The king’s conception of his office was summed up in two words—Gouverner bien. “Fair son,” said he one day to Prince Louis, his heir, “I pray thee win the affection of thy people. Verily, I would rather that a Scotchman came from Scotland and ruled the kingdom well and loyally than that thou shouldst govern it ill.” Joinville tells with charming simplicity how the king after hearing mass in the chapel at Vincennes was wont to walk in the woods for refreshment and then, sitting at the foot of an old oak tree, would listen to the plaints of his poorer people without let of usher or other official and administer justice to them. At other times, clothed in a tunic of camlet, a surcoat of wool (tiretaine) without sleeves, a mantle of black taffety, and a hat with a peacock’s plume, he would walk with his Council in the garden of his palace in the Cité, and on the people crowding round him, would call for a carpet to be spread on the ground, on which he would sit, surrounded with his councillors, and judge the poor diligently.
So rigidly just was the good king that he would not lie even to the Saracens. On his return from the crusade, being pressed by his Council to leave a stranded ship, he called the mariners to him and asked them if they would abandon the vessel if it were charged with merchandise. All replied that they would risk their lives rather than forsake the ship. “Then,” said the king, “why am I asked to abandon it?” “Sire,” they answered, “your royal person and your queen and children cannot be valued in money nor weighed in the balance against our lives.” “Well,” said the king, “I have heard your counsel and that of my lords: now hear mine. If I leave this ship there will remain on board five hundred men, each of whom loves his life as dearly as I do mine, and who, perchance, will never see their fatherland again. Therefore will I rather put my person and my wife and children in God’s hands than do hurt to so much people.”
In 1238 the king was profoundly shocked by the news that the crown of thorns was a forfeited pledge at Venice for an unpaid loan advanced by some Venetian merchants to the Emperor Baldwin of Constantinople. Louis paid the debt,[52] redeemed the pledge, and secured the relic for Paris. The king met his envoys at Sens, and barefooted, himself carried the sacred treasure enclosed in three caskets, one of wood, one of silver and one of gold, to Paris. The procession took eight days to reach the city, and so great were the multitudes who thronged to see it, that a large platform was raised in a field outside the walls, from which several prelates exposed it in turn to the veneration of the people. Thence it was taken to the cathedral of Notre Dame, the king dressed in a simple tunic, and barefoot still carrying the relic. From the cathedral it was transferred to the royal chapel of St. Nicholas within the precincts of the palace. A year later the Emperor Baldwin was constrained to part with other relics, including a piece of the true cross, the blade of the lance and the sponge of the Passion. To enshrine them and the crown of thorns the chapel of St. Nicholas was demolished and the beautiful Sainte-Chapelle built in its place. The upper chapel was dedicated to the relics; the lower to the Blessed Virgin. On solemn festivals the king would himself expose the relics to the people. Louis was zealous in his devotion and for a time attended matins in the new chapel at midnight, until, suffering much headache in consequence, he was persuaded to have the office celebrated in the early morning before prime. His piety, however, was by no means austere: he had all the French gaiety of heart, dearly loved a good story, and was excellent company at table, where he loved to sit conversing with Robert de Sorbon, his chaplain. “It is a bad thing,” he said one day to Joinville, “to take another man’s goods, because rendre (to restore) is so difficult, that even to pronounce the word makes the tongue sore by reason of the r’s in it.”