Saint Louis

The childhood of this great prince was a mirror of honesty and wisdom. His father, who joined eminent holiness and an ardent zeal for religion to that martial beneficence which earned him the nickname of Lion, took particular care of his education. He gave him good tutors and a wise governor: Matthew II of Montmorency, the first Christian baron; William des Barres, Count of Rochefort, nicknamed the French Achilles; and Clement of Metz, Marshal of France, who inspired in him the sentiments that a most Christian king and an eldest son of the Church must possess. Blanche, his mother, also spared nothing to make him a great king and a great Saint: especially after the death of Philip, his eldest, and to impress upon him more strongly a hatred of sin and a love of virtue, she often said to him these beautiful words: "My son, I would much rather see you in the tomb than stained by a single mortal sin." Death having taken his father, aged only forty, upon his return from the war against the Albigensians, in the city of Montpellier, in the year 1226, which was only the fourth of his reign, our Saint, aged only twelve, ascended the throne of his ancestors under the guardianship of Queen Blanche, his mother. This was on November 30; the next day, tutelle de la reine Blanche Mother of Saint Isabelle and Saint Louis, regent of France. the first Sunday of Advent, he was anointed and crowned at Reims by Jacques de Bazoches, Bishop of Soissons, the archiepiscopal see of Reims being then vacant.

His minority was crossed by several intestine wars due to the ambition and jealousy of the princes, who could not bear that the queen should have the regency and absolute government of the kingdom, and who wanted to take advantage of the king's young age to advance their own affairs; but God dissipated all their factions through a visible protection over the sacred person of this young monarch. For, firstly, Raymond, Count of Toulouse, one of the conspiring princes and a great abettor of the Albigensian heretics, having begun acts of hostility in Languedoc and around Toulouse, where King Louis VIII had forced him to shut himself up, was so pressed by Robert of Beaujeu, general of the royal army, that he found himself forced to ask for peace and to receive such conditions as it pleased the king to impose upon him.

The treaty was signed in Paris in the month of April 1228, and it provided: 1st that the count would reimburse the king five thousand silver marks for the costs of the war; 2nd that he would abandon to him from that moment all the lands he had beyond the Rhône; 3rd that he would no longer protect the heretics in his county, and that he himself would publicly abjure heresy, as, in fact, he made abjuration on his knees before the high altar of Notre-Dame, with his head, arms, and feet bare; 4th that he would give his daughter Jeanne in marriage to Alphonse, the king's brother, and that in favor of this union, he would cede to this prince his county of Toulouse, reserving for himself only the usufruct; 5th that, should this countess die without children, this same county would be reunited to the crown never to be dismembered from it; 6th that he would pay every year a sum to indemnify the ecclesiastics he had ruined, and that he would demolish the walls of thirty cities of his State that had taken part in his rebellion. Thus, this great war against the Albigensians, which it seemed Philip Augustus had not dared to touch, and which King Louis VIII had only grazed, was happily ended in less than a year by the prudence of the queen regent.

The other conspiring lords, among whom Pierre Mauclerc distinguished himself, more irritated by this success than before, resolved to seize the person of the king, to then extract by force from him whatever they pleased. It was at a hunting rendezvous, a few leagues from Paris, between Étampes and Corbeil, that the blow was to take place, and everything was prepared for this purpose, when Thibaud, Count of Champagne, having innocent knowledge of the new felony of Pierre Mauclerc, arrived at the head of his hundred knights, put the conspirators to flight, led the grandson of Philip Augustus to Montlhéry, and threw himself with him into a fortress whose high tower can still be seen today; it dates from the year 1005, and rises on an imposing hill, dominating a forest entirely sown with granite rocks. Thibaud File-Étoupe, forester of King Robert, built it; one can see it from seven leagues away. Philip I became possessor of this fortress at the marriage of Louis the Fat.

The queen regent, having learned of the danger the king had run, had left Paris in great haste, and a few hours later arrived at Montlhéry: neither the strength of this castle, nor the valor of the knights who had prevented her son from falling into the hands of Pierre Mauclerc and Hugh of Lusignan, could reassure her maternal love; she descended with him into the depths of an immense underground passage, at the end of which a door opened onto the countryside, far from the crenelated walls.

If among the great vassals and high barons, Blanche of Castile and the young Louis IX counted enemies that the ambition of these powerful men had stirred up against them, among the bourgeoisie and the people of Paris it was not the same; there, the pious and valiant regent and the royal adolescent were loved and adored. Thus, at the first news of the odious attempt of the counts of Brittany and Poitou, the entire population of the great city rose: great and small, rich and poor, nobles and artisans, went out together from the fortified enclosure, built by Philip Augustus, to go to Montlhéry to seek his grandson, and bring him back to the capital. Never had a more touching enthusiasm for the monarchy yet broken out in France. The momentum of the Parisians was felt spontaneously in the countryside; between Paris and Montlhéry, not a small town, not a borough, not a village, not a hamlet, not a farm where an inhabitant remained; everything remained empty: young men, old men, women, and children had wanted to run to meet the young king. In this popular and improvised army, the scythe and the pitchfork were seen alongside pikes, halberds, and lances, and the banners of the churches alongside the pennants and standards of the men-at-arms.

The conspiring princes then threw themselves upon Champagne, where they did great damage. The king followed them there at the head of his army with intrepid courage, and frightened them so much by his mere presence that, not daring to fight against him anymore, although they were much stronger, they withdrew to various places. This retreat was the cause of their separation, and their separation of their reduction; for, no longer seeing themselves strong enough to resist the royal power, they were delighted to make their peace on honorable conditions.

Only Pierre, Duke of Brittany, who, flattering himself with the alliance and protection of the King of England, had the boldness to continue the war against the king, and to continue to commit acts of hostility against his subjects. The king, although it was winter and the cold was very rigorous, marched nevertheless against this rebel, before any foreign aid could reach him. He went first straight to Angers, which Louis VIII, his father, had snatched from the hands of the English and given to this perfidious man: it immediately opened its gates to him, with almost all the other cities of the Angoumois. Bellesme, which was considered impregnable, withstood some attacks; but it could not resist the courage of our young warrior. Finally, all aid failing the duke, he was forced to ask for a truce, and, after three years of troubles and personal agitations, he had no other means of preserving his rank than to implore the clemency of the king, to ask his pardon, to recognize himself as his vassal, and to do him homage for his duchy. His revolt, so little excusable, especially for a man who had made himself very skilled in philosophy and theology at the University of Paris, and other actions of this nature, were the cause that he was commonly called Mauclerc, which means bad clerk or bad doctor.

The king's minority having passed in those troubles, which served only to reveal his prudence, his valor, his goodness, and his other royal virtues, he took upon himself, at the beginning of his twentieth year, according to the custom of the time, the conduct of his kingdom, without, however, ever excluding from affairs the queen his mother, who had governed them so wisely during his tender age. He married, o n May 27, Marguerite Wife of Saint Louis, Queen of France. 1235, Marguerite, eldest daughter of Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence and Forcalquier, and of Beatrice of Savoy, his wife. She was a princess whom grace and nature had endowed with all kinds of perfections. She was a relative of the king to a prohibited degree; but the Pope granted a dispensation for this impediment: the marriage was celebrated at Sens, in the church of Notre-Dame, by Anselme de Saint-Médard, bishop and count of Noyon, in the presence of Gaucher Cornu, archbishop of that city, who gave the nuptial blessing to the couple and also crowned the queen with a magnificence worthy of the rank to which she was raised. Her dowry was only ten thousand pounds; but she alone was worth an entire world, and Louis believed he had found a great treasure in finding a wife of her merit. She had the same inclinations as he for piety and for the relief of the unfortunate. She never involved herself in any affair unless she was called to it, or unless it concerned the relief of the poor and the pardon of criminals. She followed the king everywhere, and she even had the courage to go with him on his first voyage overseas, as we shall relate later. Finally, after his death, she retired to the monastery of Saint-Claire, which she had founded in the town of Saint-Marcel-lès-Paris, where, after a holy life, she died most Christianly, aged about seventy years, on December 20 of the year 1265; and her body, preceded and followed by the poor, who called her their mother, was carried to Saint-Denis.

