In the narrow dirty lanes of cities the inspired monk or eager friar was still to be found; but the followers of St Francis of Assisi or St Dominic were soldiers of the Cross in a more Christ-like, if a less military, spirit than Peter the Hermit or Bernard of Clairvaux, and stirred up the people rather to cleaner and healthier lives than to take arms for the Holy War.
Amongst the sovereigns of Europe at this time, of whom Frederick II. was a fair example, there yet remained one of the old type, one who was filled with the purest zeal for religion mingled with the desire to win glory as became a true knight.
This was Louis IX. of France—the St Louis of the Eighth Crusade—who, if he accomplished nothing towards establishing Christian rule in the Holy Land, yet remains to us in history as an example of the very few who took up the Cross and carried on the war, inspired only by holy and unselfish motives.
"Louis and his fair queen appear, indeed, as brilliant stars, shining through the blackness of a sky overcast with clouds; but they could not dispel the darkness, or lend more than a transitory gleam of brightness to illumine the gloomy prospects."[[1]]
[[1]] W. E. Dutton.
King Louis found a devoted hero-worshipper and chronicler in the Sire de Joinville, a great French noble, who accompanied him upon the Eighth Crusade, and whose story will often be told here in his own words.
Louis IX. came to the French throne at no easy time, for he was but a boy of ten, and the powerful French barons were eager to win their independence of the royal power. But they found their match in the Queen Regent, Blanche of Castile, who, for the first time, put her dependence upon the people of her land, and trusted to them to defend their young king against the rebellion of the nobles. She also, as we have seen, won over to her side Count Theobald of Champagne, by whose help the rebels were soon forced to yield, and who, for love of her, afterwards became one of the leaders in the Seventh Crusade.
The young Louis was brought up by her more as a monk than a king, and, as he grew older, his own tastes turned entirely in the same direction. "You are not a king of France," cried a woman who was trying to win his favour in an unjust cause, "you are a king only of priests and monks. It is a pity that you are king of France. You ought to be turned out."
"You speak truly," was the gentle answer, "it has pleased God to make me king; it had been well had He chosen some one better able to govern this kingdom rightly."
Yet he was one of France's wisest rulers, taking a personal interest in the troubles of her people that was rare, indeed, in those days.