dreaded and discouraged from a political point of view, and there were many men of very considerable standing, both among the clergy and laity, who would not have dared to say so, but who had no desire whatever to take part in a new crusade. Under the influence of this state of public feeling, not the less seriously entertained because it shrank from showing itself openly, Louis continued for the next three years to busy himself with the affairs of France and Europe. He tried to mediate in his neighbours' quarrels, and attempted to bring about a reconciliation between the Pope and the Emperor, as if it had been the one object of his life. His mother and the wisest of his advisers had once for a short time entertained some hope of being able to induce him to abandon his enterprise. The Bishop of Paris, the same who in the crisis of his illness and at his urgent request had given him the Crusader's cross, one day said to him: 'My lord the King, bethink you that when you received the cross, when suddenly and without due consideration you made this portentous vow, you were very feeble, and, to confess the truth, of clouded mind; your words, therefore, had not the weight of royal authority and verity. Our lord the Pope knows the requirements of your kingdom and the weakness of your bodily health, and he will very willingly grant you a dispensation. Consider how many dangers threaten us: the power of the schismatic Frederick, the snares of the rich King Henry of England, the treason of the Poitevins, only just crushed out, and the subtle disputes of the Albigenses. Germany is agitated; Italy has no peace. The Holy Land is difficult of access; you may never reach it, and, if you do, you leave behind you the implacable hatred for each other of the Pope and the Emperor.'

Queen Blanche made an appeal of a different kind. She reminded her son of the good counsel she had always given him, and told him that a son who obeyed and trusted his mother was well pleasing in the sight of God. She promised that if he would be content to give up his project, the Holy Land should not suffer, for more troops should be sent thither than he would have marched at the head of. The King listened attentively to all that was said, and was deeply moved by it. Then he answered:

'You tell me that I was not in the possession of all my faculties when I took the cross. Therefore, since it is your wish I renounce the cross, I restore it to you.' And with his own hands he unfastened the cross from his shoulder: 'There, my lord bishop, I place the cross with which I was invested in your hands again.'

All present were full of joy, and began to congratulate each other, when, with a sudden change of countenance and of manner, the King said: 'My friends, at this present time I am assuredly in possession of my reason and of all my senses. I am neither weak in health nor of clouded mind. I now ask to have my cross given back to me. He who knows all things knows that not one morsel of food shall enter my lips until it is once again affixed to my shoulder.' 'These words plainly showed that the finger of God was in this matter, and therefore no one ventured to raise a single objection to the will of the King.' [Footnote 16]

[Footnote 16: Matthew Paris, p. 407.]

Louis proclaimed his resolve openly, and urged forward the preparations for a new crusade. He announced that he would start after Pentecost in the following year, 1248.

His brothers first, and then the majority of his vassals, knights as well as great barons, also took the cross. The enthusiasm of Louis was contagious, and many were kindled by it, whilst others for very shame could not forsake their king and lord, who was so noble a prince and so faithful a Christian. On Friday, the 12th of June, 1248, the King went to St. Denis, and there received the oriflamme, and then the pilgrim's wallet and staff. After this, he returned to Paris, and went barefooted to Notre Dame to hear mass, followed by a great crowd of people. Queen Margaret was to accompany him to the East, and she went through the same farewell ceremonies, sometimes with and sometimes after her husband. Queen Blanche waited for her son at Corbeil, and Louis there took leave of her, having first appointed her Regent of France, and granted her the fullest powers during his absence. Some say, however, that she accompanied him as far as Cluny.

'O my fair son, my fair and gentle son!' she said when he bade her adieu. 'O my most tender son, my heart tells me that I shall never see thee more!' And one account adds that, in spite of her high spirit and great courage, she fainted twice when she saw her son finally depart.

The King went on his way, and at Lyons received the benediction of the Pope Innocent IV.; he there put a stop to the brigandage of the wicked lord of one of the castles on the banks of the Rhone, and at length reached Aiguesmortes, in Provence, as some say in July, according to others in the beginning of August. He was to set sail from thence, and had requested all the Crusaders who intended to cross the sea with him to meet him there. He took up his abode in a very humble house, which, as it was the King's residence, was dignified by the name of 'palace;' it would not accommodate his own suite and the retinue of his brothers, tents were therefore erected for them outside the town, and in the neighbouring hamlets. A great number of Crusaders, vassals or allies of the King of France, arrived in rapid succession, and these had separate camps distinguished by their standards. There were thirty-eight large ships in the port hard by, and a whole host of vessels of transport. The preparations of the fleet were completed on the 20th of August, and on Tuesday, the 25th, Louis went to the humble church, Notre Dame des Sablons, to invoke the protection of God for his enterprise, and on the same day he embarked. A young writer of the present age, who has collected local details full of interest with regard to this solemn event, says:—

'It was left entirely to the master-mariners to decide when the wind would be favourable for setting sail, and on Friday the 28th, after careful deliberation, they were all agreed. They then summoned the pilot. "Are you ready?" said they. "Yes, masters," he answered. One of them stepped up to the King of France: "Sire, call up your parsons and priests, for the weather is fair and fine." Chaplains, monks, and bishops came on deck, and the same master-mariners called out, "Sing, good fathers; sing, in the name of God!" Whereupon they chant the "Veni Creator," which is taken up in vessel after vessel, until it is heard from one end of the fleet to the other. This pious canticle ended, the pilots call out to the sailors, "Hoist your sails in God's name!" And first from one ship and then from another you hear the captain calling, "Weigh your anchor, for you are too near, and may do us harm."

'Before long the wind filled our sails, and bore us out of sight of the land; we saw nothing but sky and sea, and every day the wind carried us farther away from the places of our birth. And I think this will show you that a man must be very foolhardy if he will run into such danger with other people's goods, or when he is in a state of mortal sin, for he goes to bed at night in a place which may be at the bottom of the sea the next morning.' [Footnote 17]

[Footnote 17: Topin, 'Aiguesmortes' (1865); Joinville, chap, xxviii.]

Thus thought and wrote the companion and historian of St. Louis, the Sire de Joinville, when, a few days after the King had left Aiguesmortes, he sailed from Marseilles to join him at Cyprus, the general rendezvous of the Crusaders.

Chapter VIII.
St. Louis In Egypt.
1249-1250.

I am not now writing the history of St. Louis, and of his heroic and unfortunate crusade. What I desire at this time specially to do is to show the man and the Christian in this king. The world is a stage on which we may see much that impresses us, but not much that we can imitate; great events abound, but noble and virtuous lives are rare, and therefore in every age they possess the charm of novelty, and afford the most salutary spectacle that can be presented to mankind.

Louis arrived at the island of Cyprus on the 12th of September, 1248. He did not expect to stay long there; he hoped to set sail without delay for Egypt, where he proposed to commence the struggle against the Mussulmans. At that time the Christian world believed that in order to deliver the Holy Land from the hands of the infidel, the first blow at Islamism must be struck in Egypt, its stronghold. Louis had appointed Cyprus merely as a meeting-place for the Crusaders who had set out from so many different parts; he had concentrated vast stores of all kinds in the island, provisions, arms, and implements of war, provided at his expense and by his care; but his intention was to convey them immediately to the shores of the Nile. At Cyprus, however, the difficulties and dangers of the expedition began to show themselves. These may have originated either in the social condition and manners of the period, or in the faults of individual men. Many of the crusading princes—nobles who were impatient of control and soldiers from choice—arrived tardily and at long intervals. The King of Cyprus, Henry of Lusignan, and his Cypriot vassals received the Crusaders kindly; and even promised to join the expedition, but they had not received due notice of it, and were not prepared to set out at once. They were glad to prolong the stay of the crusading army, which furnished the court with an opportunity for indulging in the festivities in which chivalry delighted, and proved a source of unexpected profit to the inhabitants of the island. The leader of the crusade, Louis, showed more perseverance in his religious zeal than tenacity of purpose in his practical aims, and he inspired admiration more readily than he exercised power over those with whom he was brought into contact. His opinion as to the wisdom of proceeding at once to Egypt did not guide the council of war, consisting of the principal leaders of the army; they decided on passing the winter in the island of Cyprus; and during those seven months of enforced idleness, the improvidence of the Crusaders, their ignorance of the places, people, and facts of every kind which they were rushing to meet, their blind self-confidence, their obstinate rivalry, their moral disorders and military insubordination, daily aggravated the already enormous difficulties of the enterprise. Louis spent his whole time amongst them in making peace, adjusting quarrels, repressing licence, reconciling the Templars and the Hospitallers. He received envoys from the King of Armenia, the Khan of Tartary, and many other princes of the East, Christian and Pagan, who came, not to offer support in the crusade, but by their intrigues to draw the Crusaders into their own quarrels, and to obtain help in promoting their own private interests.

'The Empress of Constantinople [Footnote 18] sent me word,' says Joinville, 'that she had arrived at Baffe, [Footnote 19] a city of Cyprus, and that I must needs go and seek her, I and Monseigneur Erard de Brienne. When we arrived we found that her vessel had dragged its anchors in a storm, and drifted over to Acre, and that she had nothing out of the whole of her luggage except the mantle she was wearing and a surcoat. [Footnote 20]

[Footnote 18: Marie de Brienne, wife of the Latin Emperor Baldwin II.]
[Footnote 19: The ancient Paphos.]
[Footnote 20: A garment worn by ladies over their petticoat and tight-fitting jacket.]

We escorted her to Limisso, where the King, the Queen, and all the nobles received her with great honour. On the morrow I sent her a piece of cloth for a garment, and some taffetas to line it with. She had come to ask the King's help for her lord, and she managed so well that she carried back two hundred letters and more from me and other friends she had there. In these letters we were bound by oath, if the King or the legate would send three hundred knights to Constantinople after the return of the King from the crusade, we were then bound, I say, by our oath, to go thither also. And when we were about to return, in order to fulfil this oath, I appealed to the King before the Count of Eu, whose letter I still have, saying that if he would send three hundred knights I would go and fulfil my oath. And the King answered that he had not the wherewithal, and that great as his treasure was he had poured it out to the very dregs.' [Footnote 21]

[Footnote 21: Joinville, c. xxx.]

In fact Louis had exhausted his means not only in paying the expenses of the expedition, but in providing money for the Christians scattered in the East, and for the Crusaders who accompanied him. This is a point on which Joinville could speak from experience: 'When I arrived in Cyprus,' says he, 'I found that, after my shipping expenses were paid, I had only 240 livres Tournois [Footnote 22] left. On this account some of my knights sent me word that, if I did not provide myself with money, they would leave me. But God, who has never failed me, provided for me in a wonderful manner, for the King, who was at Nicosia, sent to seek me, and put 800 livres into my coffers, and then I had more than I knew what to do with.' [Footnote 23]

[Footnote 22: See page 49.]
[Footnote 23: Joinville, c. xxix.]

At last they left Cyprus, but not without trouble, for a violent storm stranded a hundred and fifty vessels on the coast of Syria. They arrived in sight of Egypt and of Damietta. The principal Crusaders met on board the King's ship, the Montjoie. One of those present, Guy, a knight in the suite of the Comte de Melun, wrote to one of his friends, a student in Paris, and said that the King spoke as follows:

'My friends good and true! If we are inseparable in our love we shall be invincible. We could not have reached this place so quickly without the approval of God. Let us therefore land and take possession of it in all confidence. I am not the King of France; I am not the Holy Church. It is all of you who are both King of France and Holy Church. I am but a man, whose life will fade away like that of all other men when it pleases God. Whatever may be the result of our enterprise, it must be for our good. If we are defeated, we shall ascend to heaven as martyrs; if we conquer, the glory of the Lord will be exalted, and the renown of all France, still more of the whole of Christendom, will be increased. It would be madness to suppose that God, who is all-wise, has raised me up in vain. In our cause He will see His own cause, His great cause. Let us fight for Christ, and Christ will triumph in us, not for us, but for the honour and glory of His blessed name.'

The disembarkation was then decided upon, and commenced on the following day. Large numbers of Saracens were seen upon the shore. The boat which carried the oriflamme was one of the first to reach the land. 'When the King heard that the standard of St. Denis had touched the shore, he walked along his ship with mighty strides, and, in spite of the dissuasions of the legate who was with him, he leaped into the sea to follow it, although the water was up to his shoulders, and he made his way through it to his people who were on the shore, with his shield before his breast, his helmet on his head, and lance in hand. When he had landed he saw the Saracens, and asked who they were. He was told that they were Saracens; whereupon he couched his lance, held his shield before him, and would have made a course against them at once had not some of his more prudent followers prevented it.' [Footnote 24]

[Footnote 24: Joinville, chap, xxxv.; Matthew Paris.]

The knights were no less impetuous than their king. As soon as the Crusaders were encamped on the shore, one of the knights, Gautier d'Autrèche, issued all armed from his tent, 'put spurs to his horse,' says Joinville, 'and galloped off against the Turks; but before reaching them he was thrown, and the horse trod upon him. Four Turks attacked him as he lay upon the ground, and as they rode past struck him heavy blows with their maces. The Constable of France and some of the King's troops rescued him, and carried him back to his tent. Late at night we went to see him, for he was a man of high repute and of great valour. His chamberlain came to meet us, and begged us to walk softly so as not to awaken his master. We found him lying upon a coverlid of miniver, and we went up to him very softly and saw that he was dead. When the King heard of it, he said that he would not have a thousand such knights even if he could, for they would all take their own way as this one had done, and pay no heed to his commands.'

Louis remembered at that moment that he was a king and must be obeyed, but he himself was the first to give way to transports of blind unreflecting valour, and the very devotion to his cause made him continually forget, not only the difficulty of success, but the first conditions of it. The whole campaign in Egypt was a series of heroic and irrational actions. At first the boldness of the Crusaders' attack and their brilliant courage struck terror to the hearts of the Mussulmans. They abandoned Damietta notwithstanding its great strength and importance, and the Crusaders took possession of it without difficulty. When the Turkish commander, Fakr Eddin, appeared before the Sultan of Egypt, who was very ill and at the point of death: 'Could you not have held out even for an hour?' said the monarch. 'Was there not one man amongst you who would give his life for the place?' When he saw the Crusaders established in Damietta he tried to dislodge them, by proposing to the King that on the day after St. John the Baptist's day, which was near at hand, there should be a general engagement in a place to be agreed on by both sides, so that the East and West might fairly try the fortune of war, and those to whom fate gave the victory might have great glory, while the vanquished should retreat with due humility. 'Our lord the King answered, "I do not defy the enemy of Christ more on one day than on another; I do not fix any time when I shall rest; but I defy him now and always, to-morrow and all the days of my life, unless he takes pity upon his own soul and believes on our Lord Jesus Christ, who wishes that all men should be saved, and opens His compassionate heart to all those who turn to Him."'