The rejoicings of this marriage were followed by a dangerous war on the part of Hugh of Lusignan, Count of La Marche, who, in order not to be obliged to pay faith and homage to Alphonse, the king's brother, to whom His Majesty had given the county of Poitou, had the temerity to take up arms against his sovereign. He was mainly pushed to it by his wife, widow of John Lackland, father of Henry III, King of England, who did not want to recognize any other princess above her than the queen-mother and the queen, the king's wife. The count's insolence even went so far as to invest the king and his entire court in Poitiers, when he went there to give possession of it to his brother. Louis, who did not have an army at that time, was forced to withdraw from his hands by strategy; but he soon showed that he had no less justice than piety, and that, if he knew how to forgive those who implored his clemency and submitted to his just rule, he also knew how to crush the proud and humble the audacity of the rebels. Indeed, having placed himself at the head of his troops, he took, in a short time, the best-fortified cities and castles of the county, and, knowing that the King of England was coming with a powerful army to the aid of the felon, he went to meet him, gave him battle at Taillebourg, put him to complete rout, killed a portion of his men, and took up to four thousand prisoners. It was on this occasion that, assisted only by eight horsemen, he crossed the bridge of the Charente through a cloud of darts, arrows, and lances, to go and attack the bulk of the enemies, and that he sustained for a long time, almost alone, the shock of a thousand men-at-arms, until his troops, animated by his example, had crossed the same bridge and had thrown themselves, like lions, upon the English and the rebels to pull him from danger. The carnage would have been without measure, had it not been for the invincible clemency of Louis, who wanted quarter to be given to those who would lay down their arms. The English fled after this defeat, and the Count of La Marche, deprived of all aid, remained at the mercy of his conqueror. He did not deserve to be granted grace, nor did the queen and countess his wife, who, during this war, had several times suborned people, sometimes to poison the king, sometimes to stab him; but this good prince had regard for the great services that this lord had rendered to France, and granted him the pardon he was forced to ask of him, contenting himself with cutting off a part of his county, as well as a pension of ten thousand pounds that his first actions had earned him, when he was conducting himself as a good Frenchman. This holy king also showed the strength of his spirit and the greatness of his courage, whether in the disputes between the Popes and the emperors, where they tried to involve him, but where he intervened only to restore agreement; or in the wars between the Count of Provence, his father-in-law, and the Count of Toulouse, father-in-law of Prince Alphonse, his brother, which he ended happily, without allowing one of the parties to encroach upon the other; or in the trap that Emperor Frederick set for him to seize, as it is believed, his person, during a conference they were to have together at Vaucouleurs: he rendered this trap useless by appearing at the assigned place with forces that astonished and made this perfidious prince flee; or finally when the bishops of France, who were going to Rome for a council, were imprisoned by the order of the same emperor: Saint Louis compelled him, by his threats, to send them back free and to repair the injury he had done them.

As his first cares were to render to God the service and honor he owed Him, this divine Goodness assisted him in all his needs, counseled him in all his enterprises, protected him against all his enemies, and gave a happy outcome to everything he handled. God gave him a large number of male children whose posterity has reigned for so long. The eldest was named Louis; he was born on February 15, 1244, ten years after the king's marriage. We have said, in the life of Saint Thibault, abbot of Vaux-de-Cernay, how the queen, who was sterile, was made fertile by the prayers of this holy abbot. Philip the Bold was the second, and he became the fir Philippe le Hardi Son and successor of Saint Louis. st through the death of this young prince; he has, since then, succeeded his father, and his children have been kings, up to Henry III. John Tristan was the third; he was given this name because he was born at Damietta, in the Orient, during the imprisonment of the king, his father, and the affliction of the queen, his mother; he died before them without having children. The fourth was Peter, Count of Chartres, of Blois, and of Alençon, who also had no lineage. The fifth was Robert of Bourbon, whose children, after nine generations, subsequently ascended the throne for the happiness of France and all of Christendom. Besides these boys, Saint Louis also had five daughters, who, except for the eldest, who died in infancy, all married sovereigns. Moreover, he did not resemble most other princes, who neglect the education of their children and rely entirely on the care of the governors they give them, without even examining whether they fulfill their duties, and whether they study to imprint early, in their souls, the hatred of vice and the love of virtue. He took the trouble to instruct them himself and to lead them to the contempt of the pleasures and vanities of the world and to the love of their sovereign Creator: which he usually did in the evening, after Compline, in his room, where he had them come to receive his excellent lessons from his mouth. He took them with him to the sermon; he taught them to recite the Little Office of Our Lady every day; he obliged them to attend High Mass and the divine offices sung in music on every feast day; he wanted them to accustom themselves, from childhood, to mortification and penance, and, with this view, he did not suffer them to wear any ornament on their heads on Fridays, because it is on this day that Our Lord was crowned with thorns. Finally, we still have the instructions that he wrote with his own hand to his daughter Isabelle, when she was Queen of Navarre; they are so holy and so filled with the spirit of Jesus Christ that there is no director, however enlightened he may be, who can give more excellent ones.

If he knew so well how to govern his children, he was even more admirable in the government of his State. One never saw so much peace and prosperity in France as during his reign. All other nations, in the East, in the West, in the South, and in the North, were in trouble; but the French, whom he governed, enjoyed a happy tranquility that he procured for them by his wisdom. He took care to banish from his State, by holy laws, all the disorders he could recognize there. The first was blasphemy and impious and execrable oaths. He made, against this crime, ordinances too severe, which Pope Clement IV had him modify. As for him, he had no other judgment than to say: *By my name*; but a religious of Saint Francis having warned him that it belonged only to God to swear in this way, he immediately ceased to do so and contented himself with saying *yes* and *no*, according to the doctrine of the Son of God in the Gospel. The other disorders he strove to exterminate were duels, games of chance, the frequenting of places of debauchery, the luxury of women, and chicanery in lawsuits. He is the first who forbade duels in France: for, before him, the kings tolerated them, and sometimes even ordered them to know the right of the parties: which was a means as deceptive as it was contrary to the laws of justice and humanity. The inhabitants did not dare to be in the taverns of the place: this public convenience was permitted only to passersby and to those who had no domicile. The offices of judicature not yet being venal, he provided them with persons of known wisdom and probity: which he did only after having taken the advice of the most virtuous and the most skillful of his kingdom.

When he sent bailiffs, judges, and officers into the provinces, to administer justice there for a time, he forbade them to acquire property there and to establish their children there, for fear that they might take the opportunity to commit injustices. He wanted them, upon leaving their offices, to render an exact account of their administration, and to satisfy the complaints of the cities and provinces where they had been commissioners. He often deputed, above them, extraordinary judges to examine their conduct and to review their judgments, following the example of God, who assures that He will judge the justices. If it was found that they had acted badly in their offices, he imposed a severe penance upon himself, as if he had been guilty of their excesses, and he also punished them very rigorously, obliging them above all to restore what they had taken from the people, and to compensate those whom they had condemned unjustly or whose affairs they had too long prolonged. On the contrary, when he learned that these officers had worthily fulfilled their duty, he rewarded them with magnificence, either by good salaries or by raising them to more honorable employments. In his own affairs, he was the first to condemn himself, and he even made himself the advocate of those who disputed some right with him. His ears were always ready to receive complaints and to listen to the causes of his subjects, without anyone daring to prevent them from approaching him. Even in his walks, whether in his garden in Paris or in the woods of Vincennes, he would sit in the shade of a tree to judge, without form of trial, their disputes. Often he would accommodate them amicably, other times he would end them by a decisive decree; but it was always with so much equity that no one could find fault with his sentences. Never did nobility or great wealth prevent him from being impartial; he felt, on the contrary, more inclined to favor persons of modest means who had no other support than the merits of their causes. We have, in his history, examples so illustrious of the protection he gave to the poor against the tyranny and violence of the great, and of the rigor with which he punished the injustice of the latter, that there is nothing comparable in those of the most severe judges of antiquity. He also had a marvelous skill for discovering the truth that one tried to obscure by false letters or by suborning false witnesses. A great lord, unable to obtain from a poor widow that she sell him her inheritance, which he wanted to enclose in his park, forged a contract of sale, by virtue of which he took possession of it as a property he had legitimately acquired. The widow had recourse to the king, who, touched by her complaints, immediately summoned this lord, so that he might defend himself against the accusation made against him. He came with two witnesses, whom he corrupted with money, to testify that the contract was true and that no fraud had intervened. The king, having heard them, saw well that they were speaking against their conscience, and that they had been seduced. To discover the truth, he questioned them separately, and thus obtained successively from each of them the admission of the falsity of the contract that the lord had had made. They also declared all the circumstances of this action, and the amount of money they had received. Louis, knowing by this means the iniquity of the gentleman and his miserable accomplices, sent them back before the ordinary judges to receive their punishment, and restored the dispossessed widow to the peaceful enjoyment of her inheritance.

