_Paris under Philip Augustus and St. Louis_
During twenty-eight years of the reign of Louis VII. no heir to the
crown was born. At length, on the 22nd of August, 1165, Adelaide of
Champagne, his third wife, lay in child-bed and excited crowds
thronged the palace in the Cite. The king, "afeared of the number of
his daughters and knowing how ardently his people desired a child of
the nobler sex," was beside himself with joy when the desire of his
heart was held up to him; curious eyes espied the longed-for heir
through an aperture of the door and in a moment the good news was
spread abroad. There was a sound of clarions and of bells and the city
as by enchantment shone with an aureole of light. An English student
roused by the uproar and the glare of what seemed like a great
conflagration leapt to the window and beheld two old women hurrying by
with lighted tapers. He asked the cause. They answered: "God has given
us this night a royal heir, by whose hand your king shall suffer shame
and ill-hap." This was the birth of Philip le Dieu-donne--Philip sent
of Heaven--better known as Philip Augustus. Under him and Louis IX.
mediaeval Paris, faithfully reflecting the fortunes of the French
Monarchy, attained its highest development.
When Philip Augustus took up the sceptre at fifteen years of age, the
little realm of the Isle de France was throttled by a ring of great
and practically independent feudatories, and in extent was no larger
than half-a-dozen of the eighty-seven departments into which France is
now divided. The English king held the mouths of all the great rivers
and all the great cities, Rouen, Tours, Bordeaux. In thirty years
Philip had burst through to the sea, subdued the Duke of Burgundy and
the great counts, wrested the sovereignty of Normandy, Brittany and
Maine from the English Crown, won Poitou and Aquitaine, crushed the
emperor and his vassals in the memorable battle of Bouvines, and
become one of the greatest of European monarchs. The king, who had
owed his life to the excellence of his armour,[48] was received in
Paris with a frenzy of joy. The whole city came forth to meet him,
flowers were strewn in his path, the streets were hung with tapestry,
Te Deums sung in all the churches, and for seven days and nights the
popular enthusiasm expressed itself in dance, in song and joyous
revel. It was the first national event in France. The Count of
Flanders was imprisoned in the new fortress of the Louvre, where he
lay for thirteen years, with ample leisure to meditate on the fate of
rebellious feudatories. "Never after," say the chroniclers, "was war
waged on King Philip, but he lived in peace."
[Footnote 48: In the ardour of the fight the king found himself
surrounded by the enemy's footmen, was unhorsed, and while they were
vainly seeking for a vulnerable spot in his armour some French knights
had time to rescue him.]
Two vast undertakings make the name of Philip Augustus memorable in
Paris--the beginning of the paving of the city and the building of its
girdle of walls and towers. One day as the king stood at the window of
his palace, where he was wont to distract himself from the cares of
state by watching the Seine flow by, some carts rattled along the
muddy road beneath the window and stirred so foul and overpowering an
odour that the king almost fell sick. Next day the provost and the
sheriffs and chief citizens were summoned before him and ordered to
set about paving the city with stone. The work was not however
completed until the reign of Charles V., a century and a half later.
It was done well and lasted till the sixteenth century, when it was
replaced by the miserable cobbles, known as the pavement of the
League. Whether the city grew much sweeter is doubtful; certainly
Paris in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was as
evil-smelling as ever. Montaigne, in the second half of the sixteenth
century, complains that the acrid smell of the mud of Paris weakened
the affection he bore to that fair city, and Howell writes in 1620,
"the city is always dirty, and by perpetual motion the mud is beaten
into a thick, black and unctuous oil that sticks so that no art can
wash it off, and besides the indelible stain it leaves, gives so
strong a scent that it may be smelt many miles off, if the wind be in
one's face as one comes from the fresh air of the country." Horace
Walpole in the eighteenth century, called Paris "the beastliest town
in the universe."
[Illustration: WALL OF PHILIPPE AUGUSTE, COUR DE ROUEN.]
The great fortified wall of Philip Augustus began at the north-west
water-tower, which stood just above the present Pont des Arts, and
passed through the quadrangle of the Louvre, where a line on the
paving marks its course, to the Porte St. Honore, near the Oratoire.
It continued northwards within the line of the present Rue Jean
Jacques Rousseau and by the Rue du Jour to the Porte Montmartre, whose
site is marked by a tablet on No. 30 Rue Montmartre. Turning eastward
by the Painters' Gate (135 Rue St. Denis) and the Porte St. Martin,
near the Rue Grenier St. Lazare, the fortification described a curve
in a south-easterly direction by the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, where
traces of the wall have been found at No. 55, and where part of a
tower may be seen at No. 57. The line of the wall continued in the
same direction by the Lycee Charlemagne, No. 101 Rue St. Antoine,
where stood another gate, to the north-east water-tower, known as the
Tour Barbeau, which stood near No. 32 Quai des Celestins. The opposite
or southern division began at the south-east water-tower, La
Tournelle, and the Gate of St. Bernard on the present Quai de la
Tournelle, and went southward just within the Rues des Fosses St.