The Sultan still prolonged his attempts at negotiation, and sent to ask the King, 'Why have you brought ploughs, spades, and other implements wherewith to cultivate a land which is ours? I could have given you quite enough wheat for the time that you will be here.' As if to say ironically, 'You are young and delicate, and will not remain here long.' To which the King answered, 'I made a vow and took an oath to come hither, and as far as it was in my power I fixed a time for my arrival, but I have neither made a vow nor taken an oath to return, nor have I fixed any time for my departure. That is why I brought agricultural implements with me.'

There were the same delays and loss of time in Damietta as there had been in Cyprus. The army waited for the arrival of new Crusaders, and whilst waiting they quarrelled over the booty taken in the city, consuming and wasting it without forethought; they fell into all kinds of excesses, which Louis saw and mourned over, but had not the power to repress. 'The barons began to give sumptuous banquets,' says Joinville, 'with great profusion of dishes, and the common soldiers gave themselves up to low debauchery; and it was for this reason that, when we returned from captivity, the King dismissed nearly all his attendants. When I asked him why he had taken such a step, he told me that he knew for certain that the men whom he had dismissed had kept places of ill fame within a stone's throw of his own tent, and that at a time when the army was enduring greater hardships and misery than it had ever known.'

At length, on the 20th of November, after five months of inactivity in Damietta, the army resumed its march: it had received important reinforcements from Europe; among others it had been joined by Alphonse, Count of Poitiers, one of the brothers of the King, and his suite; there was also a strong force of English crusaders just returned from Palestine, whither they had gone at first. Queen Margaret and many pilgrims were left at Damietta under the charge of five hundred chosen knights. There was no port at Damietta, and therefore many prudent leaders urged the seizure of Alexandria, so as to obtain a seaport before proceeding further; but, in opposition to their advice, it was decided that the army should march direct upon Babylon, that suburb of Cairo now known as 'Old Cairo,' which in their ignorance the majority of the Crusaders believed to be the true Babylon, and in which they hoped to find vast treasures and to avenge the ancient wrongs of the Hebrew captives. 'It is the head of the whole kingdom of Egypt,' said the Count of Artois, the impetuous brother of the King, 'and he who would destroy the serpent entirely must crush its head.' But the Mussulmans had now had time to recover from their first panic. They had reassembled their forces and prepared a vigorous resistance at all points; every day, at every step, the Crusaders were exposed to sudden attacks, and were assailed by instruments of war hitherto unknown to them. Louis was grievously disquieted. 'Every time,' says Joinville, 'that our holy king heard that the Saracens were throwing Greek fire, he would cast himself upon his couch and stretch out his hands towards the crucifix, saying, "Dear Lord God, take care of my people, keep them for me!" But his people would not take care of themselves, and the wisest counsels could not influence them so much as the impulsive ardour of the Count of Artois. On the 8th of February, 1250, twenty leagues from Damietta, at a place called Mansourah (or the City of Victory), which stands on the right bank of the Nile, the battle began. There was at first a promise of brilliant success for the Christians, but dissension arose between the Count of Artois and William of Sonnac, the Grand Master of the Templars: the latter wished to wait until the King and the bulk of the army came up, so that they might push their victory to the uttermost. 'At all events,' he said, 'it is to the Templars that the King has assigned the front rank on the march, and Count Robert's place is behind them.' Whilst this dispute was going on, an old tutor of the prince, called Foucault de Merle, who was deaf, and understood nothing that was being said, seized the bridle of Robert's horse and urged him onward, shouting, 'Forward, forward!' Robert turned to the Grand Master, and said that if he was afraid he could stay behind. 'Neither I nor my brethren are afraid,' answered William of Sonnac, 'we will not stay behind, we will go with you, but I greatly doubt whether any of us will ever return.' William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, the chief of the English crusaders, also put forward a few objections, but the Count of Artois replied to them with insults. 'Count Robert,' said William, 'I shall face danger and death without any fear, and we shall soon be in a place where you will not venture to come near my horse's tail.'

A messenger now arrived, saying that the King commanded his brother to wait for him. But Robert did not heed this, and galloped forward so as to be the first to enter Mansourah, followed by all those who had attempted to dissuade him. The Saracens, thinking that the whole Christian army was upon them, fled from the place; soon, however, they began to rally, especially the Mamelukes, a force consisting of Turkish slaves, and the chief strength of the Egyptian army; they rushed back into Mansourah and attacked the Christians, who were now broken up into small groups and scattered in all directions. The Count of Artois fell, covered with many wounds, and with him more than three hundred knights, his followers; the same number of English knights, with their leader, William Longsword, as also two hundred and eighty Templars, paid with their lives for the intemperate zeal of the French prince.

The King hastened to the support of his brother, but before he reached him or knew his fate he was himself surrounded by a host of Saracens, and he and his suite were engaged in a fresh and exciting scene of action. 'Never,' says Joinville, 'have I beheld so noble a knight; he was seen above all the rest, for he was taller by the whole head and shoulders; he had a gilded helmet on his head and a long German sword in his hand.' The combat grew so fierce that Louis was for a moment separated from his companions, and on the point of being taken prisoner by six Saracens, who had already seized his horse's bridle; he freed himself by some tremendous sword strokes, and was immediately surrounded by his knights, who had rushed to his rescue in alarm and fury. 'It is said,' writes Joinville, 'we should all have been lost on that day if the King had not been there in person.'

The Saracens began to give way: one of the knights of Malta, Henry of Ronnay, approached the King. Louis asked him if he had news of the Count of Artois, his brother; the knight answered that he had great news, for he was certain that the Count of Artois was in Paradise. 'Ah, sire!' he added, 'be of good comfort, for never King of France attained to such honours as you have done; you have crossed a dangerous river to meet your enemies, and have defeated them and put them to flight. You have captured their engines of war and their tents, and this night you will sleep in their quarters.' 'And the King answered, "that we ought to praise God for all His good gifts," and great tears fell from his eyes.'

All those who were engaged in this great struggle were as deeply affected as the King, but they did not all show such pious sorrow. In the heat of the tumult, 'Seneschal,' said the Comte of Soissons to Joinville, 'let these curs howl on, but, par la Coiffe-Dieu—his usual oath—we shall yet tell of this day in the ladies' bowers.'

Although the Crusaders held possession of the field of battle, they did not occupy it as victors: their losses had been heavy and memorable; the enemy hovered on all sides of them, and increased in number and audacity from hour to hour. On Friday, the 11th of February, three days after the battle of Mansourah, the King's camp was attacked by a swarm of Saracens, mounted and on foot. 'When they approached our army they began to throw bolts and darts, and to hurl stones according to their custom, and they fell so thick and fast that many of those present said they had never seen a heavier hail-storm. It was easy to see that these men had no fear of death, and held their lives cheap. When some were tired, others, fresh and eager, took their places. To me they did not seem like men, but more like savage wild beasts.' The Crusaders defended themselves heroically, sometimes entrenched behind their palisades, at others rushing forth to scatter their assailants. Louis was always to be found at the point of greatest danger. 'He was never of sad countenance, nor timorous, nor dismayed, and his face showed very clearly that there was neither fear nor perturbation in his heart.'

The Saracens were driven back at all points; and at the close of the day, when his nobles were gathered around him, the King said: 'We owe hearty thanks to our Lord for what He has done for us twice during this week; such great honour, that on Tuesday, the day before Lent, we drove the infidels from their camp, which we now occupy, and on the Friday following, the day just ended, we have defended ourselves against them, although we were on foot, whilst they were mounted.' [Footnote 25]

[Footnote 25: Faure, vol. i. p. 561; Joinville, chap. liv.]

But the most exalted virtues cannot compensate for the want of prudence and forethought, and neither great valour nor devout trust in God can remedy the defects of an ill-timed and badly-planned enterprise. When Louis rushed into his crusade he had not duly considered his own position and his strength, nor had he taken into account the difficulties and chances of the enterprise. He was not a victorious barbarian like Tchinggis Khan, overrunning and laying waste the whole world at the head of a wandering nation. Nor was he an adventurer-king like Richard Cœur-de-Lion, engrossed by his own pleasure and glory. In the middle of the thirteenth century the Crusades were no longer the objects of popular and universal interest throughout Christendom as they had been at the end of the eleventh. They had lost the seduction of novelty and the illusion of success. The crusades of Louis le Jeune and Philippe-Auguste had both failed; the Christian kingdom had disappeared from Jerusalem, and at Constantinople the Latin Empire was falling into ruin. When Louis left Damietta to conquer Egypt he was at the head of from 30,000 to 40,000 men, knights and soldiers, but a campaign of two months and two battles had sufficed to reduce this army to such an extent that from the 11th of February, 1250, king and nobles hoped for no more than to defend themselves against their enemies. Sickness and want of provisions soon augmented the difficulties of their situation; each day the Christian camp was more and more encumbered by the starving, the dying, and the dead: the necessity of retreat was evident to all. There was now a new Sultan, Malek-Moaddam, with whom Louis opened negotiations, offering to evacuate Egypt and give up Damietta provided that the kingdom of Jerusalem was restored to the Christians, and his army allowed to retreat unmolested. The Sultan seemed inclined to entertain this proposal, and asked what security the King would give him for the surrender of Damietta. Louis offered one of his brothers as a hostage. The Mussulman demanded the King himself. With one voice the whole army protested: 'We would rather,' said Geoffrey of Sargines, 'have been all slain or taken prisoners than have endured the reproach of having left our King in pawn.' The Sultan broke off all negotiations; and on the 5th of April, 1250, the Crusaders decided on a retreat.

It was at this time that all the virtues of the Christian were shown in their noblest and most attractive form in the King. Before the departure of he army, and whilst disease and famine were ravaging the camp, he went about to visit, to console, and to tend the sufferers; his presence and his words exercised a subtle influence over the sick and desponding. One day he had sent his chaplain Guillaume de Chartres to visit one of his personal attendants, a very worthy and humble man, named Gaugelme, who was at the point of death. As the chaplain was leaving—'I am waiting until my lord our holy King comes,' said the dying man: 'I cannot leave this world until I have seen him and spoken to him; then I shall die.' So the King went to see his servant, and spoke to him with much affection, and consoled him. He had only just left him, and had not reached his own tent, when he was told that Gaugelme was dead.

When the 5th of April arrived, the day fixed for the retreat, Louis himself was ill and very weak. He was urged to embark in one of the boats which was to sail slowly down the Nile carrying the wounded and those who were dangerously ill; but he refused peremptorily, saying, 'I will not be separated from my people in the hour of danger.' He remained on shore, and when the time came for starting he fainted several times from exhaustion. 'They called to us as we were sailing down the river,' says Joinville, 'to say that we must wait for the King.' But Louis persisted in his resolve; he was one of the last to leave the camp, mounted on a small Arab horse covered with silk housings; he accompanied the rear-guard, watched over by Geoffrey of Sargines, who was by his side, and 'defended me against the Saracens,' said Louis himself to Joinville, 'like a good servant who drives off the flies from his master's winecup.'

But the courage of the King and the devotion of his faithful followers could not even enable them to make good their retreat. About four leagues from the camp which they had just left, in a village situated on a slight eminence where it was still possible to attempt a defence, the rear-guard of the Crusaders, pressed, harassed, surrounded by Saracen troops, was compelled to halt. Louis could no longer sit upon his horse. 'They carried him into a house,' says Joinville, 'and laid him down almost dead, and a citizen's wife from Paris took his head upon her knees; they did not believe that he would last until evening.' With his consent one of his faithful followers went out to parley with one of the Mussulman chiefs: a truce was about to be concluded, and the Mussulman was in the act of taking the ring off his finger as a pledge that he would keep it; 'but meantime,' says Joinville, 'a very great misfortune befell us, for a vile traitor of a sergeant, whose name was Marcel, began shouting out to our people, "Sir knights, give up your arms, the King commands it; do not cause your King to be slain." And so, believing that the King had commanded it, they gave up their swords to the Saracens.' Being made prisoners, the King and all the rear-guard were now taken back to Mansourah. The King was put on board a boat; his two brothers, the Counts of Poitiers and Anjou, with all the other Crusaders, were bound with cords, and followed in a great troop marching on foot along the banks of the river.

The vanguard and all the rest of the army—those who, like Joinville, were sailing down the Nile, and those who travelled by land—soon met with the same fate. 'We thought it better,' says Joinville, 'to surrender to the Sultan's galleys, because then we had a chance of keeping together, than to surrender to the Saracens on the shore, who would have separated us, and sold us to the Bedouins. An old quartermaster said, "Sire, I can't swallow this advice." I asked him what he would like better, and he said, "To my mind it would be much better if we were all slain, for then we should go to Paradise." But we did not agree with him.'

All the prisoners were collected at Mansourah—more than ten thousand in number, says Joinville. And here the King met with fresh trials, and we have again to record his heroic Christian deeds. He was a prisoner, and was at first loaded with chains; he was so ill and weak that he could not stand: his teeth chattered, his face was pallid and covered with sores, and he was so thin that his bones seemed as if they would start through his skin. All his clothes were lost, and he had nothing but just one green surtout which a poor fellow in his service stripped off and gave to him; he had but one attendant left, a man named Ysambert, who cooked for him, dressed and undressed him, even carried him about, and this man says that never did he see the King angry or cast down, or complaining: on the contrary, he bore his own sufferings and the adversity of his followers with great patience, and prayed without ceasing. His fervent and unwearied piety excited the respect of the Mussulmans, and one of them brought him his Breviary, which had been lost at his capture. Louis received it with great joy, and at once resumed his observance of the services of the Catholic Church. The Sultan, Malek-Moaddam, freed him from his fetters and put an end to all his privations; he even treated him with a certain magnanimity; but at the same time he asked as the price of a truce and his liberty the immediate surrender of Damietta, a heavy ransom, and the restitution of several places in Palestine still held by the Christians. The Sultan would have liked to treat separately with all the principal Crusaders, in the hope of setting them at variance, and he therefore addressed the same demands to all of them. Louis forbade his followers to enter into any private negotiations, saying that it was for him alone to make terms for all of them, and that he would pay for all. The Sultan sent word to the Christian chiefs that he would have them beheaded if they refused his demands; but they all obeyed the King's injunction. Louis on his side answered that the places which he was called upon to surrender were not his; some of them belonged to foreign princes, who alone had any right to dispose of them, and others to the religious orders, Templars and Hospitallers, who had taken an oath never to surrender them for the ransom of any one, let him be whom he might.