Saint Louis's dedication to the conduct of his family and his State did not prevent him from practicing all the exercises of a perfect Christian. As he knew that chastity is easily lost in delights, that humility is in great danger amidst the praises and honors of the world, and that true devotion hardly accords with the anxieties that immense riches bring with them, he took only the pleasures that necessity and propriety obliged him to take. Flattery was never welcome to him. He humbled himself as much as he could in the state of greatness and authority in which God had placed him. His treasures belonged more to the poor than to himself, and he had no greater satisfaction than to strip himself of them to enrich the unfortunate. His custom was to fast strictly every Friday of the year, as well as the Advent of Our Lord, from All Saints' Day until Christmas, and all the vigils of the feasts of the Virgin; as for the fasts commanded by the Church, he only dispensed himself from them, during his illnesses, out of obedience to his confessors. On the Fridays of Advent and Lent, he ate neither fruit, nor meat, nor fish; but only bread and vegetables. There were also days that he fasted on bread and water, such as Christmas Eve, Good Friday, and the vigils of Our Lady. He slept very little, in order to have time to occupy himself with prayer and the contemplation of divine truths. The hair shirt was his ordinary garment, and, when his confessor forbade him to wear it, he supplemented this mortification with a special alms of forty sous per day, which was, at that time, a considerable sum and sufficient to feed forty people. He sometimes walked barefoot in his shoes, without anyone being able to notice, because he had had cut hose made, which facilitated this austerity for him. Although he watched perpetually over himself, so as not to let any action contrary to perfection escape, he nevertheless always walked in holy fear before the majesty of God and regarded himself only as the vilest of all creatures.

He did not fail, every Saturday, to assemble a group of poor people in a secret place, where he humbly washed, dried, and kissed their feet. He also washed their hands, and did not send them away without giving them a large alms. He usually treated one hundred and twenty of them, in his palace, to dinner and supper, and often he served them himself, with his royal hands, making them eat before he sat down to table. On vigils and feast days, he increased the number to two hundred, and also acted as their cupbearer and steward. He never took a meal without having three old poor men at his side, to whom he presented the best that was on his table, and sometimes he had the dishes they had eaten brought back, deeming himself very happy to feed on the remains of the poor. He did not wear precious clothes highlighted with gold and embroidery, but was content with the most common clothes, especially after his return from the Holy Land, except on ceremonial occasions, where he knew how to support the brilliance of his crown with a magnificence worthy of the greatness of the first monarch of the world. He said the Hours of Our Lady every day, early in the morning, and attended Mass holily. For feast days, he was at Matins early in the church, and heard them in their entirety with great respect and a devotion capable of inspiring all his courtiers. Finally, his piety was so pure and so perfect that it could put to shame the most austere religious and the most reclusive hermits in the world.

What shall we say of his zeal for the ruin of heresy and libertinism, and for the establishment of the faith and Christian discipline throughout the extent of his States? To this end, he made very severe regulations; the same motive gave him much affection for the religious of Saint Dominic and Saint Francis, whom he regarded as sacred instruments that divine Providence wished to use for the salvation of an infinity of souls redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. He even sometimes invited them to dine with him, especially Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Bonaventure, two of the most excellent lights of the religieux de Saint-Dominique Religious order to which the saint belongs. Church, whose pious and learned conversations gave him marvelous joy and consolation. He founded collegiate churches, parishes, monasteries, chapels, hospitals, leper colonies, and other places of devotion and charity on all sides.

The religion of this great prince appeared once more in an admirable manner through the zeal he displayed in bringing the Crown of T horns of Our Lord couronne d'épines Major relic of the Passion acquired by the king. into his kingdom. He sent for it to Constantinople via Brother Jacques and Father André de Lonjumeau, of the Order of Saint Dominic, and had it brought as far as Venice, because it had been pledged to the Venetians for a very considerable loan of money. He subsequently redeemed it from their hands by paying them the price of the pledge.

At that time, the Catholic spirit was so fervent in France that throughout the kingdom there was great and national joy when it was learned that the Savior's Crown of Thorns had become French property.

Having received official notice, Louis IX, in the first days of August 1239, departed from Vincennes with Queens Blanche and Marguerite; the Counts of Artois, Poitiers, and Anjou, his brothers; the Archbishop of Sens; Bernard, Bishop of Le Puy; several other prelates; and a crowd of princes and high barons.

At Villeneuve-l'Archevêque, five leagues from Sens, this noble and brilliant procession met the religious and their numerous retinue; for the populations, knowing what they were bringing into France, had hastened to follow them, with the resolution not to return home until they had seen and adored the sacred vestiges of the passion of the God-Man.

It was August 10, the feast of Saint Lawrence. Father André and Brother Jacques presented to the monarch, to the queen his wife, to the queen his mother, and to the son of France who accompanied them, the triple chest covered with the seals of the French lords and of the Doge of Venice, Giacomo Tiepolo.

Everything was done with order and in great recollection. First, the seals were examined and recognized; then they were broken. The opening of the cedar chest being finished, the silver reliquary was taken out with the same ceremony; the lid of this reliquary was lifted, and finally, a kneeling prelate drew from it the gold vase containing the holy crown. At that instant, king, queens, princes, knights, archbishops, bishops, priests, monks, soldiers, bourgeois, and people prostrated themselves, bursting into tears, and barely daring to raise their heads to look at this branch of thorns that the executioners of Jerusalem had twisted to make a derisive crown for their divine victim.

Oh! how this diadem of mockery has become a diadem of glory, and how all that is great, all that is strong, all that is humble, all that is small, all that is happy, and all that is in tears, venerates it today!

The day and night were spent in prayers and canticles of joy; and it was only the next day that the pious son of Blanche of Castile, as well as his three brothers, Robert, Alphonse, and Charles, bareheaded, barefoot, and dressed in a simple white wool tunic, carried the crown of Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, into the sanctuary of the metropolis of Sens, where Louis IX had taken Marguerite of Provence as his wife. All these ceremonies were beautiful and produced a great effect. They were concluded on August 20. On that day, the holy crown was offered for the veneration of the Parisians in the church of Notre-Dame. All the monks, all the religious of the royal monastery of Saint-Denis, and of the two abbeys of Saint-Germain went to meet the Crown of Thorns as far as the entrance to the woods of Vincennes; and it was a striking and magnificent spectacle to see all this Christian crowd following the crosses and the floating banners of the communities, convents, and parishes of the great city, plunging under the shade of the centuries-old oaks to go and prostrate themselves before a relic so holy, which recalled the great immolation of Golgotha.

In this eager multitude shone all the illustrations of the camps, all the grandeurs of the palaces, and all the glories of the sanctuary.

At the entrance to the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, through the care of the king's officers, a vast platform covered with silk and gold hangings had been erected, which one reached by treading on the richest carpets of the crown, spread out on the ground. The silver reliquary was mounted on the platform by several bishops in copes and miters. One of the prelates then uncovered the diadem of the Passion and showed it to the immense multitude. Suddenly, the immense multitude, as one man, fell prostrate, uttering cries of joy that must have risen to heaven and been heard by Him who reigns there; for they came from sincere and believing hearts.

Louis IX and his three brothers, still barefoot and bareheaded, placed the gold vase back into the silver reliquary and carried it to the high altar of Notre-Dame. After the thanksgiving ceremony, the precious relic was deposited in the chapel of Saint-Nicolas, built by Louis the Fat.

In the centuries of faith and piety, great personages always had in their home, or in the vicinity of their residence, a chapel qualified as holy. In the neighborhood of the palace enclosure of the Cité, the Dukes of France and the Counts of Paris had the chapel of Saint-Barthélemy, which for some time bore the name of Saint-Magloire; and, in addition, the chapels of Saint-Georges, Saint-Michel, and Saint-Nicolas, which Louis VII had built and which he placed under the invocation of Notre-Dame de l'Étoile.

Louis IX found nothing among the chapels then existing that was worthy of receiving within its walls the crown reddened by the blood of the Redeemer; and he commissioned Pierre de Montereau to build for it this magnificent stone reliquary, which we still admire today, a monument as delicately sculpted as those gold and silver reliquaries that were once seen in the treasuries of our old churches.

Saint Louis had raised the Sainte-Chapelle so that the most sacred things would be forever religiously preserved there. There, he had had the crown that had torn the brow of the God-Man, the re ed that had ser Sainte-Chapelle Building constructed to house the relics of the Passion. ved as his scepter, and the iron of the lance that had pierced his side deposited on velvet and kept in vermeil caskets.

During the saturnalia of 1793, as is known, the relics were thrown to the wind to obtain the gold of the reliquaries; under the vaults built by Pierre de Montereau, all the papers of the registry had been brought; and we have seen all the judgments of human justice, dusty files, piled up where the sacred ornaments of the Church had once shone.

Today, we must say, for the love of art, while waiting for it to be for the love of God, the monument of Louis IX's piety has been restored, and we are going to see this chapel again as beautiful and as brilliant as in the time of the saintly king. May the repainted and regilded walls of the royal oratory one day see a faith similar to that which was manifested there in the 13th century!