Bernard and Cardinal Lemoine, to the Porte St. Victor, near No. 2 Rue
des Ecoles. The wall then turned westward above the Rue Clovis, where
at No. 7 one of the largest and best-preserved remains may be seen. It
enclosed the abbey of St. Genevieve, continued within the Rue des
Fosses St. Jacques, and, between the Porte St. Jacques and the Porte
St. Michel doubled outwards to enclose the Parloir aux Bourgeois near
the south end of the Rue Victor Cousin. The south-western angle was
turned near the end of the Rue Soufflot and the beginning of the Rue
Monsieur le Prince. Crossing the Boulevard St. Germain, it then
followed within the line of the latter street, and continued within
the Rue de l'Ancienne Comedie. In the Cour de Rouen, entered through
the Passage du Commerce, No. 61 Rue St. Andre des Arts, an important
remnant may be seen with the base of a tower, and where the Rue Mazet
cuts the last-named street stood the Porte du Buci. We may now trace
the march of the wall and towers within the Rue Mazarine and across
the Rue Guenegaud, where in a court behind No. 29 other fragments
exist, to the south-west water-tower, the notorious Tour de Nesle[49]
whose site is occupied by the east wing of the Institut. The west
passage of the Seine was blocked by chains, which were drawn at night
from tower to tower and fixed on boats and piles just above the line
of the present Pont des Arts. A similar chain blocked the east passage
of the river, drawn from the Tour Barbeau to La Tournelle, crossing
the islands now known as the Isle St. Louis. The wall was twenty years
building and was completed in 1211. It was eight feet thick, pierced
by twenty-four gates and fortified by about five hundred towers. Much
of the land it enclosed was not built upon; the _marais_ on the north
bank were drained and cultivated for market and fruit gardens.
[Footnote 49: Jeanne de Burgogne, queen of Philip le Long, lived at
the Hotel de Nesle, and is said to have seduced scholars by night into
the tower, had them tied in sacks and flung into the Seine. If we may
believe Villon, this was the queen--
"Qui commanda que Buridan
Fust jette en ung sac en Seine."
Legend adds that the schoolman, made famous by his thesis, that if an
ass were placed equidistant between two bundles of hay of equal
attraction he would die of hunger before he could resolve to eat
either, was saved by his disciples, who placed a barge, loaded with
straw, below the tower to break his fall.]
The moated chateau of the Louvre, another of Philip's great buildings
stood outside the wall, on the site of the old Frankish camp or
_Lower_, and commanded the valley route to Paris. It was at once a
fortress, a treasury, a palace and a prison. Parts of two wings of the
structure are incorporated in the present palace of the Louvre, and
the site of the remaining wings, the massive keep and the towers, are
marked out on the pavement of the quadrangle.
The king erected also (1181-1183) two great warehouses at the old
market at Champeaux: one for the drapers, the other for the weavers,
that the merchants might sell their wares under cover and lock up
their goods at night. They were known as _les Halles_, and the market
ever since has borne that name. Here too Philip caused to be burnt at
the stake the first heretics[50] executed at Paris, sparing the women
and other simple folk who had been misled by the chief sectaries, of
whom one, beyond the reach of earthly penalties and buried in the
cemetery of les Innocents, was finally excommunicated, his bones
exhumed and flung on a dungheap. "_Beni soit le Seigneur en toutes
choses!_" says Pigord the chronicler who tells the story.
[Footnote 50: It should be remembered that heresy was the solvent
antisocial force of the age and was regarded with the same feelings of
abhorrence as anarchist doctrines and propaganda are regarded by
modern statesmen.]
Of the impression that the Paris of Philip Augustus made on a
provincial visitor, we were able, fortunately, to give some account.
"I am at Paris," writes Guy of Bazoches, about the end of the twelfth
century, "in this royal city, where the abundance of nature's gifts
not only retains those that dwell there but invites and attracts those
who are afar off. Even as the moon surpasses the stars in brightness,
so does this city, the seat of royalty, exalt her proud head above all
other cities. She is placed in the bosom of a delicious valley, in the
centre of a crown of hills, which Ceres and Bacchus enrich with their
gifts. The Seine, that proud river which comes from the east, flows
there through wide banks and with its two arms surrounds an island
which is the head, the heart, and the marrow of the whole city; two
suburbs extend to right and left, even the lesser of which would
rouse the envy of many another city. These suburbs communicate with
the island by two stone bridges; the Grand Pont towards the north in
the direction of the English sea, and the Petit Pont which looks
towards the Loire. The former bridge, broad, rich, commercial, is the
centre of a fervid activity, and innumerable boats surround it laden
with merchandise and riches. The Petit Pont belongs to the
dialecticians, who pace up and down disputing. In the island adjacent
to the king's palace, which dominates the whole town, the palace of
philosophy is seen where study reigns alone as sovereign, a citadel of
light and immortality."