The Sultan was surprised and annoyed. He threatened to put the King to the torture, or send him to the Grand Khalif of Bagdad, who would keep him in prison for the rest of his life. 'I am your prisoner,' said Louis; 'you can do with me as you will.'

'We are greatly astonished,' said the Mussulman. 'You say that you are our prisoner, and we had indeed thought so; but you treat us as if we were held captives by you.' The Sultan understood that he had to deal with a man of indomitable will, and the negotiations were therefore restricted to arrangements for the ransom and the surrender of Damietta. Louis was asked 500,000 livres [Footnote 26] (about £405,280 of our money) as the price of his liberty. 'I will gladly pay 500,000 livres as the ransom of my followers,' said he, 'and I will restore Damietta in return for my own liberty, for I am not a man who can be redeemed with gold.'

[Footnote 26: It is probable that the livre spoken of is the livre Tournois, and, according to M. de Wailly, this would be a sum of about 10,132,000 francs in modern French money.]

'By my faith,' said the Sultan, when he heard this, 'the Frank is a fine fellow not to higgle over such a sum of money. Go back, and tell him that I will give him 100,000 livres to help him pay the ransom.'

The negotiations were concluded on this basis: victors and vanquished left Mansourah, and travelling some by land and others down the river Nile, they arrived within a few leagues of Damietta. There, for the first time, the King and the Sultan had an interview; they decided on the manner in which the convention should be carried out, and appointed the 7th of May for the surrender of Damietta.

But on the 2d of May there was a great tumult in the Mussulman camp. Hurried movements and confused cries indicated some serious outbreak; Louis and his nobles waited anxiously, not knowing what was going on, or what the result would be to themselves. Suddenly several Mussulmans, Emirs of the Mamelukes, entered the King's tent, sword in hand, with an excited but not threatening aspect: they had just killed the Sultan Malek-Moaddam; he had incensed them, and they had been plotting against him for a long time.

'Fear nothing,' they said to Louis, with great deference, 'and, gentlemen, do not be alarmed. You need not be astonished at what has just taken place; there was no help for it. Fulfil your part of the treaty that has been made, and you shall soon be free.'

Then one of the Mameluke conspirators, Faress-Eddin-Octaï, who had just helped to kill the Sultan with his own hands, and to tear out his heart, entered the tent, sword in hand: 'What will you give me?' he said to the King, 'I have killed your enemy, who would have put you to death if he had lived;' and he then abruptly demanded that Louis should make him a knight. It was a very honourable title in the eyes of Orientals, and Saladin himself had been willing to receive it at the hands of one of his Christian prisoners. Louis answered nothing; several Crusaders around him urged him to gratify the wish of the Emir, with whom the decision of their fate now rested.

'I will never make a knight of an infidel,' said Louis. 'Let the Emir become a Christian, then I will take him back to France with me, and enrich him, and make him a knight.' At this the Mameluke withdrew in silence.

It has been said that the Mussulman conspirators, being puzzled in the choice of a new sovereign, and filled with admiration for the piety and resolution of Louis, which were equally indomitable, entertained the notion of making him their sultan. 'Do you think that I ought to have accepted the kingdom of Babylon [Footnote 27] if it had been offered me?' he once asked of Joinville. '"I answered," says Joinville, "that if he had he would have done a very foolish thing, seeing that they had just murdered their lord." Nevertheless, he said that he would not have refused it. And you must know that the project only failed because they said that the King was the haughtiest Christian ever known.'

[Footnote 27: See page 66, line 6: "Babylon, that suburb of Cairo now known as 'Old Cairo,'…">[

After three days of excitement and uncertainty in both camps, during which the Christians were at one moment threatened with a general massacre and the next treated with the greatest consideration, the negotiations were resumed and concluded, the terms being almost the same as those agreed upon by the King and the late Sultan. On the 5th of May, Louis with his nobles and the Mameluke chiefs had arrived before the walls of Damietta. There fresh dangers awaited them: some of the Saracens wanted to take possession of the town by force, and made an unsuccessful attempt to scale the walls; the Crusaders whom Louis had left to defend it, and at their head Queen Margaret, who had only just given birth to a son, hesitated to give the town back into the hands of the infidels. At every new difficulty and delay the Emir Faress-Eddin-Octaï, he whom Louis had refused to make a knight, said to the messengers who passed between, them, 'Tell the King from me that, so long as he is in our hands, he must not show in any way that this annoys him, or he is a dead man.' At length all the difficulties were removed, and the conditions agreed upon for the payment of the ransom and setting the Christian prisoners at liberty were fulfilled.

[Footnote 28 (unknown location on this page): Guillaume de Chartres; Bouquet's 'Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France,' vol. xx. p. 31; Joinville, chap. lxxii.]

On the morning of the 7th of May, 1250, Geoffrey of Sargines restored the keys to the Emirs; the Saracens rushed into the town in great disorder, and committed all kinds of acts of violence.

While the King was waiting on board his ship for the completion of the payment of the ransom for his brother the Count of Poitiers, a Saracen came up to him very well clad and a goodly man as to his person, and presented him with some jars of curdled milk and flowers of divers kinds, telling him that they were from the children of the Nazar [Footnote 29] of the former Sultan of Babylon. He spoke in French, and the King asked him where he had learnt it; upon which he answered that he had formerly been a Christian. Then the King said, 'Depart from me, for I will not speak another word to you.'

At length Louis saw a galley approaching in which he recognised his brother: 'Light up! light up!' he shouted to his sailors. It was the signal agreed upon for their departure, and leaving the shores of Egypt the whole Christian fleet set sail for the Holy Land.

[Footnote 29: Farmer-general Inspector. ]

Chapter IX.
St. Louis In Palestine And Syria.

Independently of the heavy losses which he had incurred during his stay in Egypt, the forces of the King were still further diminished when he set sail for the Holy Land by the desertion of some of the principal leaders who had accompanied him. The Count of Soissons, of Bretagne, and many others, who were either sick, disheartened or penniless, renounced the crusade and set out for Europe. When on the 14th of May he arrived at St. Jean d'Acre—a remnant of the kingdom of Jerusalem still belonging to the Christians—Louis had no difficulty in discovering that many of those who had accompanied him so far now wished to leave him. He had at all times shown great consideration for the opinion and wishes of his subjects—a very rare virtue in monarchs—and he preferred the acquiescence of free men to the obedience of slaves. He called them together in council, and said:—

'My Lords! The Queen my mother has entreated and commanded me, so far as it is in her power, to return to France, as my kingdom is in great danger, for I have neither peace nor truce with the King of England. On the other hand, the people of this country to whom I have spoken tell me that this land is lost if I leave it, for all those who are in Acre will follow me, since none dare remain in it with so small a force. I beg you, therefore, to take this matter into consideration; and because this question is of such grave importance, I give you until this day week to deliberate, and then you will answer as it seemeth good to you.'

'On the following Sunday,' says Joinville, 'we presented ourselves before the King, who then asked his brothers and other lords what advice they gave him, whether to go or stay. They all answered that they had deputed Guy of Mauvoisin to convey their opinion to the King. The King commanded him to proceed with that which he had undertaken to do, and he spoke as follows: "Sire, my lords, your brothers and the other nobles here present, have carefully considered your position, and they see that you cannot remain in this country with honour either to yourself or your kingdom. For of the knights who accompanied you, and who joined you in Cyprus, numbering in all two thousand eight hundred, there are not now a hundred in this town. Therefore, sire, they advise you to go back at once to France and provide yourself with men and money, so that you may quickly return to this country and avenge yourself on the enemies of God who held you in prison." The King would not rest content with the opinion expressed by Guy of Mauvoisin, but questioned the Count of Anjou, the Count of Poitiers, and many other nobles who were seated behind them, and they all agreed with him who had spoken for them. . . . I was the fourteenth in rank, and sat opposite the legate,' continues Joinville; 'he asked me what I thought, and I said that, if the King could manage to carry on the campaign for a year, he would gain great honour by remaining. And the legate said angrily, "How is it possible for the King to carry on the campaign with such a handful of troops?" I answered with equal warmth, for I thought he had said it to annoy me, "Sir, since you wish it, I will tell you. It is said—I do not know if it is true—that the King has not yet spent any of his own money, but only the money of the clergy. Let the King therefore now expend the royal treasure, and send to seek for knights in the Morea and over the sea. When they hear of the high pay which the King offers, knights will come to him from all quarters, and then he will be able to carry on the campaign for a year if it pleases God, and by staying he will deliver the poor prisoners who were taken captive when they were serving God and the King, and who will never be set free at all if the King goes away." There was not one present who had not dear friends in prison; therefore no one answered, but all began to weep. The legate next questioned William of Beaumont, who was at that time Marshal of France, and he answered that I had spoken well. "And I will tell you why," said he. But his uncle, the good knight Jean of Beaumont, who was very anxious to return to France, stopped him most rudely, crying out, "Now, long tongue! what do you want? Sit down and be quiet." The King said, "My lord Jean, that was not well done: let him speak." "Certes, sire, I will not let him;" and the Marshal was forced to be silent. No one else agreed with me except the lord of Chatenay. Then the King said, "My lords, I have listened with attention to all that you have to say, and I will answer you on this day week, and inform you what it is my pleasure to do."

'When we had left the presence of the King I was attacked on all sides. "The King is mad, Sieur de Joinville, if he takes your advice rather than that of the whole kingdom of France." The tables were laid soon after this, and the King bade me sit near him during the repast, in the place where I always sat when his brothers were not present. He did not speak one word to me while the meal lasted, which was not his wont, for he always showed me great attention at that time. I verily believed that he was angry with me for saying that he had not employed his own money, when he had really expended such very large sums. Whilst the King was at prayers after the repast, I went away to a grated window which was in a recess near the head of the King's bed, and put my arms through the bars, and then folded them outside the window; and I stood there leaning against the window, and thinking that if the King returned to France I would go to the Prince of Antioch (who was a kind of relation, and had sent to seek me) until there was another crusade, by the help of which the prisoners might be set free. …

'At that moment the King came up, and leant on my shoulder, and placed his two hands on my head. I thought it was Philip of Nemours, who had annoyed me the whole day on account of my advice to the King, so I said, "Leave me in peace, Monseigneur Philippe!" Now it chanced that, as he was trying to turn my head towards him, the King's hand slipped down over my face, and then I knew that it was the King, because of an emerald which he wore on his finger. And he said, "Be still; I want to ask how you, who are so young, could be so bold as to venture to advise me to stay, in opposition to all the greatest and wisest men of France, who counselled me to go?" "Sire," I answered, "if I had an evil thought in my heart, I would never, at whatever cost, advise you to carry it out." "Do you say," he continued, "that I shall do an ill deed if I leave this land?" "Yes, sire, I do believe it, so help me God in time of need!" And he said, "If I stay, will you stay?" I replied, "Yes, if I can; either at my own expense or at that of some one else." "Now be of good cheer," he said; "for I am right well pleased with what you have said; but tell no one of it all this week."

'On the following Sunday we met again in the presence of the King, and when he saw that we were all assembled, he said, "My lords, I thank all those who advised me to return to France, and I also return many thanks to those who advised me to stay here. Now I have considered this matter, and if I stay here I do not see that there is any danger of the loss of my kingdom, for the Queen Regent has plenty of men who will defend it. And I have thought much, also, of what the knights in this country say, that if I depart Jerusalem is lost, for no one will dare to stay after I am gone. I have determined, therefore, that I will not at any cost leave the kingdom of Jerusalem which I came to conquer and to keep. And now I am firmly resolved to stay here for the present, and therefore I ask the great lords who are here, as well as all good knights who are willing to stay with me, to come and speak to me freely, and I will give you such ample supplies that the fault shall not be with me if you do not remain." Many who heard these words were put to shame by them, and many wept.' [Footnote 30]

[Footnote 30: Joinville, chap. lxxxii. &c.]

Having resolved to stay in the East, Louis hastened the departure of his two brothers, the Count of Anjou and the Count of Poitiers, together with those Crusaders who wished to renounce the expedition; and he sent them to France, bearing a long letter addressed 'to his dear and faithful prelates, nobles, knights, citizens, burgesses, and the whole people of the kingdom of France.' It contained an admirably candid account of all that he had done and what had befallen him in Egypt, from the capture of Damietta to the time that he had set sail for Acre, and a pressing exhortation to send the reinforcements which he wanted in order to obtain the freedom of all the Christians still kept in captivity by the Mussulmans, and to insure the safety of all the towns and possessions still held by Christians in Palestine and Syria. I do not hesitate to affirm that never, in any age or in any country, has a sovereign laid before his people his actions and motives, his aims, his failure, his success and his needs, with more unflinching frankness, with so much modest dignity, and such deep religious feeling. [Footnote 31]

[Footnote 31: My account of this remarkable document is taken from the text given in the supplements to the edition of Joinville published by Ducange (1668), pp. 384-388.]

To such an extent did Louis carry his conscientious scruples and virtuous inflexibility, that, after the departure of his brothers, 'he called together all the officers of his household, exhorted them to lead sober and chaste lives, and said that, if any were afraid of failing in this duty, he was prepared to grant leave for their return to the West. Not one asked for this permission. But some time after St. Louis found that there were sixteen or seventeen who had not lived as they ought to have done; he dismissed them from his household, and would not pardon them for three or four months, until Easter of the following year.' [Footnote 32]

[Footnote 32: Tillemont, vol. iii. p. 392.]

