[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.]