Louis IX also obtained from Baldwin II, Emperor of Constantinople, a quantity of other relics of inestimable value, namely: the swaddling clothes of the infant Jesus, a large part of his cross, the iron chain with which he was bound, the iron of the lance with which his side was pierced, the reed and the purple robe that the soldiers gave him as a scepter and royal mantle, the sponge with which they offered him gall and vinegar, the linen with which he girded himself to wash the feet of his Apostles, a shroud, and a part of the winding sheet in which he was buried, and some other relics of the Saints specified in the authentic act of this emperor, given at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the month of June 1247. Thus, through the wise foresight of our incomparable monarch, Greece was despoiled and France was enriched, and we received, with these holy remains, an assured pledge of the benevolence and perpetual protection of God toward this kingdom.

It is time to speak of the most memorable part of Saint Louis's life, which is his journey to the Orient to deliver the holy places from the tyrannical power of the Saracens and other Barbarians. From his youth, he had a great inclination for this expedition, which he deemed very worthy of a most Christian king and the eldest son of the Church; but the great affairs of his State had always prevented him from executing it. Finally, in the year 1245, at Pontoise, he fell so gravely ill with a continuous fever and dysentery that his health was entirely despaired of. He was even held for nearly a day as dead, having no longer any feeling or sensible movement. In this extremity, all the French, who loved him as their father, urgently raised their hands toward heaven. The precious reliquaries of the same Saint Denis, Saint Rusticus, and Saint Eleutherius, patrons of Paris, were also carried in procession to Saint-Denis, and vows were made on all sides for the recovery of such a good prince; finally, having returned from this long lethargy, he made a vow to go himself to Palestine to assist the Christians oppressed by the infidels. This vow was followed by his convalescence. Thus, he did not doubt that it was the will of God that he should leave his kingdom for some time to pass with an army into the Holy Land. He was further engaged to make this journey by the distressing news that came from the Orient, that Barbakan, king of the Khwarazmians, a Persian nation, having been driven from his states by the Great Khan of Tartary, had taken refuge with the Sultan of Egypt, and that with his troops he had retaken Jerusalem, sacked Palestine, and reduced the affairs of the Christians to a worse state than they had ever been. Moreover, Pope Innocent IV, who had come to Lyon, a s much to avoid pape Innocent IV 13th-century pope who testified to the saint's miracles. the persecutions of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa as to celebrate a general council to remedy the evils with which the Church was burdened, strongly exhorted the King to this heroic act of Christian piety and generosity. Finally, several prodigies, and especially crosses of light that appeared in various places, showed that this design for a new crusade came from God.

However, the Queen Mother and the Bishop of Paris, considering the dangers of this crusade and the little success of the previous ones, and especially the great benefits that the King's presence caused in France, did what they could to dissuade him, and pointed out to him that his vow should not trouble him, because, when he had made it, being overwhelmed by illness and not having a sufficiently free mind, he was not in a state to contract such an important and difficult obligation. But this holy king, to whom God had given unshakable strength and constancy when it was a question of His service, could not yield to their solicitations; and, to remove any means for them to press him further, having returned his cross to the bishop, he said to him: "You cannot doubt now, my father, that I am in full use of my reason, enjoying, by the grace of Jesus Christ, perfect health: it is therefore in this disposition that I renew the vow I have made to go myself to Palestine, and that I ask you for the cross: return it to me as I consigned it to you; for, if my first vow had some defects that could make one doubt its validity, this second one has none, and it obliges me indispensably to do what I have promised." These words closed the mouths of those who were most opposed to the crusade. The princes and the greatest lords of France took the cross with the King: among others, Robert, Count of Artois; Alphonse, Count of Poitiers, and Charles, Count of Anjou, his brothers; the Archbishops of Reims and Bourges, and the Bishops of Laon, Beauvais, and Orléans; Blanche, the King's mother, was left as regent. Margaret, his wife, wished to accompany him, despite the dangers and inevitable inconveniences of such a long journey. His three sisters-in-law, wives of his three brothers, imitated the courage of this great queen. The French swore an oath to keep fidelity to the King's children if any misfortune befell him outside of France. Finally, His Majesty took the road to Lyon, where he paid a visit, for the second time, to Pope Innocent IV, and received his apostolic blessing. From there, he went to Aigues-Mortes, where the fleet and the rendezvous of his entire army were. On August 23 of the year 1248, this great king embarked with his entire retinue, and with Eudes, Bishop of Tusculum (Frascati), whom the Pope made his legate on this expedition. The navigation was fortunate until the island of Cyprus, where he arrived on September 20. He was received in Limassol with all possible honor and magnificence by King Henry, son of Amaury and grandson of Guy of Lusignan, who had made, by his order, incredible stores of wheat, wine, arms, and siege engines. Had he consulted only his zeal, he would have left immediately to reach Egypt; but he found himself forced to remain all winter on this island, first because of the plague that broke out in his camp and carried off more than a sixth of his troops, then because his brother Alphonse, delayed by the death of the Count of Toulouse, his father-in-law, had not yet arrived with the rest of his army. However, he did not waste time; for, firstly, by the example of his courage, he led the King of Cyprus to take the cross and to undertake the rest of the journey with him. Secondly, he extinguished, by his prudence, the quarrels of the two archbishops of the island, who had thrown it into confusion by their factions and the enterprises they undertook against one another.

Thus, in Cyprus as in France, under the tent as under the oak of Vincennes, the grandson of Philip Augustus showed himself as an angel of peace and conciliation. So much wisdom and virtue united with so much skill and courage, so much glory, in a word, was bound to cast its reflections afar.

Finally, he had the consolation of receiving the ambassadors of a Tartar prince, named Ecaithaï, who, having recently defeated the Persians, and having become a disciple of Jesus Christ and a child of the Church through Baptism, sent to offer to join his army with his own to extinguish the power of the Egyptian and deliver the holy places from the tyrannical domination of the infidels. The superscription of the letter that these deputies presented read: "To the great king of many provinces, the invincible defender of the world, the sword of the Christians, the protector of the Gospel, Louis, my son, King of France." The King gave them all the welcome that such a solemn embassy deserved, without, however, trusting their word too much, nor letting them see too clearly into what was happening at his court.

Some of our historians have written that their promises were not sincere. Others have had a completely contrary opinion. Be that as it may, it is certain that Saint Louis did not subsequently receive any help from that side. While he was wintering on the island of Cyprus, the Saracen princes, warned of his armament, for the most part abandoned their private dissensions to unite against him, and the chief of the assassins, named the Old Man of the Mountain, sent several of his own to kill him; but they were all discovered and justly condemned to death. Finally, on Friday, May 13, 1249, before Pentecost, he set sail again with eighteen hundred vessels, both large and small. Of this great number, more than half were scattered by the storm from the moment of departure; so that the King, reviewing them at the point of Limassol, found with him only seven hundred knights, out of the two thousand eight hundred of which his army was composed. He nevertheless continued the navigation, and on the way, the Duke of Burgundy, William of Salisbury, and William of Villehardouin, Prince of Achaea, joined him. With this reinforcement, he sailed toward Damietta, where he found the Saracens drawn up in great numbers on the port. Everything seemed to favor their ar Damiette Egyptian city conquered by Saint Louis. ms: the difficulty we had in landing, the eminence of the place where they were and from which it was easy for them to rain a hail of arrows upon ours, and a tower that was behind them, from which they could still notably inconvenience the vessels that would have the boldness to approach. But the valor of Saint Louis rendered all these advantages useless. He gave the signal for combat by the sound of horns and trumpets, and, at the same time, the one who carried the banner of Saint-Denis having jumped ashore, Saint Louis threw himself into the water up to his armpits, cutlass in hand, and shield hung around his neck. His men followed him immediately, without the arrows of the Saracens being able to prevent them from climbing onto the shore: so that he had the means to form a tight battalion to withstand the shock of the infidels. Six thousand cavalrymen came at the same time to fall upon the French; but they were repulsed with such vigor, and such great carnage, that they no longer wished to return to the charge. They therefore set fire to Damietta in several places, massacred all the Franks who were within their walls, and, loading themselves with what they found there of most precious, they fled shamefully, leaving the city open and exposed to the arms of our holy Monarch. Such great cowardice passed at first for a pure stratagem; but the truth having been recognized, His Majesty ordered a procession with the cross and burning torches to enter solemnly into this first conquest. He attended it with bare feet and head, with the Pope's legate, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the other prelates and lords who were in his retinue. The mosque was purified and blessed, and it was made into a church to celebrate the holy mysteries, after having dedicated it to the Holy Virgin. After such a happy victory, which had cost almost no blood, Saint Louis deliberated whether he should immediately take the field to pursue the infidels. The advice of his council was that they should wait for the vessels that the storm had dissipated, and Alphonse, Count of Poitiers, his brother, who was coming from France with the rearguard. This was hardly the sentiment of the King, who believed that they should strike the enemies while they were in terror; but he did not wish to undertake anything against the judgment of so many old captains. However, the abundance of the country and the laziness of our soldiers soon introduced dissolution and debauchery into the army. The soldiers and even several of the lords abandoned themselves to the crimes and abominations of the barbarians they had come to exterminate. They dissipated, through continuous games and feasts, what was to serve to sustain them in such a distant country. Saint Louis did what he could, through his remonstrances and his laws, to prevent these disorders; but it was uselessly. He even drew his army out of the city for this purpose, established it in a vast and well-guarded camp, whose tents were pitched on both banks of the Nile and on the island of Maalé (the Delta); but debauchery followed them there. One should not be surprised, after that, if the justice of God punished these libertines with several defeats of which we are about to speak.