We have no very definite or reliable information as to the numerical strength of the army after the desertion of the King's brothers, but there can be little doubt that it was unequal to the double task which Louis had set before him—the liberation of the Christian captives held by the Saracens, and the security of the Christians in Palestine and Syria. In his own heart Louis always brooded over another project which he did not openly proclaim; this was to snatch the Holy Sepulchre from the Mussulmans and once more establish the kingdom of Jerusalem:—his was one of those ardent natures which hope against hope. Twice he seemed on the point of realizing this dream: in 1250, Malek Hasser, the Sultan of Aleppo and Damascus, who was then at war with the Mameluke Emirs of Egypt, offered to restore the kingdom of Jerusalem if he would enter into active alliance with him against his enemies. The temptation was strong; but, on leaving Damietta, Louis had concluded a ten years' truce with the Emirs, who on their side had undertaken to set free all their Christian captives. The agreement was at that time being carried out. Louis would not break his word to the Mussulmans, nor would he leave the Christians, whom he had promised to deliver, in captivity, and very probably exposed to a frightful massacre. He made answer to the Sultan of Damascus that he would call upon the Egyptian Emirs to fulfil their engagement without any further delay, and that, if they refused, he would willingly make war upon them. The Emirs did not refuse; they even set free a considerable number of the captives, but they still retained some thousands. Louis waited, negotiating slowly both with the Sultan of Damascus and the Egyptian Emirs. In 1252 the latter, being hard pressed by the enemy, applied in their turn to the King, offering to restore the ancient kingdom of Jerusalem with the exception of four places, to set free all their Christian captives, and to excuse the payment of the 200,000 livres still owing for the ransom. Louis accepted the offer, and a treaty was concluded at Cæsarea; but at the very time when it should have been carried out the Egyptian Emirs and the Sultan of Damascus changed their minds, forgot their differences, and united to attack the remnant of crusading Christians.

Louis had not been dismayed by danger or discouraged by reverses, nor could he be daunted by disappointment: he at once threw his whole energy into a consideration of the position of the Christians in Syria and Palestine; he made every effort both to insure their present safety and also to train and prepare them as a basis of support in future crusades. He resolved to spend in the fortification of their towns the 200,000 livres which he was now prevented from devoting to the ransom of Christian prisoners in Egypt, and preparations were at once begun for putting St. Jean d'Acre, Jaffa, Cæsarea, and Sidon in a state of defence; he visited them constantly, and in case of need protected them against the attacks of the Saracens with such forces as he had,—the Crusaders who had not deserted him, the Templars and Hospitallers, and the Christian population of the East. He had sent a great number of workmen to fortify Sidon; the Saracens surprised them, and massacred nearly all of them,—two or three thousand, say the chronicles. The King resolved to avenge them, and to pay them a solemn act of homage; after making a raid upon the towns and lands of the Mussulmans in the vicinity, he arrived before Sidon.

'The corpses of the Christian workmen had been left unburied on the ground, and emitted a pestilential stench. The King did not content himself with giving orders that they should receive Christian burial, nor even with superintending their interment; he put his own hands to the work, touching the ghastly remains with the greatest reverence, and helping to place them in sacks which had been prepared for the purpose. "Let us go," he would say in the morning to his attendants, "let us help to bury those martyrs who have suffered death for the sake of our Lord. And do not be weary in well-doing, for they have endured far greater things than this will cost us." And when he saw his knights shrink with disgust from the task, "Do not loathe these poor bodies," he said, "for these men are martyrs and in Paradise."' [Footnote 33]

[Footnote 33: M. Faure, who gives this account, has collected his material from scattered notices in Joinville, the Confesseur de la Reine Marguerite, Guillaume de Nangis, Guillaume de Chartres, &c.]

Asiatic and European, Mussulman and Christian, the inhabitants of Syria and of the neighbouring countries, all beheld this manifestation of faith, piety, loyalty, persevering courage, and sympathetic goodness with surprise and respectful admiration. The King's name and his person became the object of curiosity and reverence. 'A great troop of pilgrims from Upper Armenia,' says Joinville, 'on their way to Jerusalem, came to me, and begged that I would show them the saintly King. I went to the King, and found him sitting in a tent on the bare sand, without carpet or cushion under him. I said, "Sire, there is a great crowd of pilgrims here, and they have begged me to show them the royal saint; for my own part I have no desire to kiss your bones just yet." The King laughed heartily, and bade me bring them to his presence, which I did. And when they had seen the King, they commended him to God; and the King did the same by them.'

The Mussulmans were sometimes rough and threatening, but Louis speedily made them respectful. The Old Man of the Mountain, who was accustomed to inspire fear in all around him, one day sent a messenger to express his astonishment that the King had not yet, 'in order to keep him as a friend, offered him rich presents, as is done yearly by the Emperor of Germany, the King of Hungary, the Sultan of Babylon, and others.' Louis received the messenger coldly, and told him to return in the afternoon. He did so, and found the King sitting in state, having on his right hand the Grand Master of the Templars, and on his left the Grand Master of the Hospitallers, the two Orders for which the Old Man of the Mountain showed most consideration; 'knowing well,' says Joinville, 'that if he had caused one of the chiefs of either Order to be killed by his assassins he would be replaced by another equally good.' The King had deputed the two Grand Masters to answer for him; they told the messenger 'that his master must be very fool-hardy to venture to send such an insolent message to the King, and that if it had not been for the great respect they felt for the King to whom the messenger had been sent, they would have had him thrown into the filthy sea of Acre in spite of his master. And we command you,' added they, 'to return to your lord, and to come back within a fortnight, bringing such letters and jewels from your prince that King Louis shall be contented with him and with you.'

The Old Man of the Mountain did not venture to resist this summons: his messenger returned a fortnight later bringing presents, to which Louis responded by sending back 'a great abundance of jewels, scarlet cloth, cups of gold, and silver bridles.'

The position of St. Louis was precarious and full of peril, and yet he contrived to inaugurate and maintain friendly relations with the non-Christian races that did not make war on him. It was during his sojourn in Syria that he sent the monk Rubruquis, whose quaint account is still extant, on a mission to Mangou, Khan of the Mongol Tartars.

Louis was influenced not only by political motives, but by the hope of attracting these barbarians to Christianity, and he displayed the credulity of blind zeal in giving credit to the slightest rumour of any readiness on their part to receive the Christian faith. More than once Mussulmans from Egypt or Syria were so deeply touched by his piety and many virtues that they had gone to him, begging to be made Christians. 'He received them with great joy,' says his confessor, Geoffrey of Beaulieu, 'and had them baptized and carefully instructed in the faith of Christ. He supported them entirely at his own expense, took them with him to France, and provided means of subsistence for them, their wives and children.' But this was not all; in 1270, by his will, he enjoined his successor to continue 'to all the converts, great and small, whom we brought from over the sea with us, the supplies which we set apart for them.' [Footnote 34]

[Footnote 34: Bouquet's 'Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France,' vol. xx. p. 16; Duchesne, vol. v. p. 430.]

The ardent piety and royal generosity of the King impressed even his greatest enemies, and extorted from them expressions of esteem, and almost of sympathy. Whilst he was at Jaffa the Sultan of Damascus sent him word that, if he wished, he might make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and that he should do so in perfect safety. 'The King held a great council,' says Joinville, 'and no one advised him to go. They pointed out to him that if he, who was the greatest of Christian kings, visited Jerusalem as a simple pilgrim, without delivering the city from the hands of the enemies of God, all other kings and pilgrims who followed in his steps would be contented to perform their pilgrimage in the same manner as the King of France had done, and would trouble themselves no further about the deliverance of Jerusalem.' They also cited in support of the advice a great example: in 1192, sixty years earlier, an illustrious Crusader, less holy but quite as brave as himself, Richard Cœur-de-Lion, King of England, discovered that he was quite close to the Holy City. One of his knights cried out, 'Come, sire, come hither, and I will show you Jerusalem.' When Richard heard that, he covered his eyes and wept, and cried to our Lord, 'Ah! Lord God, I pray Thee not to let me even see Thy Holy City, since I am not able to deliver it out of the hands of Thine enemies.'

In the beginning of the year 1253 Louis was still in Syria, undertaking many expeditions, devoting himself to the Christian cause, and working for it with more perseverance than success, when at Sidon he received news which caused him the greatest sorrow and anxiety. Queen Blanche, his mother, had resumed her regency during his absence, and he now heard of her death at Paris, the 27th November, 1252. The Pope's legate, the Archbishop of Tyre, and Geoffrey of Beaulieu, the King's confessor, endeavoured to break the sad tidings to him as gently as possible; they went with him into a small private chapel adjoining his chamber, and all sat down near the altar. At their first words Louis uttered a great cry, and, bursting into tears, fell on his knees before the altar. 'So great was his grief,' says Joinville, 'that for two days he could see no one. After that he sent one of his attendants to seek me. When I entered the room in which he was sitting all alone, he stretched out his arms, and said, "Ah, Seneschal, I have lost my mother!"'

His loss was indeed a heavy one, both as son and as king. Even those contemporary writers who are least favourable to her acknowledge that Queen Blanche was 'the most discreet woman of her time, singularly acute and sagacious, with a man's courage, but the attractions and keen perceptions of her sex; magnanimous in her nature, a woman of indomitable energy; sovereign mistress of all the affairs of the century; guardian and protector of France; best to be compared to Semiramis, the greatest among women.'

During her son's minority, and from the time of his departure for the East, she had given him constant proofs of enthusiastic but not blind devotion, and had been very useful to him in spite of being slightly tyrannical. Several of the chroniclers assert that the absence of her son from 1248 to 1252, her anxiety on his account, and the duties which she undertook to perform for him, shortened her life. She died at the age of sixty-five; a few days before her death she bade farewell to the world, took the veil and made her vows as a nun of the Abbey of Maubuisson, which she had founded ten years previously and in which she was buried.

Queen Margaret shared her husband's grief. 'Madame Marie de Vertus,' says Joinville, 'a very excellent and pious woman, came to tell me that the Queen was in great affliction, and begged me to go to her and comfort her. When I entered I found her weeping, and I said that he had spoken truly who said that no faith was to be placed in women, "for she was the woman whom you hated above all others, and yet you show all this sorrow for her." She replied that she did not weep for the death of Queen Blanche, but for the King's grief, and for her daughter Isabella, [Footnote 35] who had been left in France under the care of her grandmother, and would now fall to the charge of men.'

[Footnote 35: Afterwards Queen of Navarre.]

Louis had a sincere love for his wife, and it was well merited, for during the whole crusade both in Egypt and Syria Queen Margaret had displayed both the constancy and courage of her affection. And yet when she rejoined the King at Sidon, in 1253, on hearing of her arrival, Louis asked his seneschal if the Queen and the children were well, and Joinville remarks: 'During the five years I had been with him he had never spoken of the Queen or of his children either to me or any one else. It seemed to me not a right thing thus to be a stranger to his own wife and children.'

But let the degree of affection in the royal household have been what it might, there can be no doubt that his mother Queen Blanche was the woman whom the King most admired, whom he most trusted, and who was treated by him with the greatest respect and consideration.

Chapter X.
Return Of St. Louis To France.
His Domestic Policy.

On the death of the Regent, all the letters which Louis received from France urged his immediate return. The Christians of Syria gave the King the same advice. 'The King,' they said, 'has done everything for us that he can do here; he will now serve us much better if he sends us help from France.' Louis decided on his departure, and embarked at Acre on the 24th of April, 1254. 'He told me that it was the same day of the month as that on which he was born,' says Joinville, 'and I told him he might well say that he had been born again now that he had escaped from that land of peril.'

Thirteen vessels, large and small, composed the King's fleet. As they drew near the isle of Cyprus, the King's ship struck on a sandbank in the night, and seemed in danger of becoming a wreck. The terror of those on board was very great. Queen Margaret was there with the three young children to whom she had given birth in the East. The nurses went to her and said: "Madame, what shall we do with your children? Shall we wake them and take them up?" The Queen, despairing of life in this world either for herself or her children, said: "You will not wake them nor take them up; you will let them go to God in their sleep." The King was entreated to leave the ship and go on board another; he summoned the master-mariners, and said, "Suppose the vessel was yours, and was laden with merchandise; I ask you, upon your honour, if you would abandon it?" And they all answered No, because they would rather run the risk of being drowned than pay 4,000 livres or more for a new ship. "Then why do you advise me to leave the ship?" "Because," they answered, "the stakes are not equal; for no amount of gold or silver can equal the worth of your life, nor of the lives of your wife and children who are on board, and for that reason we urge you not to put yourself and them in danger." Then the King said: "Sirs, I have heard your opinion, and that of my own people, and now in my turn I will give you mine, which is this. If I abandon this ship, there are five hundred persons who will remain in the isle of Cyprus for fear of bodily peril (for there is not one of them who does not love his life as well as I love mine), and who, peradventure, will never return to their own land. Therefore I prefer to place myself, my wife, and my children in the hands of God rather than cause so great an injury to so many persons as are on board."'

I do not think that history affords any other example of a king so mindful of the fate and interests of strangers in the midst of such great danger to him and his. However, the royal vessel got off the shoal, and went on its way; on the 8th of July, after sailing for ten weeks more, the King and all his fleet reached the port of Hyères in Provence, which then belonged to the Empire and not to France. For two days Louis refused to disembark, as he was most anxious on his return to set foot for the first time on the soil of his own land at Aiguesmortes, from whence he had set out six years previously. But at length he yielded to the entreaties of the Queen and of all those with him, landed at Hyères, journeyed slowly through France, and arrived at Vincennes on the 5th of September, 1254. On Sunday, the 6th, he went to St. Denis to thank God for having protected him during his long pilgrimage, and on the following day he made his royal entry into Paris. 'The burgesses and all others in the city went to meet him, decked and dressed in their best, each one according to his means. Other cities had received their king with delight, but Paris showed greater joy than any. For many days there were bonfires, with dances and other public entertainments, which however were put an end to sooner than the people desired; for St. Louis was much troubled at the great expense, the dances, and the frivolities in which they were indulging, and so he went away to Vincennes, in order to put a stop to the whole thing.' [Footnote 36]

[Footnote 36: Joinville, chap. cxxi.—cxxiii.; Bouquet's 'Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France,' vol. xx. p. 70; Tillemont, vol. iv. pp. 31-45.]

I find in Joinville an anecdote relating to just this period of the King's life which is too characteristic to be passed over in silence.

