THE SEVENTH CRUSADE.
CHAPTER XLIII.
ST. LOUIS.
The news of the Carismian invasion of Palestine reduced Europe to a condition of panic. It came on the heels of other adversities, which had shaken the stoutest hearts. The Latin empire at Constantinople, as we have noted, was again on the verge of falling into the hands of the Greeks. The Tartars were ravaging the Danube, and threatening the domain of the Emperor Frederick II. Terror paralyzed trade, travel, and social intercourse everywhere; even in Italy and along the borders of France fear fed the imagination that an army of demi-demons was about to appear. The rustling of the woods, the soughing of the winds, forest fires, the dust raised by storms, strange cloud shapes on the horizon, were omens, if not the signs, of the advance of this horde let loose from hell. Pope Innocent IV. called a council at Lyons. In his opening address he spoke of the five wounds of the Saviour, which he likened to five griefs that afflicted him as the Vicegerent of Christ. These were the Tartar menace, the Greek schism, the Carismian conquest of Palestine, the relaxation of ecclesiastical discipline and progress of heresy, and, finally, as if it were the climax of the woes of Christendom, the obduracy of the Emperor Frederick II. in opposing the papal schemes. The Holy Father could weep over the wickedness of Tartars, Carismians, and Moslems, but he could only rage against Frederick. His spirit communicated itself to his prelates. Under his direction they passed resolutions advising the Germans to dig trenches and build walls against the Tartars; they also calmly proposed a crusade against the Infidels; but, with more evidence of deep feeling, they bent to the floor, dashed out the lights of their candles, and repeated with sepulchral voices the amen to the papal anathema of the foremost Christian monarch in the world. The Pope’s fulmination concluded with these words: “I forbid any, under pain of excommunication, to henceforth yield him obedience. I command the electors to elect another emperor, and I reserve to myself the right of disposing of his kingdom of Sicily.” This was the glory of the so-called Ecumenical Council of Lyons.
Frederick, on hearing of the outrage perpetrated upon him, called for his crown, and, placing it upon his head, exclaimed; “There it is; and before it shall be wrested from me my enemies shall know the terror of my arms. Let this pontiff tremble, who has broken every tie that bound me to him.” From that day, as history shows, the popes lost power ever again to lead united Europe.
But for the pious zeal of one man, it is not probable that another crusading host would ever have set out against the Moslem.
The hero of the seventh crusade was Louis IX., the “Good St. Louis” of France. He was the son of Louis VIII., who, Guizot says, “added to the history of France no glory, save that of having been the son of Philip Augustus, the husband of Blanche of Castile, and the father of St. Louis.”
Blanche of Castile was a woman remarkable for her personal beauty and queenly bearing. She knew how to unite dignity of mien and elegance of estate with that suavity which wins the hearts of all. According to a contemporary, Matthew Paris, she was “the most discreet woman of her time, with a mind singularly quick and penetrating, and with a man’s heart to leaven her woman’s sex and ideas; personally magnanimous, of indomitable energy, sovereign mistress in all the affairs of her age, worthy to be compared with Semiramis, the most eminent of her sex.” The only weakness remembered of Queen Blanche was one which might be attributed to the intensity of her maternal affection. She was rudely jealous of Marguerite when the latter became wife of her son Louis, and resented the least absorption of her son’s attention and love. She was possessed of decided ability for government, and at the death of her husband, Louis VIII. (1226), assumed the direction of affairs as the guardian of her son, then a lad of eleven years.
Louis IX. is described as very handsome, his features of almost feminine delicacy, his hair light, long, and flowing. He was extremely courteous, gentle, and companionable. One might have suspected weakness from the softness of his manners, until it was observed that he maintained the same quiet demeanor while shrewdly watching the chicanery of the court and while planning the most warlike and desperate expeditions against his foes. When La Marche rebelled and insulted his Majesty, Louis made no retort, but deliberated regarding him with his counsellors without apparent resentment, and laid plans so shrewd and far-reaching that they conquered both the rebel’s arms and hatred. The kings of France had always been at variance, often at swords’ points, with the great feudal barons of the realm; but in 1243 Louis made such arrangement with them as won their complete fidelity.
The moral qualities of Louis IX., as well as his repute for sound judgment, led to his selection by foreigners to arbitrate their disputes, as when Henry III. of England and his barons submitted their differences to the French king’s opinion. He was by impulse and principle a philanthropist, loving the people of all conditions. The sick domestics of the palace were often nursed by the royal hand. Wherever he went his servants were ordered to distribute sufficient money to provide for the needs of one hundred poor persons, that the people might not feel the shadow of royalty without its sunshine. The chroniclers delight in picturing the monarch under the broad tree, listening to the complaints of a crowd of his humblest subjects. That justice and mercy might extend beyond his personal supervision, he appointed “restitution offices,” where the best of men granted rehearing of any case in which a worsted litigant deemed himself injured by the letter of the law. This, perhaps, is the first institution in the spirit of our modern courts of equity. During an illness, in which he thought he might die, he summoned his son Louis and said, “Fair son, I pray thee make thyself beloved of the people of thy kingdom, for verily I would rather a Scot should come and govern our people well and loyally than have thee govern them ill.”
The piety of Louis shone in his care of religious houses and in the establishment of hospitals, especially for leprosy, a disease which was brought into Europe by pilgrims returning from the East. Churches were multiplied and ornamented, for, said the monarch, “the most sure means to avoid perishing like the impious is to love and enrich the place in which dwells the glory of the Lord.”