As soon as the army was assembled, our holy Monarch marched on Grand Cairo, then the capital of Egypt and the seat of its sovereigns. The Sultan Negmeddin had just died, leaving only a son who was absent; but Sécédin (or Fakr-Eddin) took the regency of the kingdom, and amassed strong troops to dispute all the passages against the French. The first one he disputed was that of the Rexi, which is a branch of the Nile, where they attempted uselessly to throw a bridge of boats; but they finally found a ford, through which our entire army having passed, threw itself with fury upon the Saracens.

The combat was all the greater because the infidels were six to one, and, fighting on their own ground, they had advantages and conveniences that we did not have. One cannot express the valor that our holy King showed on this day. He was seen covered in golden armor and scimitar in hand, shining like lightning and striking like thunder. "And I promise you," said the Sire de Joinville, an eyewitness, "that never was such a handsome armed man seen." He surpassed all others by his gigantic stature, and, as if his strength had been divinely redoubled, he dealt so many blows with his sword and mace that he scattered or knocked down all who approached him. It seemed that he was at the same time in three or four different places, so prompt and ardent was he to assist his own. Six enemy cavalrymen having surrounded him, as he was going to free one of his captains who was being taken prisoner, he defended himself so courageously that he laid some of them on the ground and skillfully escaped the others. His prodigious actions sustained and enhanced the courage of the Christians, and there was not one who did not feel, by his example, his vigor renewed, despite the excessive heat, the weariness, and the assault of the enemies. Finally, Sécédin having been killed, the infidels fled in disorder, and left their camp to ours, who slept in it and gathered their spoils. Such a brilliant victory did not fail to cost us blood; Robert, the King's brother, and three hundred knights of the Temple pursued the enemies through the city of Mansourah, which they found open. As they wished to return triumphant through the same city, they were enclosed there and beaten to death with arrows, stones, and tiles. A short time later, the Saracens having elected another general, named Bibars-Bendocdar, who was a man of great experience, he offered a second battle to the French. It was more formal than the first, but it was no less favorable to us; for, when the honor of the combat had been disputed for three hours, the infidels turned their backs, and the Christians, pursuing them, made a horrible slaughter of them, as long as the sun shone on them. It was on this occasion that Alphonse, Count of Poitiers and brother of the King, being in extreme danger, this generous monarch ran with such valor to his rescue that he happily delivered him from the hands of those who surrounded him.

The French, all glorious from these two defeats, instead of raising their eyes to heaven, from whence this help had come to them, attributed the cause of their happiness to the strength of their swords, and plunged themselves more than ever into vice. The good King, unable to suffer their vanity or their debauchery, often said to them: "Let us recognize, lords, that so many benefits come to us from God, let us render thanks to Him, let us pray to Him that He may preserve them for us; and, if we wish for this favor, let us preserve for ourselves His grace and our innocence, without which all our progress would only advance our ruin." Everyone promised not to fail in this; but almost everyone failed continually. Thus, prosperity did not last long, and it soon changed into a very great adversity. For the infection of the dead bodies, both of our own and of the enemies, having ignited a furious plague in our camp, a large part of the army was consumed by it; and, as the King saw himself too weak, with the few people who remained to him, to resist the forces of the Saracens whose number was always growing, mainly since the arrival of the Sultan, he was forced to take the road back to Damietta. It was in this retreat that, having made his vanguard and his main body of the army march ahead, he placed himself in his rearguard to support it by his presence and his courage against the efforts of the Saracens. Indeed, he performed on this occasion, sick and languishing as he was, feats of bravery that have almost no example; but God, wishing to consummate his holiness through a heroic patience more glorious than all his exploits of war, permitted that he be made prisoner by the infidels, with Alphonse and Charles, his two brothers, and a quantity of other lords, whom their languor had put out of a state to save themselves. Saint Louis had for his prison the house of Fakr-Eddin-Ben-Lokman, secretary to the Sultan; he was entrusted to the guard of Sablin. He was at first treated well enough, because the Sultan, fearing to lose a considerable ransom by his death, took particular care to have him cured; but, since he was in health, he was made to suffer the most barbaric treatments, and this tyrant even threatened to have him put in the "bernicles," a species of torture similar to the rack, to dislocate and unjoint all his bones, if he did not accept his propositions.

The constancy of Louis appeared admirably in such a surprising reversal. Far from being afflicted by the pains he endured, he had and testified joy in them: the threats of the Saracen did not shake him at all, and he was no less calm in his prison and loaded with irons than if he had been on his throne, in the midst of the homage of his subjects. Such extraordinary strength surprised the Sultan: he proposed to set him at liberty with all his people, if he would return Damietta to him, and give him five hundred thousand pounds. The King never wished to put his person at a price of gold and silver; nor did it have any price; but he agreed to these conditions for the deliverance of his brothers and the other Christian prisoners. The Sultan, even more astonished by his frankness, remitted one hundred thousand pounds of this sum, asking for no more than four hundred thousand. During this negotiation, the Queen, who was at Damietta, gave birth to a son who was called Tristan, for having been born during the captivity of his father. Moreover, the emirs, who were the principal officers of Egypt, being dissatisfied with their Sultan because he had removed them from his court to raise new creatures, incited the Mamelukes against him, who assassinated him with dagger blows. One of his assassins came at the same time to find the King, his hands all bloody, to tell him that he had killed his enemy: but this great prince, to whom such an execrable crime could only give horror, turned his face to the other side, without even wishing to look at him. There was reason to fear that the emirs would not hold to the conditions that the deceased had granted him; nevertheless, his patience, his modesty, his courage, and the holiness of all his actions made such an impression on their minds, barbaric and cruel as they were, that they even deliberated for a long time among themselves whether they should not elect him as their Sultan. Not having been able to agree on it, they granted him a truce for ten years, swearing to observe this treaty by the most terrible oaths that were in their law. They wished to oblige him to make similar oaths according to his law, such as to deny Jesus Christ if he did not keep his word; but, although he had every desire to keep it and he was told that, in this resolution, he could make this oath, he had such horror of these words: "to deny the faith, and to deny Jesus Christ," that he never wished to consent to it. Alphonse, his brother, was left as a hostage, and he, with all the lords, made his way toward Damietta, from where he sent two hundred thousand pounds to the emirs, and from there he went to Acre. The Queen was waiting for him there with his treasure, from which he had the other two hundred thousand pounds held, as had been agreed, and retrieved his brother. He showed himself so religious in keeping his word that one of his treasurers having reported to him that the emirs had made a mistake of ten thousand pounds in the payment, he sent it back to them immediately, although, on their part, they had failed in many things, whether by putting to death the sick Christians of Damietta, or by not sending back all the prisoners.

Furthermore, in the midst of so many afflictions capable of shaking the most constant souls, the holy King never allowed himself to be carried away by any movement of impatience; but he blessed God continually, and thanked Him no less for these crosses and adversities than for the greatest prosperities. His design was to return immediately to France with the Queen, his children, and the princes; but, seeing that the Saracens had broken the truce and violated their oaths, he did not wish to abandon the Orient yet, for fear of leaving the Christians exposed to the rage of the infidels. He therefore remained for some time at Acre, where his ordinary exercises were to console the Christians of the country, to provide them liberally with everything they lacked, to redeem those who were prisoners in the hands of the Mahometans, to have temples rebuilt, to collect the relics of the martyrs, and, following the example of Jesus Christ his Master, to preach the true faith effectively, not by studied sermons, but by energetic actions. Our Lord blessed his zeal and his labors admirably; for he made a great number of conversions, and was the joy and consolation of the entire Orient. He also became, by this means, more glorious and more brilliant than he had been before his defeat and his prison, and he acquired such high esteem among all the princes of the Orient that one spoke everywhere only of his royal virtues and his heroic actions. He received at this time the ambassadors of the Emperor of Germany, who pretended to have come to negotiate his deliverance; but he did not trust them, because their master was suspected of colluding with the Saracens. The Sultan of Damascus also sent him deputies to enter into an alliance with him against the emirs of Egypt; but this had no other effect than to oblige these emirs to keep the treaty they had made with the Christians, and to repair the damages they had caused by contravening it. The prince of the Bedouins or assassins, who was feared by all the other princes under the name of the Old Man of the Mountain, because he had under him soldiers devoted to the massacre of those he marked for them, was forced to honor his virtue and to revere his power; he sent him rich presents, with his shirt and his ring, begging him to leave him in peace, and not to come to disturb him in the castles he had on the mountains around Tyre.