'Whilst the King was staying at Hyères,' he says, 'in order to procure horses to take him into France, the Abbot of Cluny made him a present of two palfreys which were worth quite 500 livres, one for himself and the other for the Queen. When the abbot had made this present, he said: "Sire, I will come to-morrow to speak of things which concern me." On the morrow the abbot returned; the King listened very attentively, and for a very long time. When the abbot had taken leave, I went to the King and said: "Sire, if you will allow me, I wish to ask you whether you have not listened more graciously to the Abbot of Cluny because he gave you those two palfreys yesterday?" The King reflected for some time, and then said, "Yes, truly." "Sire," I said, "do you know why I put this question to you?" "Why?" he asked me. "Because," I answered, "I warn you and advise you to forbid your sworn councillors, when you come to France, to take anything from those who have to plead before them, for rest assured that, if they receive anything, they will listen more patiently and attentively to those who give, as you have done to the Abbot of Cluny." Then the King summoned his council, and repeated what I had said, and they told him I had given him good advice.'

It was in this frame of mind—humble, conscientious, free from egotism, with ready sympathies, and animated not only by reverence for truth and justice, but by love for them—that Louis returned to France, and resumed the government of his kingdom after an absence of six years, during which his efforts on behalf of Christianity had been as heroic as they were unavailing. Those who were nearest to him, and knew him best, were astonished not only at what he had remained, but also at what he had become during his long and severe trial.

'When happily the King had returned to France, with what piety he conducted himself towards God, with what justice towards his subjects, how compassionately towards the afflicted, with what humility in all that concerned himself, and how zealously he endeavoured, according to his strength, to grow in grace,—these things can be attested by those who watched his life closely, and knew how sensitive was his conscience. Persons of most intelligence and discernment think that as gold is more precious than silver, so the life and conduct of the King, after his return from the Holy Land, were devout and regenerate, and of higher excellence than his old manner of life, although even in his youth he was always good and pure, and worthy of great esteem.'

Thus speaks Geoffrey of Beaulieu, the King's confessor, in a brief and simple chronicle—the brevity, in fact, almost amounting to dryness, but the work of a man who was well acquainted with his subject. [Footnote 37]

[Footnote 37: Bouquet's 'Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France,' vol. xx. p. 18.]

These words of his confessor are fully confirmed by the King's subsequent career, by the laws which he enacted, by his domestic policy and relations with foreign Powers, in short by every act in the reign of St. Louis during the fifteen years which elapsed between the return from his first and his departure on his second crusade. His idea of government differed from that of many sovereigns. He did not desire to establish a deliberate and inflexible policy, recognising only one special aim, and pursuing it by means which may be more or less justifiable and more or less successful, but which must always be accompanied by a large share of crime in the rulers, of iniquity in their actions, and of suffering to the country at large. Before the time of St. Louis this had been the policy of his grandfather Philip Augustus, and after him it was more especially that of his grandson Philip le Bel. Both one and the other of these able monarchs laboured ceaselessly to extend the dominion and power of the Crown, to subjugate not only their neighbours but their vassals. Their aim was to destroy the feudal system by force and fraud, and to substitute for it an absolute monarchy; by liberality, as well as usurpation, to place the royal authority high above the power and rights of the nobles and the people.

St. Louis neither desired nor attempted anything of the kind; he did not make war upon the feudal system either openly or covertly, but loyally accepted its general principles which he found embodied in the facts and spirit of the age. Whilst he repressed with great firmness all the attempts of his vassals to throw off their allegiance to him and make themselves independent of the Crown, he respected their rights, was scrupulously mindful of his promises, and exacted no more than was really due to him. He had granted a charter to the heirs of the Countess Mahaut of Boulogne, promising them the county of Dammartin, of which he meanwhile retained possession. At her death, one of her heirs, Renaud, Seigneur de Trie, brought the charter to the King, and claimed fulfilment of the promise. But the seal was broken; and at that time the seal was held to be the only proof that a document was genuine. All that remained of the King's effigy consisted of part of the legs and the stool for the royal feet.

'The King showed it to all of us who were of his council,' says Joinville, 'and asked us to help him in coming to a decision. We all said, without a single exception, that he was in no way bound to execute the charter. Then he asked John Sarrazin, his chamberlain, to hand him a document for which he had asked, and when he received it he said, "Sirs, this is the seal which I used before I crossed the sea, and you can plainly perceive from it that the impression on the broken seal is similar to that on the seal which is entire; therefore I cannot, with a clear conscience, keep back the county." He then called Renaud de Trie, and said, "I make over the county to you."'

Many of his vassals were also vassals of the King of England, and this gave rise to many subtle and difficult questions as to the extent of the service they owed to both kings. These conflicts between custom and duty were very displeasing to Louis.

'At the beginning of the year 1244, he commanded all those nobles who held fiefs in English territory to appear before him in Paris, and addressed them as follows: "As it is impossible for any man living in my kingdom and having possessions in England to serve two masters rightly, you must therefore either attach yourselves altogether to me, or inseparably to the King of England." After saying this, he left them entire freedom of choice.' [Footnote 38]

[Footnote 38: Faure, 'Histoire de St. Louis,' vol. i. p. 401.]

He thus endeavoured to promote justice and peace in the heart of feudal society, instead of cultivating those germs of difficulty and constantly recurring occasions for dissension which he might have used to increase his own power.

Chapter XI.
Foreign Policy Of St. Louis.

In his relations with neighbouring sovereigns Louis showed the same loyalty and endeavour to promote peace which we have noticed in his domestic policy.

'Some members of his council,' says Joinville, 'told him that he did not act wisely in not allowing these foreigners to make war upon one another; for if he left them to impoverish themselves, they would not be so likely to run a-muck at him as if they were very rich. To this the King answered that these words were not well spoken, "for," said he, "if the neighbouring princes see that I leave them to fight, they may well take counsel together, and say, 'The King has some evil design in allowing us to attack each other.' And then, out of the hatred they would bear me, they would all run a-muck against me, and I might lose everything, without taking into account that I should earn the enmity of God, who has said, 'Blessed are the peace-makers.'"

So great was his fame as a true friend of peace and an equitable arbitrator in the contests between princes and people, that his intervention and his decisions were often asked for and accepted, in disputes beset with great difficulty and danger. In spite of his brilliant victories in 1242, over Henry III. of England at Taillebourg and Saintes, Louis saw, after his return from the East, that there was no solid peace between England and France, and that at any moment the possessions which he had acquired by these victories might again give rise to new wars, which would be injurious to both, and possibly disastrous to one people or the other. He conceived the idea of establishing this very desirable peace upon a sound basis, by founding it on a transaction which both sides should acknowledge to be equitable. He succeeded in this by restoring to the King of England some of those possessions which he had lost in the war of 1242, and by obtaining from him in return, 'both in his own name and in the names of his sons and of their heirs, a formal renunciation of all the rights to which they could lay claim in the Duchy of Normandy, the counties of Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and Poitou; a resignation of the homage paid for Berry, Bretagne, Auvergne, Marche, Angoumois, and in general a cession of all the possessions which he and his ancestors; had ever held on the continent of Europe, with the exception of those which the King of France restored to him by this treaty, and of those which he still held in Gascoigne.' For all these the King of England undertook to pay homage to the King of France in the character of Peer of France and Duke of Aquitaine, and to fulfil strictly all the duties of his fiefs.

When Louis informed the members of his council of this transaction, 'they were strongly opposed to it,' says Joinville. 'It seems to us, sire,' they said, 'that if you believe you have no right to the possessions which you and your ancestors have conquered from the King of England, you do not make fitting restitution to the said king unless you restore them all to him; and if you believe that you have a right to them, you throw away all those that you give up to him.'

'Sirs,' answered Louis, 'I am certain that the ancestors of the King of England very justly lost the possessions which I keep; and the land which I give him I do not give it to him and his heirs because they have a right to it, but in order to create love between his children and mine, who are cousins-german. And it seems to me that what I give to him I use right well, for he was not formerly my vassal, and now he comes to do me homage.'

And, in truth, Henry did go to Paris in order to take with him the treaty which he had signed, and to perform the ceremony of homage.

'Louis received him like a brother, but spared him nothing of a ceremony which, according to feudal notions, was no more humiliating than the name of "vassal," which the greatest lords bore proudly. It took place on Thursday, the 4th of December, 1259, in the royal meadow before the palace, and in that part which we now call the Place Dauphiné. There were great crowds of prelates, barons, and other distinguished persons of the two courts and of both nations. The King of England, kneeling and bare-headed, without mantle, belt, sword or spurs, put his joined hands into those of his suzerain the King of France, and said: "Sire, henceforth I am your man, to serve you in word and deed, and I swear and promise to be faithful and loyal and to maintain your right to the utmost of my power, and to do justice at your behest or the behest of your deputy, to the best of my judgment."

'The King then kissed him on the mouth, and raised him up.' [Footnote 39]

[Footnote 39: Joinville, chap. xiv.; Faure, vel. ii. p. 151.]

Three years later Louis gave, not only to the King of England, but to the whole English nation, a striking proof of his prudence, justice, and good faith. A fierce civil war had broken out between Henry and his barons, in which both sides were defending their own rights, whilst neither respected the rights of their adversaries, and England endured alternately the tyranny of the King and the tyranny of the nobles.

Both sides had agreed to submit their differences to the arbitration of the King of France, and on the 23d of January, 1246, Louis pronounced a solemn judgment in favour of the English king, at the same time upholding the Magna Charta and the traditional liberties of the people; his decision closed with these conciliatory words:

'It is also our desire that the King of England and his barons shall mutually forgive each other, and that they shall forget any resentment which may still exist between them, and which has arisen in consequence of the circumstances now submitted to our arbitration; and that from henceforth they shall respectively abstain from any annoyance or injury on account of these circumstances.'

But when opinions and interests are violently opposed and passions fully roused, the wisest decrees and most prudent counsel that man can utter do not suffice to re-establish peace; the lessons taught by experience are often absolutely necessary, and the opponents will not submit until one or the other, and perhaps both, are exhausted in the struggle, and feel the absolute necessity either of making some concession or accepting their defeat. The conciliatory arbitration of the King of France did not put a stop to the civil war in England; but Louis did not seek in any way to take advantage of it in order to increase his own possessions and power at the expense of his neighbours: he stood aloof from their quarrels, and his unsuccessful mediation was followed by an honest neutrality.

Five centuries later the great historian Hume wrote the following encomium:—'Whenever this prince interposed in English affairs, it was always with an intention of composing the differences between the King and his nobility; he recommended to both parties every peaceable and reconciling measure; and he used all his authority with the Earl of Leicester, his native subject, to bend him to compliance with Henry.' [Footnote 40]

[Footnote 40: Hume, vol. ii. p. 38.]

Louis pursued the same course towards all neighbouring states, great and small, strong and weak. In Flanders, Piedmont, Provence, Arragon, everywhere and on every occasion, his chief aim was to promote peace and to uphold both the laws of the land and the rights of the people. He was at the same time energetic and circumspect, always ready to use the influence which naturally belongs to a king of France, but he never allowed France to be compromised by the difficulties and quarrels of other nations; nor would he tolerate the use of his country's name and weight to serve the ends of any mere personal ambition, not even if these ends would have promoted his own interest or that of his family. He gave a very decided refusal to the offer of the crown of Sicily for one of his sons. The Pope (Urban IV.) claimed the disposal of it, and urgently desired Louis to take it. When the crown was accepted by his brother Charles Count of Anjou, Louis, who had no power to prevent his receiving it, showed his displeasure openly and would give no sanction to the act.

The sovereign Pontiff wrote oftentimes to the King, entreating him to help his brother, who was already in Italy. He described the arrival of the Count of Anjou in Rome, without money, without horses: he conjured the King 'in the name of their brotherly love, in the name of Holy Church, his mother, or rather in the name of Him who repays a hundredfold all that is lent to Him.' But in vain; Louis contributed neither his son, his money, nor his men. He disapproved of the enterprise; for although Pope Innocent IV. had excommunicated and deposed the Emperor Frederick II. [Footnote 41] in the presence of the Council of Lyons but without its approbation, Louis considered that the House of Suabia—of which Conradin was the last and only representative—had an indisputable right to the crown of Sicily, and he refused to be a party to any action which might weaken its claims.

[Footnote 41: On the 17th of July, 1245.]

But prudence does not always suffice to prevent a government, whether monarchy or republic, from rushing into a fruitless and disastrous enterprise and dragging a whole nation after it; political honesty and respect for right and justice give a far more essential and much safer guarantee against the commission of similar crimes than mere prudence. Louis IX. was not a prudent monarch by disposition or nature; his conduct with regard to the Crusades shows how far it was possible for him to be led astray by irresistible impulse and rash enthusiasm; but when there was a right to be respected, a duty to be fulfilled, in his relations with his people and with other sovereigns, he was cautious and circumspect. The nobility of his nature made him more prudent than his descendant Louis XI. two centuries later, in spite of the much-vaunted and undoubted ability of that monarch.

Chapter XII.
The King's Legislative And Administrative Power.

Something higher than prudence, higher even than virtue is required, if a monarch—a man to whom the government of men has been committed—is to accomplish his entire task and actually to deserve the title of 'Very Christian.' He must know the 'enthusiasm of humanity'; his heart and brain must be in sympathy with the vast number of human beings over whose fate he exercises so great an influence.

More than any king who has ever lived, St. Louis seems to have been actuated by this generous sympathy and fellow-feeling with his subjects. He loved his people and he loved mankind spontaneously, and because he could not help it; he took the tenderest and deepest interest in their destiny, their happiness, their sorrows. He was dangerously ill in 1259, and desired to give his last and most earnest advice to his son, Prince Louis, who died the year following. He said: 'Fair son, I pray you to teach the people of your kingdom to love you; for verily I would rather that a Scotchman should come from Scotland and govern the people of this realm loyally and well, than that you should govern them badly.'

To govern wisely, to watch over the interests of all classes in his kingdom, to secure strict and ready justice to all his subjects, these things were sources of continued and anxious solicitude to St. Louis. M. Félix Faure, in the history to which I have alluded, enumerates all the journeys which the King undertook in his own country between 1254 and 1270, in order to make himself acquainted with the facts and details of his government; and he also gives an account of all the 'Parlements' which Louis held during the same period for the better administration of justice: these two tables show how unceasing was his activity. Joinville's account of the simple and kindly manner in which St. Louis would himself listen to the grievances of his subjects, and administer justice, has been often quoted, but I cannot resist the temptation of repeating it.

