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.