The King was not content with making himself useful to the Christians in Acre, he bought new troops and re-established his army; then, having taken the field again, he entered Palestine, where he visited the holy places of the province of Galilee, such as Mount Tabor and the city of Nazareth. He fortified some cities there, among others Caesarea Philippi, which was called Belinas, and Jaffa, besides Tyre and Sidon, in Phoenicia. He had a desire to visit the Holy City as well, and the Saracens would not have refused him entry with a few people, if he had asked them; but his council dissuaded him from doing so. He performed incredible charities to the faithful on all sides: it is noted that one day, having found a large number in the countryside who had died in a combat against the Saracens, he dismounted from his horse to bury them, and began himself to carry them into the pit, on his shoulders, saying to those who accompanied him: "Help me, my brothers, to bury the martyrs of Jesus Christ."

He was still meditating on greater things, without the dangers he ran and the difficulties that arose at every moment being able to slow the fervor of his zeal: but, just when he was promising himself a successful outcome to his enterprises, Queen Blanche, his mother, whom he had left as regent of the kingdom, and who had governed it during his absence with all the wisdom and firmness that one could have expected from the greatest princes, passed away at Melun, aged 65, in 1252. This sad news was announced to him in the city of Sidon by the Pope's legate, accompanied by the Archbishop of Tyre and by Geoffrey of Beaulieu, of the Order of Saint Dominic, his confessor. Then, he knelt before the altar of his chapel, where he was, and, joining his hands, he said with an abundance of tears: "I give you thanks, my Lord and my God, that it pleased you to lend me my most honored lady and mother until now. I loved her assuredly above all mortal creatures, as she well deserved that I should have for her this affection and tenderness; but, since you have judged it appropriate to take her back to yourself, may your holy name be praised and blessed eternally!" He recited for her, at that very hour, the entire Office of the Dead, with as much attention and tranquility of mind as if it had been for an indifferent person, and he had many masses said for her intention, especially in religious houses.

This loss did not prevent him from remaining for some time in the Holy Land, to finish the fortifications of the cities he had undertaken to put in a state of defense; but, having received letters informing him that his kingdom was in danger from the Germans and the English if he did not return as soon as possible, he resumed the journey to France on April 25, the day of Saint Mark in 1254, with the queen and his children. When he boarded his ship, he had an altar and a tabernacle set up, very magnificently adorned, where, by the permission of the apostolic legate, he had the Blessed Sacrament of the altar placed. All the hours of the divine office were said there, and even all the prayers of the mass, except the Canon: the holy host was also taken there to be carried as Viaticum to the sick. On the third day of the voyage, a furious storm arose on the sea, which, throwing the ship where His Majesty was against a tongue of land, put it in danger of opening up and sinking. Everyone despaired of their life; but the holy king, having prostrated himself before the Blessed Sacrament and before the relics of the Saints, did so much, through his prayers and his tears, that he saved his ship from this peril. Furthermore, he performed, on this occasion, an act of incomparable generosity: the sailors advised him to move to another ship, with the queen and his children, because the sand had broken three fathoms of his keel; he absolutely refused to do so, for fear of discouraging the other lords who were with him and giving them a distaste for the voyage. Finally, he arrived on July 19 at Hyères, crossed the Rhône at Beaucaire, traversed Languedoc, and arrived at the Château de Vincennes on September 5. The next day he made his solemn entry into Paris.

Everyone showed signs of joy at his happy return. Pope Clement IV sent him congratulations, assuring him in his apostolic brief that, during his absence, he had taken his kingdom under his protection, having forbidden any Christian, under pain of excommunication, from undertaking anything against his lands. Henry III, King of England, also came from Bordeaux to Paris to pay his respects and to show him the part he took in the public and universal joy of his happy arrival in his States. He still had other designs which he easily accomplished through the sovereign goodness of the Saint, who would refuse him nothing, in order to establish a stable and permanent peace between the French and the English. It was on this occasion that, Louis offering by honor the precedence to Henry, as one always offers it to one's guests in one's own house, this prince refused it constantly, saying to him: "No, great king, this honor belongs to you, you are my lord, and you will always be."

One of the first occupations of this holy monarch, after his return, was to make peace between all the princes and great lords of Europe. He reconciled the Count of Burgundy with the Count of Châlons, his father; he reconciled both of them with Thibaud, Count of Champagne and King of Navarre. He made peace between the Counts of Bar and Luxembourg. He ended the disputes between the children of the two marriages of Margaret, Countess of Flanders. Finally, there were no States or sovereigns who did not want to have him as arbiter of the differences that arose between them and their neighbors. The people of his council sometimes pointed out to him that he would do better to let these princes be at war with one another, because by weakening themselves in money and soldiers, they gave him the opportunity to profit from their dissensions; but he rebuked them for this advice as very bad counsel, "because," he said, "if I leave my neighbors at war to take advantage of their weakening, besides the fact that I fail in Christian charity, which makes me worthy of the scourges of God's wrath, I also incur the blame of men, and I deserve that, forgetting their own quarrels, they join together to attack me and take away what belongs to me."

Never was a prince more magnificent than he for the construction of churches, monasteries, and hospitals. He founded the Abbey of Royaumont, in the diocese of Beauvais, for religious of Cîteaux; that of Le Lys, in the diocese of Sens, for religious of the same Order, and that of Longchamps, in the diocese of Paris, for religious of Saint Clare. He finished that of Maubuisson, near Pontoise, and granted very beautiful privileges to that of Saint-Antoine, one of the suburbs of Paris. He established the Carthusians, near the same city, in the place named Vauvert, which had been the palace of King Robert. He contributed much to the convent of the Jacobins and the Cordeliers, which the kings his predecessors had already received there. The Abbey of Sainte-Catherine-du-Val-des-Écoliers, and the hospital of the Quinze-Vingts, also recognize him as their founder. He founded the latter to perpetually maintain three hundred blind people, in memory of three hundred knights of his retinue, to whom the infidels had cruelly gouged out their eyes when he was in the Holy Land. He also had great repairs made to Saint-Denis, in France, gave several shrines there for the preservation of the holy relics, and raised most of the tombs of the kings his predecessors. But, of all his foundations, the most remarkable is that of the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris, which he endowed with very beautiful revenues to honor, through perpetual worship, the sacred relics of our redemption, as we have already noted. We do not speak of the monastery of the Amurées of the Order of Saint Dominic, near Rouen, nor of the Maisons-Dieu of Pontoise, Compiègne, Saumur, Orléans, Reims, Fontainebleau, Villemande, Saint-Denis, and Vernon, which recognize him as their founder. His charity had no limits, and he would have spread its effects throughout the earth if his finances could have equaled the greatness of the desire he had to do good to everyone. When he knew that some province had been afflicted by hail and sterility, and that it was suffering from famine, he immediately sent considerable sums there to preserve the poor from the ultimate necessity. He also took care of a large number of young girls whose parents' indigence made it impossible for them to marry; for, for fear that this misery might lead them to some action contrary to purity, he endowed them from his own funds and helped them find matches suitable to their condition.

He was not content to employ his money for the relief of the poor and the sick; he visited them himself and rendered them the lowest services. The Bull of his canonization reports two examples. This holy Monarch, being one day in the Abbey of Royaumont, learned that a religious of this monastery, named Léger, was so covered with leprosy that his eyes, nose, and lips were already entirely consumed, so that one could hardly see any form of face in him. He wanted to see him, and, taking only the abbot with him, he went to his cell, which was separated from those of the other brothers. He found him at the table, eating with great difficulty the poor dinner that had been brought to him. He knelt before him as before one who represented Jesus Christ covered with our sins, and, taking from his royal hands the dishes that were in his plate, he carried them himself to his mouth; he also sent for dishes that were being prepared for his own dinner, and served them to him with a humility and devotion that were altogether surprising: finally, before leaving this sick man, who was a horror to all who saw him, he embraced and kissed him, not judging unworthy of a kiss from his mouth one who was the figure of his crucified Savior.

The other example took place in the Maison-Dieu of Compiègne: our Saint met there a man afflicted with the disease that the Bull calls Saint-Éloi's; he absolutely wanted to render him the same services that he had rendered to the previous one. His hand was immediately covered with the pus that flowed from the wounds of this sick man; but he was not at all astonished by it, he had it washed without being moved, and did not fail to continue these admirable offices of charity.