'Now many a time it befell,' he says, 'that in summer, after mass, the King would go and sit down in the wood at Vincennes with his back to an oak, and would make us all sit round him. And all those who had any grievance came to speak to him without hindrance from any ushers or such folk. And then with his own lips he would question them. "Is there any one here who has a suit to bring before me?" And all those who wished to appeal to him would stand forward; then he would say, "Be silent, all of you, and your cases shall be dispatched one after the other." Upon that he would call Monseigneur Pierre de Fontanes and Monseigneur Geoffroy de Villette, [Footnote 42] and would say to one of them, "Dispose of this case for me." When he saw anything to correct in the words of those who spoke for him, or in the words of those who spoke for others, with his own lips he would correct it. Sometimes, in summer, I have seen him come into the garden at Paris to administer justice to his people, and he would be dressed in a camlet coat [Footnote 43] and a surcoat of tiretaine [Footnote 44] without sleeves, a coat of black taffetas on his shoulders, his hair very carefully combed and without coif, and a hat with white peacock's feathers on his head. Carpets were spread that we might sit around him, and all the people who brought suits before him stood round about, and he would have their cases dispatched in the manner I have described before, as he used to do in the wood at Vincennes.'

[Footnote 42: Two eminent jurists and councillors of St. Louis.]
[Footnote 43: The 'cotte,' or coat, was the principal vestment at that time; the 'surcoat' was worn over it.]
[Footnote 44: 'Tiretaine,' a coarse woollen material, grey, still manufactured in France.]

The active benevolence of St. Louis extended beyond this paternal interest in the private affairs of his people; he gave quite as much attention and interest to those measures which were required by the social conditions of the age and the general welfare of his kingdom. Among the twenty-six ordinances, edicts, and official letters of his reign contained in the first volume of the 'Recueil des Ordonnances des Rois de France,' seven at least were acts of great legislative and administrative importance. These decrees all bear the same character, and whatever may have been their result, their aim was never to extend the power of the Crown or to serve some special interest of royalty when it was struggling with other social forces; they were intended to effect great social and moral reforms, were directed against the violence, the disorder and the abuses of feudal society, and aimed at the extension of justice and peace in the nation, but they did not seek to destroy the existing conditions of society, or to control them exclusively in the interest either of the King or of any one class of citizens.

Many other of the King's ordinances and decrees have been published, either in the later volumes of the work already alluded to or in similar collections. M. Daunou, in an article on St. Louis which he has prepared for the continuation of 'L'Histoire Littéraire de France, par des Membres de l'Institut,' vol. xix. has alluded to a great many inedited documents to be found in different archives. The great collection of legislative enactments known as the 'Etablissements' of St. Louis, which seems to be a kind of general but confused code of laws of the period, is probably a work of jurisprudence of later date than this reign; but in it we see the same endeavour to secure practical and moral reform, and note the same absence of attempt to promote any private interests whatsoever. There is a spirit of such true piety in the paragraph which serves as a preface to this work, that it might have been dictated by St. Louis himself. I reproduce it here, with only such modifications in the language as may be necessary to render it intelligible.

'Louis, by the grace of God King of France, to all good Christians dwelling in the kingdom and under the suzerainty of France, and to all others present and to come, greeting in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.'

'Seeing that malice and fraud are so prevalent in the human race that some men often do wrong and injury and all kinds of evil to their fellows against the will and the law of God, and that there are many who have neither fear nor dread of the terrible day of judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ; and seeing that we wish all our subjects to live in peace and loyalty, and each one to beware of doing any ill to his neighbour for fear of bodily chastisement and loss of worldly goods; seeing that we desire also to punish and repress malefactors by means of the law and by a rigorous execution of justice, and by turning for help to God, who is a true and just Judge above all others: We have therefore ordained these enactments, and we require that justice shall be administered in accordance with them in all lay courts throughout the kingdom and suzerainty of France.'

At the head of one of his essays Montaigne wrote, 'This is an honest book.' We may say of the measures and decrees of St. Louis that they were acts of honest legislation, altogether devoid of egotistical ambition, of party spirit, or the desire of inventing a system; they were inspired solely by an instinctive respect for the common rights of all men, and by love of the public good.

Another act, known as the Pragmatic Sanction, is also given [Footnote 45] as the work of St. Louis, under date of March 1268. Its object is first to assert the rights, liberties, and canonical rules of the Church of France; then to forbid 'the exactions and very heavy pecuniary dues imposed, or which may at any future time be imposed, upon the said Church by the Court of Rome, by which our kingdom has been miserably impoverished, unless they arise from a reasonable, pious and very urgent necessity, from some unavoidable cause, and are imposed with our spontaneous and express consent, together with that of the Church of our kingdom.'

[Footnote 45: Recueil des Ordonnances des Rois de France, vol. i. p. 97.]

The authenticity of this document was eagerly maintained in the seventeenth century by Bossuet, [Footnote 46] and has been asserted in our own days by M. Daunou, [Footnote 47] but many and weighty reasons have been urged in opposition to it, which M. Faure sums up in the following words:—

[Footnote 46: In his defence of the declaration of the clergy of France in 1682, chap. ix.]
[Footnote 47: L'Histoire Littéraire de France, vol. xvi. p. 75.]

'It is not mentioned by any writer of the period, or in any contemporaneous document; in the correspondence between Louis and the sovereign Pontiffs of his reign it is never once alluded to, although analogous subjects were discussed, and the importance of this would have given it precedence over all the others. It was not until two hundred years after the date assigned to it (in the remonstrances presented to Louis XI. by the 'Parlement' of Paris when, on his accession to the throne, he violated the Pragmatic Sanction of his father, Charles VII.) that the Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis was for the first time alluded to and quoted. The authority of his name was then invoked in aid of legislative measures to which the promoters wished to give the appearance of ancient and venerable institutions. It is impossible to understand why Philip le Bel—the grandson of Louis—did not quote this document in his disputes with Boniface VIII. Why did not Charles VI. succeed, if it existed when he tried to put a stop to the exactions of the Court of Rome? Nay, how was it that Charles VII., when he promulgated his Pragmatic Sanction, did not rest it upon an authority and example so highly revered as that of his sainted ancestor?'

I do not intend to discuss this unimportant problem of historical criticism, but I wish to call attention to the fact that, even if the authenticity of the document is open to doubt, there is nothing in the 'Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis' which is not in entire harmony with all that we know of the character and actions of that prince. In his relation to the Papacy he was the respectful, affectionate and faithful son of the Church, but he took good care to maintain the independence of his crown in temporal affairs, and his own right of supervision, and sometimes even of intervention, in spiritual matters. I have already called attention to his cautious and reserved attitude in the great quarrel between the Papacy and the Empire, and to the firmness with which he resisted the violent measures of Gregory IX. and Innocent IV. against the Emperor Frederick II. He carried his notions as to the entire independence of his authority and judgment beyond political matters, and into questions that were purely religious. The Bishop of Auxerre one day said to him, in the name of several prelates: 'Sire, the archbishops and bishops here present desire me to tell you that Christianity is perishing in your hands.' The King made the sign of the cross, and said, 'Now tell me how that may be.' 'Sire,' said the bishop, 'it is because people now-a-days think so little of excommunication that those who are excommunicated are not afraid of dying before they have obtained absolution, and rendered satisfaction to Holy Church. Therefore these prelates require of you, sire, for the love of God, and because you ought so to do, that you command your serjeants and bailiffs, by the seizure of their goods, to compel all those who have been excommunicated for a year and a day to obtain absolution.' And the King replied that he was quite willing to command that this should be done when he had received proof that they were in the wrong. The bishop said that the prelates would not on any account consent to this, and that they did not acknowledge the King's jurisdiction in ecclesiastical matters; and the King said that he would not consent on any other condition, for that it would be against God and against reason if he were to compel those who were excommunicated to seek absolution when not they, but the clergy, were in the wrong.

'For example,' said the King, 'take the case of the Count of Bretagne, who for seven years was at law with the prelates of Bretagne, and all that time was excommunicated, and at the end of it he proved his case, and the Pope condemned them all. Now, if I had constrained the Count to obtain absolution at the end of the first year, I should have sinned against God and against him.' Thereupon the prelates were forced to submit, and I have not heard that any similar demand has ever since been made. [Footnote 48]

[Footnote 48: Joinville, chap. xiii. p. 43.]

Chapter XIII.
Christianity Of St. Louis In His Private And Social Life, As Well As In His Public Career And Political Relations.

I now come to that which is perhaps the most striking and original feature in the character of St. Louis. He was engrossed by religion,—I may say that piety was his ruling passion; and yet his naturally clear and upright judgment in secular and social affairs was scarcely ever disturbed by his religious views. He was not content with the mere forms and appearances of a thing or a person, but must go straight to the very heart of every fact, seeking truth and justice underneath all human conditions, social relations, and royal customs.

Tillemont, the most thorough and minutely accurate of his historians, analyses the life of Louis as the best method of describing it.

'We will study him,' he says, 'first as a simple individual, with no other care than that of his own soul; 'then as a father, the head of a family, having the charge of a wife, children, and servants; and last of all as a king, to whom has been confided the guidance of a whole people, and who has to conduct himself as a Christian prince both toward his own subjects and the nations around.'

I am certain that this was precisely the order in which St. Louis himself viewed his duties, and I shall preserve a certain harmony and conformity with that which was passing in his own thoughts, if I close this sketch by relating some of those incidents in which the innermost recesses of so noble a nature are spontaneously and truthfully revealed.

'He called me one day,' says Joinville, 'and said, "You are a man of such a light nature that I do not dare to speak to you of things relating to God, and I have called these monks who are here because I wish to ask you a question." Now the demand was this:

'"Seneschal, what is God?"

'"Sire," I answered, "so good a thing that better cannot be."

'"Truly," said he, "that is well spoken, for the answer you have given is written down in the book which I hold in my hand. Now I wish to ask," he continued, "which you would prefer to be, a leper or to have committed a mortal sin?" And I, who never told him a lie, I answered I would rather commit thirty mortal sins than be a leper. When the monks had gone, he called me to him alone, made me sit down at his feet, and said, "How could you tell me what you did yesterday?" And I answered that I should say the same thing over again. Then he said, "You spoke rashly and foolishly, for there is no leper so hideous as he who is in a state of mortal sin. When a man dies he is set free from the leprosy of the body, but when a man dies who has committed a mortal sin, he does not know, nor can he be quite sure, that his repentance has been such as to secure the forgiveness of God. And for this reason he ought to be greatly afraid lest this leprosy of sin should last as long as God is in heaven. Therefore I entreat you, as urgently as I can, for the love of God and the love of me, to teach your heart to choose rather that any ill should happen to your body, by leprosy or any other disease, than that mortal sin should attack your soul."

'Another day he asked me,' says Joinville, 'if I wished to be honoured in this world and to go to Paradise when I died; and I said, "Yes." Then he said, "Beware, then, of doing or saying anything wittingly which, if all the world knew, you would be ashamed to own, and would hesitate to acknowledge, I did this, I said that."'

Tillemont says, 'Even in his early youth he had a great dislike to profane oaths in conversation; he contented himself with affirming a thing in the simplest and plainest terms, without introducing the name of God, or of the saints or evangelists, or using a single word which could diminish the respect due to things sacred, whatever cause he might have for anger. When he wished to affirm a thing very strongly, he would say, "Truly it is so," or "Truly it is not so." In order to avoid using other oaths he used at one time to say, "By my name!" but hearing that a religious person found fault with this expression, he never after made use of it' [Footnote 49]

[Footnote 49: Tillemont, vol. v. p. 371.]

M. Faure says: 'It was with the utmost sincerity that he placed the name of Christian high above his title as king. One day, at the Castle of Poissy, the place of his birth, he said to those around him: "In this castle God granted me the greatest blessing and the greatest honour I ever received in this world."

'Every one tried to find out, but no one could guess this honour: his words seemed to point rather to the town of Rheims, where he had been crowned, than to Poissy. At last he said, with a smile, "I was baptized here." He always retained a feeling of affection and gratitude for Poissy, as if it had been his native land. In the letters which he wrote as friend to friend when he wished to discard even the shadow of royal dignity, he was in the habit of styling himself "Louis of Poissy," or "Louis, lord of Poissy."' [Footnote 50]

[Footnote 50: Faure, vol. ii. p. 559.]

I have already spoken of his relation to the two queens, his mother and his wife. His position was often one of great difficulty, but his conduct was never short of exemplary. Louis was a model both of conjugal fidelity and filial piety. He had eleven children by Queen Margaret, six boys and five girls. He loved his wife very tenderly and was scarcely ever apart from her, and the noble courage which she displayed during the first crusade certainly made her dearer to him than ever. But he was not blind to her ambition and her want of political capacity. When he was preparing for his second crusade, he did not confide the regency of France to Queen Margaret in his absence; nay more, before he left the kingdom he took care to regulate her expenses and to restrain her power; he forbade her to receive any presents for herself or her children, to interfere with the administration of justice, or to choose any attendant for herself or her family without the consent of the Council of Regency. He had good reasons for acting in this manner, for about this time Queen Margaret, eager to hold the same position in the state that Queen Blanche had done, was making provision for herself in case of her husband's death. She had induced her son Philip, heir to the throne and at that time only sixteen years old, to take oath that he would remain under her tutelage until he was thirty, that he would have no advisers of whom she did not approve, reveal to her all the designs which were formed against her, enter into no alliance with his uncle, Charles of Anjou, and keep this oath which she administered to him a secret. Louis was probably informed of this strange transaction by his young son himself, and Philip took care to ask Pope Urban IV. to absolve him from his oath. But the King foresaw the tendencies of Queen Margaret, and therefore adopted measures to protect the crown and the kingdom.

The education of his children, their future position and well-being, engrossed the attention of the King as entirely, and were subjects of as keen an interest, as if he had been a father with no other task than the care of his children. 'After supper they followed him to his apartment, where he made them sit around him for a time whilst he instructed them in their duty; he then sent them to bed. He would direct their attention particularly to the good and bad actions of princes. He used to visit them in their own apartment when he had any leisure, inquire as to their progress, and, like a second Tobias, give them excellent instruction. … On Maunday Thursday, he and his children used to wash the feet of thirteen poor persons, give them large alms, and afterwards wait upon them whilst they dined. The King, together with his son-in-law King Thibault, whom he loved and looked upon as his own son, carried the first poor man to the hospital of Compiègne, and his two eldest sons, Louis and Philippe, carried the second. They were accustomed to act with him in all things, showing him great reverence, and he desired that they and Thibault also should obey him implicitly in everything that he commanded.'

