The great fortified wall of Philip Augustus began at the north-west water-tower, which stood just above the present Pont des Arts, and passed through the quadrangle of the Louvre where a line on the paving marks its course to the Porte St. Honoré, near the Oratoire. It continued northwards by the Rue du Jour to the Porte Montmartre, whose site is marked by a tablet on No. 30 Rue Montmartre. Turning eastward by the Painters’ Gate (135 Rue St. Denis) and the Porte St. Martin, near the Rue Grenier St. Lazare, the fortification described a curve in a south-easterly direction by the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, where traces of the wall have been found in the Cour de l’Horloge of the Mont de Piété, and of a tower at No. 57. The line of the wall continued in the same direction by the Lycée Charlemagne, No. 131 Rue St. Antoine, where stood another gate, to the north-east water-tower, known as the Tour Barbeau, which stood near No. 32 Quai des Célestins. The opposite or southern division began at the south-east water-tower, La Tournelle, and the Gate of St. Bernard on the present Quai de la Tournelle, and went southward by the Rues des Fossés, St. Bernard and Cardinal Lemoine, to the Porte St. Victor, near No. 2 Rue des Ecoles. The wall then turned westward by the Rue Clovis, where at No. 7 one of the largest and best-preserved remains may be seen. It enclosed the abbey of St. Geneviève, and the Pantheon stands on the site of the Porte Papale. The south-western angle was turned near the end of the Rue Soufflot and the beginning of the Rue Monsieur le Prince. In a northerly direction it then followed the line of the latter street, crossing the Boulevard St. Germain, and continued by the Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie. In the Cour de Rouen, No. 61 Rue St. André des Arts, an important remnant may be seen with the base of a tower. We may now trace the march of the wall and towers by the Rues Mazarin and Guénégaud, where at No. 29 other fragments exist, to the south-west water-tower, the notorious Tour de Nesle[50] whose site is occupied by the Hôtel des Monnaies. The passage of the Seine was blocked by chains, which were drawn at night from tower to tower and fixed on boats and piles. The wall was twenty years building and was completed in 1211. It was eight feet thick, pierced by twenty-four gates and fortified by about five hundred towers. Much of the land it enclosed was not built upon; the marais (marshes) on the north bank were drained and cultivated and became market and fruit gardens.
The moated château of the Louvre, another of Philip’s great buildings, stood outside the wall and commanded the valley route to Paris. It was at once a fortress, a palace and a prison. Parts of two wings of the structure are incorporated in the present palace of the Louvre, and the site of the remaining wings, the massive keep and the towers are marked out on the pavement of the quadrangle.
Many are the stories of the great king’s wisdom. One day, entering the chapter-house of Notre Dame during the election of a bishop, Philip seized a crozier and passing along the assembled canons thrust it into the hands of one of lean and poor aspect, saying: “Here, take this, that you may wax fat like your brethren.” His jester once claimed to be of his family through their common father Adam, and complained that the heritage had been badly divided. “Well,” said the king, “come to me to-morrow and I will restore what is due to thee.” Next day, in the presence of his court, he handed the jester a farthing, saying: “Here is thy just portion. When I shall have shared my wealth with each of thy brothers, barely a farthing will remain to me.”
One of the royal bailiffs coveted the land of a poor knight, who refused to sell. The knight at length died, and the widow proving equally stubborn, the bailiff went to the market-place, hired two porters whom he dressed decently, and repaired with them by night to the cemetery where the dead chevalier lay buried. His body was drawn from the tomb and held upright while the bailiff abjured it to agree before the two witnesses to a sale of the land. “Silence gives consent,” said the bailiff, and placed a coin in the corpse’s hand. The tomb was closed and the land seized on the morrow, despite the widow’s protests. On the case being brought before the judgment-seat of Philip in the palace of the Cité, the two porters bore witness to the sale. The king, suspecting the truth, led one of the witnesses aside and bade him recite a paternoster. While the man was murmuring the prayer the king was heard of all the court loudly saying: “Yes, that is so: you speak truly.” The recital over, the king assured him of pardon, and returning to the second witness, admonished him also not to lie, for his friend had revealed all as truly as if he had said a paternoster. The second witness confessed. The bailiff, praying for mercy, fell prostrate before the king, who condemned the guilty man to banishment for life, and ordered the whole of his possessions to be escheated to the poor widow.
Of the impression that the Paris of Philip Augustus made on a provincial visitor, we are able, fortunately, to give some account. “I am at Paris,” writes Guy of Bazoches, about the end of the twelfth century, “in this royal city, where the abundance of nature’s gifts not only retains those that dwell there but invites and attracts those who are afar off. Even as the moon surpasses the stars in brightness, so does this city, the seat of royalty, exalt her proud head above all other cities. She is placed in the bosom of a delicious valley, in the centre of a crown of hills, which Ceres and Bacchus enrich with their gifts. The Seine, that proud river which comes from the east, flows there through wide banks and with its two arms surrounds an island which is the head, the heart, and the marrow of the whole city. Two suburbs extend to right and left, even the lesser of which would rouse the envy of many another city. These suburbs communicate with the island by two stone bridges; the Grand Pont towards the north in the direction of the English sea, and the Petit Pont which looks towards the Loire. The former bridge, broad, rich, commercial, is the centre of a fervid activity, and innumerable boats surround it laden with merchandise and riches. The Petit Pont belongs to the dialecticians, who pace up and down disputing. In the island adjacent to the king’s palace, which dominates the whole town, the palace of philosophy is seen where study reigns alone as sovereign, a citadel of light and immortality.”
After Louis VIII.’s brief reign of three years, there rises to the throne of France one of the gentlest and noblest of the sons of men, a prince indeed, who, amid all the temptations of absolute power maintained a spotless life, and at death laid down an earthly crown to assume a fairer and an imperishable diadem among the saints in heaven. All that was best in mediævalism—its desire for peace and order and justice; its fervent piety, its passion to effect unity among Christ’s people and to wrest the Holy Land from the pollution of the infidel; its enthusiasm for learning and for the things of the mind; its love of beauty—all are personified in the life of St. Louis.
The young prince was eleven years of age when his father died. During his minority he was nurtured in learning and piety[51] by his mother, Blanche of Castile, whose devotion to her son, and firm and wise regency were a fitting prelude to the reign of a saintly king. Even after he attained his majority, Louis always sought his mother’s counsel and was ever respectful and submissive to her will. When the news of her death reached him in the Holy Land, he went to his oratory, fell on his knees before the altar, submissive to the will of God, and cried out with tears in his eyes, that he had loved the queen, “his most dear lady and mother, beyond all mortal creatures.”