In the year 1233 Louis was persuaded by his mother to bestow his hand on Marguerite, daughter of Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence. Raymond had four daughters, and Marguerite was the most beautiful and talented of them all. Her sister Eleanor was married soon after to Henry the Third of England, and another sister, named Beatrice, to Louis's brother Charles, Count of Anjou.
The royal marriage was celebrated with great magnificence at Sens; and when Louis was twenty years of age he took the reins of government into his own hands: nevertheless Queen Blanche continued to influence him by her advice, and was obeyed by him until her death, on all occasions save one, as will be seen hereafter.
The peace of the country was not really established until the year 1239, when some of the quarrelsome nobles had gone on a crusade to the Holy Land. The enterprise did not succeed; the Christian army was entrapped and defeated by the Saracens, and Jerusalem became a possession of the Sultan of Egypt. The king was deeply grieved at the failure; he was always thinking of the miseries and oppressions the Christians were forced to endure in the East, and resolved to go and help them as soon as he could leave his country in prosperity. When the rumour of this was spread in Palestine, the sheik, or old man of the mountain, singled out the King of France for his victim, and despatched two of his assassins to Paris, thinking thus to put an end to all idea of a fresh crusade.
Having boasted, however, of his intended deed before some of the knights templars, he was told by them that if he put Louis to death, his brothers would certainly avenge the crime, and draw upon him the ill will of many nations besides France. The sheik now became as anxious to preserve the king's life as he had been to take it, and sent off in a great hurry two of his emirs to the court of France to warn Louis of his danger. The king received the intelligence calmly, and only instituted another company of guards, who were armed with maces of brass. But when the assassins could not be discovered, notwithstanding the marks by which the emirs declared they would be known, these men hastened to Marseilles, and luckily arrived there before the Arabs set foot on shore. When they had told them how the sheik had determined not to take the king's life, they conducted them to Paris, and all four were received with kindness by Louis, and went back to the East much impressed with the magnificence of the French court; for although the king loved neither luxury nor pleasure, his court was always kept up with dignity and splendour. The Sire de Joinville, who was twenty-two years in his company, tells us how, at a great festival held at Saumur, which was called a plenary court, the king wore a coat of blue samite, a species of satin, with overcoat and mantle of crimson samite, bordered with ermine, and strangely enough, a cotton cap on his head, which did not become him at all. His hair, which was fair, he wore short, according to the custom of the time. At this feast there were at least three thousand knights present, and so many robes of cloth of gold and of silk had never been seen before. King Louis, his brothers, and the King of Navarre sat at one table, Joinville himself carving for them; the queen mother and her ladies sat at another, and the archbishops and bishops at a third; and to guard the king's table stood three of the greatest barons in the land; and to guard them stood thirty knights, in garments of rich silken stuff; and these again had a retinue of the royal officers behind them.
During the whole time that the plenary courts were held, the king was obliged to dine in public, and it was an old custom, that before the dinner was ended, three heralds at arms, each with a rich cap in his hand, cried out three times, "Bounty of the most powerful King!" and then threw gold and silver to the people, so that the poor had their share of the rejoicing as well as the rich.
The king was seized with a dangerous illness at Pontoise in the year 1244. This was a very great sorrow for his people, since it was feared that he would die, and they joined in solemn processions all over the kingdom, and went to the churches to pray to the Almighty to restore him to health. Queen Blanche was the saddest of all, and passed her time between the sick chamber of her son, and the foot of the altar, where she knelt for hours in silent prayer.
When Louis felt that he was getting weaker, he sent for all the members of his household, and thanked them for their services; after which he recommended them to serve God with earnest and faithful hearts. Then he sank into a lethargy, which those who were watching by his bedside at first mistook for death. The lethargy lasted several days, and then the king gave signs of returning life. The first words he spoke after opening his eyes were these:—"By the grace of God the light of the East has shone upon me from the height of heaven, and recalled me from the dead." He summoned the Bishop of Paris to his presence, and required him to affix the cross to his shoulder, as a sign that he bound himself to go on the crusade.
The sorrow which had been forgotten when the king gave signs of recovery, now broke out afresh. The two queens, Blanche and Marguerite, threw themselves on their knees, and implored him with many tears not to go on the crusade; even the bishops, who stood by, tried to persuade him not to engage in so difficult an enterprise, but all in vain. Louis would take no nourishment until the cross was really fastened to his shoulder; and his people heard of the vow he had taken in gloom and regret, for they thought if he once set sail for the Holy Land, they would never see him again.
The king did not really recover until several months had passed, and then he wrote to the Christians in the East to tell them that he was coming to their aid. But it was a long time yet before he was able to set out, because he loved his people very dearly, and wanted to provide everything for their comfort and happiness during his absence, when his mother, Queen Blanche, was to rule over them in his stead. He persuaded the most turbulent of the nobles to go with him on the crusade, and when the best measures had been taken for securing the peace of the kingdom, he made known that he was ready to redress every injury he had offered, it being the custom then for all good crusaders to make their peace with God and man before they embarked in their enterprise.
Louis then went with his brothers, Robert of Artois and Charles of Anjou, to the church of Saint Denis to receive his pilgrim's scrip and staff, and the oriflamme, or sacred banner of Saint Denis. This was a banner of flame-coloured silk, which was always carried before the French armies on solemn occasions for the encouragement of the soldiers. The king, having requested all holy persons to pray that his undertaking might prove successful, came back to Paris, and heard mass at the great church of Notre Dame, and then went out of the city he was not to behold again for so long, followed by the clergy, the nobles, and multitudes of the common people.