He was very anxious that his three children born in the East during the Crusade—Jean Tristan, Pierre, and Blanche—and even his eldest daughter Isabella, should enter the monastic life, which he looked upon as the most likely to insure their salvation; he frequently exhorted them to take this step, writing letters of the greatest tenderness and piety, especially to his daughter Isabella; but, as they did not show any taste for it, he did not attempt to force their inclinations. Thenceforward, he busied himself in making suitable marriages for them, and establishing them according to their rank; at the same time he gave them the most judicious advice as to their conduct and actions in the world upon which they were entering. When he was before Tunis and found that he was sick unto death, he gave the instructions which he had written out in French with his own hand to his eldest son, Philip. They are models of virtue, wisdom, and paternal tenderness, worthy of a king and a Christian. [Footnote 51]

[Footnote 51: There are several versions of these instructions, differing in form but identical in spirit. They are contained in Bouquet's 'Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France,' vol. xx. pp. 84, 300, and 459; Tillemont, vol. v. pp. 166 and 180-383; Faure, vol. ii. pp. 582-593.]

I proceed now from the family of St. Louis to the royal household, and pass on from his children to his servants. In the relation between master and servant we miss the strongest tie—that of blood, and lose that intensely personal and yet disinterested feeling which parents feel when they live again in their children: kindly feeling and custom, much weaker motives, form the bond between master and servant, and give a moral tone to the relation. Now, in St. Louis, the kindliness of his nature was so great that it resembled affection, and called out affection in the hearts of those to whom it was shown.

He could not pardon any breach of morality in his servants, but he passed over in silence all the small faults of which they were guilty, and in such cases treated them not only with gentleness but with that consideration which calls out self-respect, and raises a man in his own eyes, let his position in life be what it may. 'Louis visited his servants when they were sick, and he never failed to pray for them himself and to entreat the prayers of others also, when they were dead. A mass for the dead was chanted for them daily, at which he was always present.'

He took into his household an old servant of his grandfather's, Philip Augustus, dismissed by that king because one day his fire crackled and Jean, who had charge of it, had not been able to make it burn quietly. Now from time to time Louis used to suffer from an inflammation of the right leg. That part between the calf and the ankle would swell, grow very red and cause him great pain. One day when he had an attack of this kind and was lying down, he wished to examine the part affected. Jean held a lighted candle close to the King, and so awkwardly that a drop of boiling grease fell on the bad leg. The King started up from his bed and cried out, 'Oh, Jean, Jean, my grandfather sent you away for a much less thing!' and this exclamation was the only reproof which Jean received for his clumsiness.

Far from the King's household, not engaged in his service, and without any personal claim upon him, there was a large class of persons who nevertheless held an important place in his thoughts and whom he was always ready to help. They were the poor, the infirm, the sick, and all who were destitute and in misery. All the chronicles of the time and the historians of his reign praise his charity as much as his piety, and the philosophers of the eighteenth century almost overlooked his love of relics in consideration of his benevolence. The benevolence of St. Louis was not of that vicarious kind which contents itself with making laws and instituting charities; he was not satisfied merely to build and endow hospitals, infirmaries, and asylums, such as the Hôtel Dieu (or hospital) at Pontoise, those of Vernon and Compiègne, and the Maison des Quinze-Vingt for the blind; it was benevolence shown in his own person, by his own actions, and it taught him that no deed of mercy was beneath the dignity of a king.

Wherever the King might be, a hundred and twenty poor persons received daily two loaves each, a quart of wine, meat or fish enough for a good meal, and a silver penny. Mothers had an extra loaf for each child. Besides these hundred and twenty who received outdoor relief, thirteen others were daily admitted to the palace, and had their meals with the officers of the royal household. Three of them dined at the same time as the King, in the same apartment, and quite near to him.

'Many a time,' says Joinville, 'I have seen him cut their bread for them, and pour out their drink. One day he asked me if I washed the feet of the poor on Maunday Thursday. "Sire," I answered, "what, the feet of those dirty wretches! No, indeed, I shall never wash them." "Truly," replied the King, "you have spoken ill; for you ought not to despise that which God intended for our instruction. I pray you, therefore, first of all for the love of God, and then by your love towards me, that you make a habit of washing their feet."

Sometimes, when the King had a little spare time, he would say, 'Let us go and visit the poor of such a place, and give them a feast to their liking.'

Once when he went to Château Neuf on the Loire, a poor old woman, who was standing at the palace door with a loaf in her hand, said, 'Good King, it is this bread, thy charity, upon which my poor husband lives, who is lying at home very ill.' The King took the loaf, saying, 'The bread is hard enough,' and went with her to the house to see the sick man.

One Maunday Thursday, at Compiègne, he was going to all the churches, walking barefooted from one to the other, as he was wont to do, and distributing alms to all the poor whom he met when he saw a leper on the other side of a muddy pool in the street. The leper did not dare to approach the King, but he was trying to attract his attention; Louis immediately crossed over to him, gave him some money, and then took his hand and kissed it. 'All present,' says the chronicle, 'were astonished, and made the sign of the cross when they witnessed the pious temerity of the King, who was not afraid to press his lips to a hand which no other person would have dared to touch.'

In acts like these there is infinitely more than the kindness and generosity of a noble nature; they show that fervour of Christian sympathy which at the sight of human suffering, either of body or mind, knows no fear, shuns no anxiety, feels no repugnance, and has no thought beyond alleviating pain and administering comfort.

And the man who felt and acted thus was no monk, no monarch absorbed by his religious duties, and exclusively addicted to charitable works and devout observances; he was a knight, a warrior, a politician, a true king, as earnest in the performance of the duties of his position as in doing deeds of charity. He obtained the reverence and admiration of his intimate friends as well as of strangers, sometimes by the fervour of his mystic piety and his monkish austerities, sometimes by his administrative ability, his freedom from intolerance and prejudice, and the noble independence of his attitude even towards those representatives of Christian faith and the Christian Church with whom he was in full sympathy.

'The King himself was considered the wisest member of his whole council: when grave difficulties arose or great questions had to be discussed, no one showed more insight or was able to estimate them more justly; and in addition to a clear and vigorous intellect he possessed the power of expressing his thoughts with such a measured grace that he was a most perfect an agreeable speaker.

'He was very cheerful,' says Joinville; 'and when we were in private with him, after dinner, he used to sit at the foot of his bed, and if the Franciscans and Dominicans told him of a book which they thought he would like to hear, he would answer, "No, you shan't read to me now, for there is no book so good after eating as a talk ad libitum; that is, let each one say what he likes." But, for all this, he was very fond of books and learning.

'He sometimes listened to the sermons and discussions in the University, but he took care also to seek the truth himself in the Word of God and the traditions of the Church. When he was in the East he heard that a Saracen sultan had collected a great number of books for the use of the philosophers of his sect; he was ashamed to think that the Christians were less zealous to learn the truth than the infidels were to teach themselves lies. Therefore, on his return to France, he commanded that search should be made in the abbeys for all the genuine works of St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Gregory, and other orthodox teachers, and, having caused them all to be copied, he had them laid up in the treasure-house of the Sainte-Chapelle. He read them whenever he had any spare time, and gladly lent them to those who could make any use of them either for themselves or others. Sometimes towards the close of the afternoon he would send for persons of well-known piety, and converse with them of God, and also of the Bible stories and the lives of the saints or fathers of the Church.'

He had a special friendship for Robert of Sorbon the founder of the Sorbonne, and not only afforded him every facility and gave him all the necessary help for establishing his learned college, but also made him one of his chaplains, and often invited him to sit near him at dinner in order that he might have the pleasure of hearing him converse.

'One day it happened,' says Joinville, 'that Master Robert of Sorbon was sitting by my side at dinner-time, and we were talking together in a low voice. The King reproved us, saying, "Speak aloud, or your companions will think that you are speaking ill of them. If you are talking of anything at dinner-time that can give us pleasure, speak so that we can hear you; if not, be silent."'

Another day, when they had met in the King's presence, Robert of Sorbon reproached Joinville for being 'more magnificently attired than the King, for,' said he, 'you dress yourself in furs and green cloth, which the King does not do.' Joinville defended himself very warmly, and turned the tables on Master Robert, attacking him for the smartness of his clothes. The King took the part of the learned doctor, but when he had left them, 'My lord the King,' continues Joinville, 'called Monseigneur Philip, his son, and King Thibault, and sat down at the door of his oratory; placing his hand on the ground, he said, "Come and sit close to me, that no one may hear us." Then he said he had called us that he might confess to me that he had been wrong in defending Master Robert. "But," he said, "I saw he was so taken aback that he had need of my help. For all that, do not think too much of what I said in defence of Master Robert; for, as the Seneschal has said, you ought to dress well and suitably: your wives will love you the better for it, and your people will also think more of you. For," said this wise king, "we ought so to choose both our apparel and our dress, that the old men of this age may not say we do too much, nor the young ones that we do too little."'

In his own costume and manner of life nothing could be more simple than St. Louis. 'After he returned from beyond the sea,' says Joinville, 'he never wore furs, either miniver or squirrel, nor scarlet cloth, neither did he use gilded spurs or stirrups; his vestments were of camlet or of pers'—a dark blue cloth—'and the linings of his coverlets and garments were of doeskin or hareskin.'

He dressed and undressed himself almost without attendants, rose in the morning and went to bed at night, dispensing altogether with royal etiquette. 'But,' adds Joinville, 'the daily expenses of his household were very great; he behaved with great generosity and liberality in the "Parlements" and at the assemblies of the barons and knights; the service of his court also was conducted with great courtesy, liberally and without stint; far more so than had been the case for a long time at the court of his ancestors.'

Chapter XIV.
The Crusade The Ruling Passion Of St. Louis.
In Spite Of Strenuous Opposition, He Decides On A Second Crusade (1270).
His Arrival And Death Before Tunis (25th August, 1270).

Unquestionably the life of St. Louis was no mere empty royal life. Its varied interests and great labours might have employed the most active mind, and satisfied the most exacting conscience; but although the soul of the King was serene and calm, his imagination was incessantly excited, and he suffered from a kind of pious fever,—a fever very different in its aim, but also similar in kind, to that which consumes those great potentates whose restless nature is always discontented, who cherish some vast project quite apart from the ordinary course of events until its accomplishment becomes their fixed idea and ruling passion. As Alexander and Napoleon continually formed new plans, or, to speak more accurately, new dreams, of conquest and dominion, so Louis, in his Christian ambition, always pictured to himself the return to Jerusalem, the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre and the victory of Christianity over Islamism in the East. It was all in vain that during his first crusade he discovered the immense difficulty, not to say the impossibility of the enterprise, and found that his utmost efforts could not ensure success: the crusade always remained his passion, as the one and only method of realizing his fondest hope and fulfilling his most sacred duty. During the first years after his return from Syria to France—that is, from 1254 to 1260—it does not appear that he spoke of his scheme even to his most intimate and confidential friends. But I am convinced that it was never out of his thoughts, and that he always hoped favourable circumstance would recall him to his interrupted work.

There was no lack of difficulties in the East: the Christians of Palestine and Syria were exposed to perils and losses which increased daily; they were losing their bravest warriors, the Templars and Hospitallers, by incessant warfare; their strong places were falling to ruin; the soldiers of the Cross were defeated now by the Tartars of Tchinggis Khan, now by the Mamelukes of Egypt; the Latin Empire of Constantinople was disappearing; and the Greek Church had again obtained possession of St. Sophia. The most lamentable accounts, the most urgent entreaties daily reached the Christians of the West; and Pope Urban IV. made a special appeal to the King of France. Geoffrey of Sargines, the heroic and faithful representative whom Louis had left in St. Jean d'Acre at the head of a small, garrison, wrote to tell him that all was lost unless they received immediate succour.

In 1261 Louis held a 'Parlement' at Paris, and although he did not then speak of a new crusade, he took measures which revealed his intentions and thoughts. Fasts and prayers were appointed on behalf of the Christians of the East; all extravagant expenses, shows, and tournaments were forbidden; and frequent and important military exercises were appointed.

In 1263 the crusade was preached throughout France. Taxes were levied in aid of it which even the clergy had to pay. Princes and barons undertook to join in the expedition; some even went so far as to set out. Louis congratulated himself, and showed his pleasure and approval without openly declaring his own intention. In 1267 a 'Parlement' was convoked at Paris. The King very discreetly broached the subject of a crusade first of all to some of his barons, in order to make sure of their approval. Then suddenly, after the precious relics from the Sainte-Chapelle had been exposed to the gaze of the assembly, he opened the proceedings by an earnest exhortation to all present 'to avenge the ancient wrongs of our Lord and Saviour in the Holy Land, and to regain the heritage of Christendom so long—for our sins—in the possession of the infidel.' The following year another 'Parlement' met at Paris, and there, on the 9th of February, 1268, the King made a vow to set out in May of 1270.

Great was the surprise of many of his subjects, and their anxiety was even greater than their surprise. The country was tranquil and prosperous to an extent that had been unparalleled for a long period; there was peace without, and law and order within; feudal quarrels were becoming rare, and were promptly settled; the royal authority was felt everywhere, and was accompanied by a more orderly administration and greater certainty of justice; the King possessed the confidence as well as the respect of his whole people, and he was respected and obeyed by all his agents. 'Why should we risk,' they said, 'these advantages in a costly and distant, enterprise where success is more than doubtful?' Either from good sense or from displeasure at the taxes imposed upon them, many ecclesiastics as well as laymen were unfavourable to the crusade. Pope Clement IV., who had succeeded Urban IV., 'hesitated for some time about urging St. Louis to this enterprise; indeed, it seems that in a letter which he wrote towards the close of September 1266, he rather dissuaded him from it. He was, however, annoyed at having written this letter almost as soon as he had dispatched it, and said just the reverse in a letter which he wrote with his own hand, and at first thought of sending immediately; but, hesitating still, he withheld it. … He ended by making up his mind to encourage the King in his pious design; but when he learnt that Louis was taking three sons with him to the crusade, the eldest twenty-two, and the two others seventeen and eighteen years old, he could not resist writing to the Cardinal of Sainte-Cécile as follows: "It does not seem to us that it would be wise or judicious to allow so many of the King's sons to take the cross, especially the eldest; and, although we have heard many reasons given in favour of the opposite view, yet either we deceive ourselves entirely, or they are devoid of any reason whatsoever."' [Footnote 52]

[Footnote 52: Tillemont, vol. v. pp. 10 17.]