His devotion and his clemency were incomparable. Having one day been warned that assassins had been sent to take his life, he had them searched for with great care and had the good fortune to discover them. He forgave them and sent them back free to their master. The Annals of Scotland say that this conspiracy was discovered by the Scottish lords who had been given to Saint Louis by their king Alexander III, to assist and serve him in the holy war; and that in recognition of this loyalty, Saint Louis entrusted them with his first guard, as it has been preserved for a long time by the soldiers of the same country. The captain of the Scottish guards bore the title of first captain of the king's bodyguard. It happened another time that a poor woman, whose lawsuit, through some misunderstanding, was not being settled as quickly as she wished, addressed our holy Monarch herself, and said several insults to him, reproaching him that he was not worthy to carry the scepter and that he deserved on the contrary to be stripped of the purple and to be shamefully chased from his States. Far from conceiving indignation against her, he thanked her, on the contrary, for revealing his truths to him so well. "You are right, my dear," he said to her, "I am unworthy to be king, and if one treated me according to my merits, one would chase me not only from France, but also from the whole earth." After which he had a considerable alms given to her.

We have said that Saint Louis had made, before his departure for the Holy Land, wise ordinances to police his kingdom and banish all disorder from it. Upon his return, he made new ones that completed this great work. His singular modesty, whether for his table, for his clothes, or for the liveries of the people of his retinue, was a visible condemnation of the luxury of princes and lords; but he condemned and forbade it even in his edicts.

As the rights of regale and patronage gave him the nomination to several benefices, he took very exact care to nominate only wise, prudent, virtuous persons capable of filling the positions upon which the torches of the Church were to be raised, having them previously examined by doctors or by religious of Saint Dominic and Saint Francis, whose piety and erudition he knew singularly well. But, fearing to burden his conscience too much by these kinds of nominations, he never wanted to increase his rights in this point; he left to the prelates, the chapters, and the communities the provisions and elections that belonged to them according to the Canons. Pope Alexander IV, wanting to recognize, in some way, the benefits that the Church had received from his zeal and his magnificence, sent him a Bull, by which he granted him the nomination to the prelacies of his kingdom; but this grace, far from being agreeable to him, displeased him extremely, and he refused it with incredible firmness, saying that he would be embarrassed to render an account to God for the administration of his kingdom, without also meddling in that of the Church; then, for fear that his successors might want to make use of the favor he was refusing, he burned the Bull, so that it would not remain among the papers of the crown. He could not suffer the plurality of benefices; and, when he was solicited to nominate someone to a prebend, he never did so without being sure that he did not possess any other, or that he would resign the one he possessed. His respect toward the Pope and toward the Holy See was extreme; he showed himself, on all kinds of occasions, the protector of its rights and its invincible defender.

There would be an infinity of things to say concerning his piety toward Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, and the patron saints of his kingdom; concerning his prayers, his penances, his delicacy of conscience, and his devotion in receiving the most holy Sacrament of the altar. His zeal and his religion increased continually, and, far from diminishing his spiritual exercises, he constantly added new ones, and always performed the old ones with new fervor. The reputation of his holiness became so great that even the religious had recourse to him in their troubles, and begged him to instruct them, to reform them, and to settle their domestic differences. This good king was not at all scandalized to see various imperfections in them, but tried to remedy them with his wisdom, which had no equal in the whole extent of his States. There were some lords who could not taste his practices, and who even sometimes made jokes about them; but God has shown, in this great prince, that Christian modesty is infinitely more powerful than the arrogance and pride of the spirit of the world, since there has never been any other king than him who has preserved his State with so much peace, who has been so influential over the great men of his kingdom, and so feared by the princes his neighbors. It is said that one day the Count of Guelders, having sent one of his officers to Paris for some business that concerned his service, when he returned, asked him if he had seen the king. This officer, who was a jester, wanting to make him laugh at the expense of our holy Monarch, mimicked his posture, which was to tilt his head a little to the side, and said: "Yes, I saw him, this bigot, and this poor king who wears his hood on his shoulder"; but his impudence was not without punishment: for, at that very hour, he found his neck twisted, his head tilted and turned: which remained with him for the rest of his life. We have not said of our Saint that he refused to go see a beautiful child all covered in light, who appeared in the holy host when the Blessed Sacrament of the altar was raised at mass, saying that his faith in the presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist was firm; that it did not need to be fortified by sight; for our best historians agree that this action is of the great Simon, Count of Montfort, and not of Saint Louis, although he often cited it and spoke of it with much esteem and admiration.

However, this incomparable prince always carried in his mind a bitter regret for the poor success of French arms in the East, and for the oppression in which he had left the Christians there. His sorrow increased even more when he learned that the new Sultan of Egypt had taken and ruined the city of Antioch, and that he was threatening the rest of Syria and Palestine. In this miserable state, the Christians of Palestine continually implored the help of his arms, and their complaints resonated more loudly in his heart than in his ears. He was always thinking of a second crusade, and finally he resolved to undertake it. His three sons and a great number of princes and lords took the cross with him, in addition to Richard, King of England, who wished to accompany him and assembled very fine troops for this purpose. His council was not in favor of this journey; but the love of God and the zeal for religion prevailed in his mind over all the reasons of politics. His first design was to go straight to Syria, where he was so insistently requested; but, because the King of Tunis sent him promises to become a Christian if he would land in Africa; because his brother, the King of Sicily, extremely wished that the audacity of the Africans be repressed for the preservation of his coasts; and because, finally, it appeared that, with the Sultan of Egypt no longer drawing forces from the Muslims of Africa, it would be easier to subjugate him, he resolved to set sail for Tunis. Upon his departure, he gave the government of the State to Matthew of Vendôme, Abbot of Saint-Denis, to Simon of Clermont, Lord of Nesle, and, in their absence, to Philip, Bishop of Évreux, and to John, Count of Ponthieu. He also made his will, dated at Paris in the month of February 1269, which contains several pious bequests to churches and monasteries, with pension assignments for the newly baptized whom he had brought from overseas. It can be found in its entirety in Du Chesne, Ménart, and Du Cange, who have reported what concerns the history of Saint Louis.

Before moving away from the beautiful kingdom of France, the pious son of Blanche of Castile went to make a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame de Vauvert, and to other places then renowned for their holiness; thus the noble Son of France wished to carry from his native land all the confidence and all the hopes that one draws nowhere as abundantly as from the sources of religion.

The day of departure having arrived, the King summoned his three sons to him, and when they had entered the royal pavilion, in a moved voice he said to them: "You see how, already old, I am undertaking the voyage overseas for the second time; how I am leaving your mother advanced in age, and my kingdom filled with prosperity.

"You see how, for the cause of Christ, I do not spare my old age, and how I have resisted the prayers and the desolation of all those who are dear to me and who wanted to hold me back.

"I sacrifice for God rest, riches, honors, pleasures; and in doing so, I only fulfill my duty as a Christian king... I am taking you with me, my dear sons, as well as your elder sister; I would also have taken with us, soldiers of Jesus Christ, my fourth son, if he had been more advanced in age..."

Then, addressing the eldest of his children, Philip, who was to reign after him, he added: "I wanted to tell you these things so that after my death, and when you have ascended my throne, you will spare nothing for Christ and for the defense of his Church. May heaven grant that neither your wife, nor your children, nor your kingdom ever stop you on the path of salvation! I wanted to give this last example to you and to your brothers, and I hope that you will follow it, if circumstances require."

Deeply moved by this touching speech, the three sons of France fell at the knees of their father, who, extending his hands over their young bowed heads, blessed them tenderly in the name of the God for whom they were all going to fight.

The fleet set sail on July 4, 1270. A great storm soon dispersed the ships and put several of them out of condition to sail; but, having almost all been repaired and rejoined, they all landed at Tunis. Saint Louis thought he would ente r the Tunis Place of death of Saint Louis during the Eighth Crusade. port without any difficulty, after the advantageous promises of the King of that city; but he experienced the truth of the old proverb: "Punic faith." This barbarian, traitorous and unfaithful, who had himself called him to his aid, opposed his landing; it was necessary to fight him by sea and by land to have a place of safety. God blessed these beginnings. A part of the enemy ships were sunk, and the others were seized. There was, near the ruins of ancient Carthage, an island defended by a strong tower built on a rock. The French besieged it, took it, and placed a strong garrison there. The King of Tunis later made various attacks on them; but he was always beaten, especially in a bloody encounter where he lost ten thousand of his men. Thus his capital was seriously besieged. However, as it was strong and well-supplied with men of war, it was difficult to take it otherwise than by famine. Our troops, to achieve this, caused great damage in the surroundings and ruined all the places from which food could be brought to them. They caused him, by this means, many inconveniences; but those that they themselves received from it were incomparably greater. The shortage of food was soon in the camp, which, joined to the bad air and the suffocating heat of the climate, caused dysentery and hot fevers to enter at the same time, and put almost all the soldiers out of combat. Saint Louis would have liked to give battle to the Africans; but they contented themselves with a few light skirmishes and immediately retreated to advantageous places where it was impossible to besiege them. Finally, as the illness grew, the leaders and princes could not protect themselves from it. The Pope's legate was carried off by it; Philip, the King's eldest son, had attacks of it, in addition to a quartan fever that tormented him, and his brother, John Tristan, felt its violence through a rather prompt death. The King, their father, sensibly touched by these evils, was himself also struck by a flux of blood and a hot and pestilential fever, which immediately made his life despaired of.

This accident, which would have terrified any other prince, did not trouble or frighten him in the least. He adored the guidance of God over him; he thanked Him for these adversities, which he regarded as instruments of his predestination, and he abandoned himself into His hands for all the dispositions of His Providence. In the height of his illness, he often repeated this prayer: "Grant us the grace, Lord, to so despise the prosperities of this world that we do not fear its adversities." He also said: "Be, Lord, the sanctifier and the guardian of your people." He received the Viaticum with admirable piety and fervor, his heart all ablaze with love and his eyes bathed in tears. The priest asked him if he did not believe with firmness that the one he was presenting to him was Jesus Christ, Son of the living God: "I believe it as firmly," he replied, "as if I saw him with my own eyes and in the same form that he had when he ascended into heaven." After having thus armed himself with the Sacraments of the Church, he had the principal officers of his army come, expressed to them his joy at dying in the service of his divine Master, at seeing them all full of zeal for the defense and propagation of the Christian religion, and exhorted them to behave as true servants of Jesus Christ: "Since you are his soldiers," he told them, "not only by Baptism, but also by the cross that you have taken with such generosity, do not live as his enemies, do not make war on him through impiety, avarice, gluttony, and unchastity, while you support his name by the strength of your arms; do not be Muslims in your morals, while you make such an authentic profession of being Christians by exposing your life for his Church." He then spoke to Philip, his eldest son, who was the heir to his crown, and gave him these beautiful instructions, written in his own hand:

"I recommend to you, above all things, my dear son, to apply yourself with all your heart to loving God; for he who does not love him cannot be saved. Guard yourself from doing anything that displeases him, from committing any mortal sin, and suffer all kinds of pains and miseries rather than fall into this misfortune. If God sends you adversities, receive them with humility and endure them with patience, being persuaded that you have well deserved them and that they will be advantageous to you. If he fills you with prosperities, do not draw from them a subject for pride, but recognize the helping hand of your Benefactor and render him very humble thanks: for it would be a great ingratitude to use the gifts of God to make war on him. Confess yourself often, and choose for this wise and experienced confessors, who have light and vigor to lead you to good and to turn you away from evil. Behave in such a way toward them and toward the people of probity who approach you that they have the freedom to correct you. Hear the divine service devoutly, without causing or looking from side to side. Pray to God with heart and mouth with great fervor, especially at Mass and after the Mass and after the consecration. Be pious and humane toward the poor and the afflicted, and favor them according to your power. If something weighs on your heart, reveal it immediately to your confessor or to some other faithful counselor who knows how to give you good advice." He then exhorts him not to suffer the impious and the libertines near him, but always to procure the company of good people; to willingly hear the sermons of the most zealous preachers, both in public and in private; to gain the indulgences granted by the Church; to banish from his court the mockers and the slanderers; to keep equity inviolably in all things, without ever declining to the right or to the left; to faithfully restore the goods that he knows do not belong to him, and, if he doubts it, to promptly clarify this doubt so as to have nothing that belongs to another; to preserve, as much as he can, peace and charity among his subjects; to defend and protect the goods of the Church; to cherish and assist the religious and the preachers of the Gospel; to distribute benefices holily, without giving several to one person; to appease the disputes of his neighbors; to exterminate heresies; to regulate well the expense of his house; finally, to love everything that he knows to be right and equitable, and to detest everything that he knows to be contrary to the rules of piety and justice. He ended this admirable exhortation with these words: "I also beg you, my dear son, that when I have passed away, you have me assisted by masses, prayers, and alms throughout France, and that you share with me the good deeds that you will practice. In this expectation, I give you all the blessings that a good father can give to his son, praying the Holy Trinity to keep you from all evils and to pour upon you the fullness of its graces."

We also have other very holy and very spiritual instructions that he gave to his daughter Isabelle, Queen of Navarre; they can be seen in the Notes on Joinville, by Ménart. He had written them, as well as the preceding ones, when he was in France; but it appears that he recited them by mouth, at least in part, while on his deathbed. Finally, he fell into agony, and, pronouncing these words of the King-Prophet: "I will enter, Lord, into your house, and I will bless your name"; with these others: "My Father, I commit my spirit into your hands," he rendered his soul to God, on August 23 of the year 1270, aged fifty-six, and in the forty-fourth year of his reign.

The death of the king caused the weapons to fall from the hands of his entire army, and it so swelled the hearts of the barbarians that they all felt assured of winning an entire and perfect victory. But Philip, his son, a worthy heir to his valor as well as to his crown, which earned him the nickname the Bold, raised the courage of his men, and, being strengthened by the new army of the King of Sicily, his uncle, who arrived on the very day of Saint Louis's death, he fought two battles against the infidels, where he defeated them completely. Thus the King of Tunis was forced to ask him for peace; Philip granted it to him, on condition of paying an annual tribute to Charles, his uncle; of compensating him for the costs of the war; of allowing Christians to live in peace and in the free exercise of their religion in the places they inhabited in Africa; of suffering the Preaching Friars, the Minors, and other religious to preach the word of God everywhere there; of not preventing those who would convert from receiving Baptism and attending churches; and finally, of not demanding anything from the Christian merchants who would come to bring goods to Africa. This happy success was attributed to the prayers that Saint Louis offered in heaven for his army, at the foot of the throne of God.

Saint Louis was a king after God's own heart, through the innocence of his life, the purity of his love, and the ardor of his zeal; a king after the heart of the Church, through his respect for its ordinances, his promptness to defend it against its enemies, and his continuous application to extend and amplify it; a king after the heart of the people, through his compassion and liberality toward the poor and the miserable, through the care he took to maintain it in peace, to preserve it from all kinds of inconveniences and evils, and through his concern for its instruction and salvation. The bull of his canonization mentions a large number of miracles that he performed after his death; for, through his intercession, the blind were given sight, the deaf recovered their hearing, the lame began to walk straight, and paralytics, some of whom were so bent that they almost touched the ground with their foreheads, and other sick people were healed.

Saint Louis is sometimes depicted supporting a small church to recall the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris; but this is not the ordinary way of representing him. — He is often seen represented: 1st, seated on his throne, holding a scepter; 2nd, holding a discipline, as an associate of the Third Order of Saint Francis; 3rd, holding a scepter and a hand of justice, dressed in a blue mantle with fleurs-de-lis, and his head surrounded by a circular nimbus.

## CULT AND RELICS.

The relics of Saint Louis were brought from Tunis to France by Philip III, his son, with the exception of the entrails which were sent to the abbey of Monreale, in Sicily, at the request of Charles, king of that country and brother of the Saint, and deposited in the church which is today a cathedral. They are kept in a marble urn placed under the altar dedicated to him. The archbishop of this city visited them and sealed them again on July 1, 1843.

The rest of the body was deposited at the abbey of Saint-Denis. In all the places where abbaye de Saint-Denis Site housing a relic of an Innocent. it passed, the people flocked in crowds to give it marks of veneration. The cult of Saint Louis, already consecrated by the voice of the people, was juridically examined and approved by Pope Boniface VIII. Pope Paul V, at the request of Louis XIII, called the Just, ordered that his feast be celebrated with the double rite throughout France. Philip the Fair had one of the ribs of the holy king given to the church of Paris, and his head to the Sainte-Chapelle of the same city. King John, one of his descendants and successors, gave the upper jaw of this holy monarch to the royal monastery of the Dominicans of Passy (1351).

The beautiful reliquary that contained his relics was removed from Saint-Denis on November 11, 1793, and his bones scattered and profaned. His lower jaw, kept at Saint-Denis but in a separate reliquary, was saved, and is still kept at Notre-Dame de Paris, as well as the rib given by Philip the Fair, one of his shirts, and his discipline. The church of Lamontjoie, in the diocese of Agen, possesses very distinguished relics of Saint Louis. The church of Poissy possesses a remnant of the baptismal stone where Saint Louis was baptized: we say a remnant, because the greater part was scraped by the faithful to cure themselves of fever or to guard against it.

One sees today, on the soil of Tunis, at the very place where the holy monarch had rendered his beautiful soul to God, a monument that the French erected, in 1836, to the memory of Saint Louis.

To revise and complete Father Giry, we have used the History of Saint Louis, by Viscount Walsch; Gode-scard; and local notes due to the kindness of Mr. Fourneaux, parish priest of Poissy.