Grave anxiety was felt as to the King himself: his health was very much shattered, and it was feared that he himself was no better able to bear the fatigue of the expedition than his country was likely to endure without loss the disadvantage of his absence. Many of his wisest and most faithful advisers openly opposed his scheme. Joinville says: 'It came to pass that the King summoned all his barons to Paris during Lent (1267). I sent my excuses to him on account of a quartan fever which I then had, and begged him graciously to dispense with my attendance. He sent word that he insisted on my going, for he had good physicians at Paris who would soon cure a quartan fever. So I went thither. When I had heard mass at the Madeleine I went to the King's chapel, and found him mounted upon the platform where the relics were, and causing the true cross to be carried down. When the King was descending, two knights who were of his council began to speak together, and one said, "Never believe me, if the King does not now take the cross." And the other answered: "If the King takes the cross, it will be one of the saddest days that ever was in France; for if we do not also take it we shall lose the King's love, and if we take it we shall lose the love of God, because it will not be for His sake that we undertake this crusade."' The King earnestly entreated Joinville to take the cross, but he positively refused to do so. 'I thought,' he says, 'that all those who advised him to undertake that voyage committed a great sin, because France was in such a condition that the whole kingdom was at peace within itself, and at peace with all its neighbours; and, from the time that he departed, its condition has never ceased to grow worse and worse. Those who advised this voyage in his weak state of health committed a great sin, for he was able neither to ride in a carriage nor on horseback; nay, his debility was so great that he allowed me to carry him in my arms from the house of the Count of Auxerre, where I took leave of him, to the Franciscans. And yet, feeble as he was, if he had remained in France, he might have lived for many years, and done much good.'

But the impulse had been given, not only to the King, but to his family and the whole feudal world; his sons, his brothers, his son-in-law Thibault, King of Navarre, many foreign princes, 'a multitude of counts, barons, and knights,' took the cross; some with eager fervour, others with resignation and after much hesitation. The second crusade of St. Louis was a flame which leaps up at intervals from a dying fire, and throws out bright and fitful gleams.

But, together with tidings which aroused angry alarm, news came from the East which inspired fresh hopes and expectations. The Emperor Michael Palæologus had returned to Constantinople, and he held out to the Pope and all Christendom the hope of reunion between the Greek Church and the Church of Rome; Mohammed Mostanser, the King of Tunis (as he called himself), spoke of becoming a Christian, he and all his subjects, and offered to decide on taking this step if he could be secured against their seditions. Clement IV. was enchanted with the Greek promises. Louis heard of the prospect of the Moslem conversions with rapture; he was in the state of mind of a man who has taken a final resolve which is very dear to him, and who listens with the most astounding credulity to any reasons and hopes which seem to justify his course. 'Ah,' he wrote, 'if I might only hope to be the godfather and the compeer of so great a godson!' At the fête of St. Denis, the 9th of October, 1269, Louis was present in the abbey church, at the baptism of a recently-converted Jew. The Tunis envoys were also there: he called them to him, and said with great emotion, 'Tell the King your master, from me, that I desire the salvation of his soul so ardently that I would consent to be in prison among the Saracens all the days of my life and never see the light of day again, if only your king and his nation might become true Christians.' From henceforward Louis was absorbed by Christian zeal and faith, and was more saint than king.

He set out from Paris on the 16th of March, 1270, having left Queen Margaret, whom he would not allow to accompany him further, in the tower of the Castle at Vincennes. He was weak in health and almost ill, but quite content; and probably out of all those who accompanied him he alone had no anxious forebodings. Again he was to embark from Aiguesmortes. No definite plan for the expedition had yet been decided upon. Should they go first to Egypt, to Palestine, to Constantinople, or to Tunis? Were there any means of transport on which they could rely? There had been negotiations on the subject with the Venetians and the Genoese, but nothing was definitely settled. It was a haphazard expedition, in which men put their trust in Providence, and forgot that Divine Providence does not dispense with human foresight. Louis arrived at Aiguesmortes in the middle of May, and found neither Crusaders nor vessels; all the preparations were made slowly, imperfectly, and without order; every one relied too much upon the King, who relied too much upon everyone. At length, on the 2d of July, 1270, the expedition set sail, and actually left Aiguesmortes before any person knew, or the King had told any one, where it was going. Not until he reached Sardinia, after four days' delay at Cagliari, did Louis declare to the leaders of the crusade, who had assembled on board his vessel the Montjoie, that he was on his way to Tunis, where their Christian work was to begin.

On the 17th of July, the fleet arrived before Tunis; and the admiral, Florent de Varennes, without orders from the King, probably even in opposition to instructions which showed less impatience, took immediate possession of the port and of some Tunisian vessels, which offered no resistance. He sent word to the King 'that it was only necessary to support him, and that the disembarkation of the army could take place in perfect safety.' War was thus commenced against the Mussulman prince who had so recently been expected very shortly to become a Christian. Fifteen days later, after several combats devoid of result between the Crusaders and the army of Tunis, all this improvidence, delay, and, to call things by their right name, political and military incapacity, had rapidly brought its inevitable consequences. The reinforcements which his brother Charles, King of Sicily, had promised to Louis, had not arrived; there was a lack of provisions; the intense heat of an African summer caused a pestilence which spread so rapidly that before long there was no time to bury the dead, they were thrown one on the other into the trench which surrounded the camp, and before long the whole camp was infected.

On the 3d of August Louis was attacked by the prevailing fever, and was obliged to keep his bed within his tent. He asked news of his son, Jean Tristan, Count of Nevers, who had fallen ill before him, for he had not been told of the death of the young prince, who had expired on board the vessel to which he had been carried in the hope that the sea-air might be beneficial to him. Jean Tristan and the Princess Isabella were the dearest of all his children; Louis joined his hands when he heard of his death, and sought some relief for his sorrow in silence and prayer. He became rapidly worse, and sent for his son and successor, Prince Philip, took from his Breviary the 'Instructions' which he had written for him in French with his own hand, gave them to him, and exhorted him to observe them scrupulously. He also asked for his daughter Isabella. 'She had been adorned by the most saintly demeanour from her very infancy, and in this the King had taken great delight,' although she had refused to become a nun, which he had wished. She fell weeping at the foot of his bed, and he gave to her husband, Thibault, King of Navarre, some written counsel which he had prepared for her; then he called her to his side and gave into her own hands a paper, which he charged her to deliver to her youngest sister, the Princess Agnes, wife of the Duke of Burgundy. 'Most dear daughter,' he said, 'lay this to heart; many persons go to bed full of vain and sinful thought, and in the morning are found dead. The true way of loving God is to love Him with our whole heart, and He well deserves our love, for He first loved us.' He was too weak to say more.

On the 24th of August, after he had thus taken leave of his children, he was informed that envoys from the Emperor Michael Palseologus had landed at the Cape of Carthage; they were commissioned by their master to beg for the intervention of the King with his brother Charles, King of Sicily, to induce him to refrain from making war on the recently reestablished empire of Greece. Louis made a last effort to receive them in his tent in the presence of some of the members of his council, who were most uneasy at the fatigue he was undergoing. 'I promise you, if I live,' he said to the envoys, 'to do that which the Emperor requires of me; meanwhile I exhort you to have patience, and to be of good courage.'

This was his last political act and his final anxiety in the affairs of this world; after this he was absorbed in pious thought and prayer, in reveries concerning his own duties and spiritual experiences, or those interests of Christianity which had been so dear to him all his life. He repeated his usual prayers in a low tone; he was heard to murmur, 'Grant us, we pray Thee, O Lord, to despise for love of Thee the prosperity of this world, and not to fear its reverses.' And also, 'O Lord God, have mercy upon this people who remain here, and lead them back to their own land. Let them not fall into the hands of their enemies, and let them never be forced to deny Thy name.'

On the night of the 24th of August he started up several times in his bed and called out, 'Jerusalem! Jerusalem! we will go to Jerusalem!' At last he ceased to speak, although he showed that he was in full possession of his faculties, and in sympathy with and conscious of the friends who surrounded him, and the priests who brought him religious consolation; by his desire he received extreme unction at the foot of his bed, extended upon a coarse sack covered with ashes, and with the cross before him. On Monday, the 25th of August, 1270, about three o'clock in the afternoon, he expired peacefully. His last words were, 'Father, after the example of the Divine Master, into Thy hands I commit my spirit.'

Chapter XV.
Portrait Of St. Louis As The Ideal Man, Christian, And King Of The Middle Ages.
His Participation In The Two Great Errors Of His Time.

The world has seen more profound politicians on the throne, greater generals, men of more mighty and brilliant intellect, princes who have exercised a more powerful influence over later generations and events subsequent to their own time; but it has never seen such a king as this St. Louis, never seen a man possessing sovereign power and yet not contracting the vices and passions which attend it, displaying upon the throne in such a high degree every human virtue purified and ennobled by Christian faith. St. Louis did not give any new or permanent impulse to his age; he did not strongly influence the nature or the development of civilization in France; whilst he endeavoured to reform the gravest abuses of the feudal system by the introduction of justice and public order, he did not endeavour to abolish it either by the substitution of a pure monarchy, or by setting class against class in order to raise the royal authority high above all. He was neither an egotist nor a scheming diplomatist; he was, in all sincerity, in harmony with his age and sympathetic alike with the faith, the institutions, the customs, and the tastes of France in the thirteenth century. And yet, both in the thirteenth century and in later times, St. Louis stands apart as a man of profoundly original character, an isolated figure without any peer among his contemporaries or his successors; so far as it was possible in the Middle Ages, he was an ideal man, king, and Christian.

It is reported that in the seventeenth century, during the brilliant reign of Louis XIV. Montecuculli, on learning the death of his illustrious rival, Turenne, said to his officers, 'A man has died to-day who did honour to mankind.' St. Louis did honour to France, to royalty, to humanity, and to Christianity. This was the feeling of his contemporaries, and after six centuries it is still confirmed by the judgment of the historian.

I have shown his sympathy with his age, and his superiority to it; nevertheless he was not free from its great defects. St. Louis was a Christian, and yet he did not recognise the rights of conscience; he was a king, and by his blind infatuation for the Crusades he imposed useless dangers, miseries, and sacrifices upon his people for a fruitless enterprise. It is not my intention to discuss here the leading idea and general influence of the Crusades; originally they were without doubt the spontaneous and universal impulse of Christian Europe towards a noble, disinterested, and moral aim, worthy alike of men's enthusiasm and their devotion. The attacks of Islamism had for a long time compelled Christianity to occupy a defensive position, which was both humiliating and full of peril, and the crusade was an aggressive reaction. As to results, I think that the Crusades have had many that are valuable; and if we take a comprehensive view of events and centuries, we shall see that they rather aided than impeded or changed European civilization. But in the last half of the thirteenth century all the good that they could do had been accomplished, and they had lost that character of spontaneous and general impulse which had been at once their strength and their excuse; people of all classes were beginning to be doubtful and tired of them; not only the Sire de Joinville, but many burgesses and country people had ceased to be attracted by the enterprise or to believe in its success. By his blind infatuation, St. Louis did more than any other man of that period to incur the responsibility of prolonging a movement which was more and more inexpedient and ill-timed, because day by day it became less spontaneous and more impossible of success.

On another subject, of even greater importance than the Crusades, St. Louis was quite as much in error, although his personal responsibility was less because he obeyed the prevailing and emphatic belief of his time with a sincere conviction of its truth. This was the employment of compulsion in matters of religion, and the prohibition by the State of all opinions condemned by the Church.

The war waged against religious liberty has been for many centuries the great crime of Christian society, and the cause not only of most grievous wrongs, but of all the most formidable reactions to which Christianity has been exposed. We see the culminating point of this most dangerous theory in the thirteenth century, when it was enforced by legislation as well as upheld by the Church. The confused code which bears the name of 'Etablissements' or Statutes of St. Louis, and which contains many ordinances belonging to periods both preceding and subsequent to his reign, explicitly condemns to death all heretics, and commands the civil governors to carry out the sentence of the bishops on this point. St. Louis himself asked Pope Alexander IV., in 1255, to extend the Inquisition (which was already established in the ancient domains of the Counts of Toulouse on account of the Albigenses) to the whole kingdom and to place the power which it gave in the hands of the Franciscans and Dominicans. It is true that the bishops were to be consulted before the inquisitors could condemn a heretic to death, but this was more an act of courtesy to the episcopacy than an effectual guarantee for the liberty of the subject; indeed, with the feelings entertained by St. Louis on this subject, liberty, or to speak more correctly, the merest shadow of justice, had reason to hope for more from the church than from the throne.

The extreme rigour of St. Louis against what he called 'that vile oath,' blasphemy (a crime which is indefinite enough except in name), gives perhaps the most striking indication of the state of people's minds, and especially of the King's mind on this subject. Every blasphemer was branded on the lips with a red hot iron. 'One day the King caused a burgess of Paris to be branded in this manner. Violent murmurs arose in the city, and reached the King's ears. He answered by declaring that he would consent to be branded on his own lips and to keep the disgrace of the mark all his life, if only the vice of blasphemy could be banished from his kingdom.' Some time afterwards, when he was executing a work of great public utility, he received numerous expressions of gratitude from the owners of property in Paris. 'I expect a greater recompense from the Lord,' he said, 'for the maledictions which I received after branding that blasphemer, than for the benedictions which I now receive on account of this act of public utility.'

Of all human errors, the most popular are the most dangerous, for they are the most contagious, and those from which the noblest natures find it most difficult to keep themselves free. It is impossible to observe without alarm the aberrations of reason and moral rectitude into which men who were in other respects enlightened and virtuous have been dragged by the leading ideas of their generation. And this alarm is very greatly increased when we discover what iniquity, what suffering, what public and private calamity have been the result of deviations from right which were tolerated by the noblest spirits of the age. On the question of religious liberty, St. Louis is a striking example of the degree to which an upright judgment and scrupulous conscience may be led astray if it falls under the dominion of a popular feeling or idea. In all times of great intellectual fermentation he stands as a solemn warning to those men who prize independence of thought as well as of action, and to whom nothing is so dear as justice and truth.

[Footnote 53: Not marked in text; probably related to the quotation 'I expect a greater recompense …': Faure, vol. ii. p. 300; Joinville, chap, cxxxviii.]

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