After Louis VIII.'s brief reign of three years, there rises to the
seat of kings at Paris one of the gentlest and noblest of the sons of
men, a prince indeed, who, amid all the temptations of absolute power
maintained a spotless life, and at death laid down an earthly crown to
assume a fairer and an imperishable diadem among the saints in heaven.
All that was best in mediaevalism--its desire for peace and order and
justice; its fervent piety, its passion to effect unity among Christ's
people and to wrest the Holy Land from the pollution of the infidel;
its enthusiasm for learning and for the things of the mind; its love
of beauty--all are personified in the life of St. Louis.
The young prince was eleven years of age when his father died. During
his minority he was nurtured in learning and piety[51] by his mother,
Blanche of Castile, whose devotion to her son, and firm and wise
regency were a fitting prelude to the reign of a saintly king. Even
after he attained his majority, St. Louis always sought his mother's
counsel and was ever respectful and submissive to her will. When the
news of her death reached him in the Holy Land, he went to his
oratory, fell on his knees before the altar, submissive to the will of
God, and cried out with tears in his eyes, that he had loved the
queen, "his most dear lady and mother, beyond all mortal creatures."
[Footnote 51: She was wont to say to her son--"I would rather see thee
die than commit a mortal sin."]
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 his
biographer tells with charming simplicity how the king after hearing
mass in the chapel at Vincennes outside Paris was wont to walk in the
woods for refreshment and then, sitting at the foot of an old oak
tree, whose position is still shown, 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 Cite, and on the poorer
people crowding round him all speaking at once he would cry: "Silence!
one at a time," and call for a carpet to be spread on the ground, on
which he would sit, surrounded with his councillors, and judge them
diligently.
In 1238 St. Louis 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. He
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, and on solemn festivals the
king would himself expose the relics to the people. St. 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."
[Footnote 52: By a subtle irony, part of the money was derived from
the tribute of the Jews of Paris.]
[Illustration: LA SAINTE CHAPELLE.]
At another time they were talking of the duties of a layman towards
Jews and Infidels. "Let me tell you a story," said St. Louis. "The
monks of Cluny once arranged a great conference between some learned
clerks and Jews. When the conference opened, an old knight who for
love of Christ was given bread and shelter at the monastery,
approached the abbot and begged leave to say the first word. The
abbot, after some protest against the irregularity, was persuaded to
grant permission, and the knight, leaning on his stick, requested that
the greatest scholar and rabbi among the Jews might be brought before
him. 'Master,' said the knight, 'do you believe that the Blessed
Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus and held Him at her breast, and that
she is the Virgin Mother of God?' The Jew answered that he believed it
not at all. 'Then,' said the knight, 'fool that thou art to have
entered God's house and His church, and thou shalt rue it,' Thereupon
he lifted his stick, smote the rabbi under the ear and felled him to
the ground. The terrified Jews fled, carrying their master with them,
and so," said St. Louis, "ended the conference. And I tell you, let
none but a great clerk dispute; the business of a layman when he hears
the Christian religion defamed is to defend it with his sharp sword
and thrust his weapon into the miscreant's body as far as it will go."
St. Louis, however, did not apply the moral in practice. Although
severe in exacting tribute from the Jews, he spent much money in
converting them and held many of their orphan children at the font; to
others he gave pensions, which became a heavy financial burden to
himself and his successors. He was stern with blasphemers, whose lips
he caused to be branded with a hot iron. "I have heard him say,"
writes Joinville, "with his own mouth, that he would he were marked
with a red-hot iron himself if thereby he could banish all oaths and
blasphemy from his kingdom. Full twenty-two years have I been in his
company, and never have I heard him swear or blaspheme God or His holy
Mother or any Saint, howsoever angry he may have been: and when he
would affirm anything, he would say, 'Verily it is so, or verily it is
not so,' Before going to bed he would call his children around him and
recite the fair deeds and sayings of ancient princes and kings,
praying that they would remember them for good ensample; for unjust
and wicked princes lost their kingdoms through pride and avarice and
rapine." When he was in the east he heard of a Saracen lord of Egypt
who caused all the best books of philosophy to be transcribed for the
use of young men, and he determined to do the like for the youth of
Paris. Five thousand scribes were employed to copy the Scriptures and
the writings of the Fathers and classic authors, preserved in various
abbeys in France. He had a convenient and safe place built at the
treasury of the Sainte Chapelle, where he housed the books, for a
church without a library was said to be a fortress without ammunition.
Scholars had free access to them, and he himself was wont in his
leisure time to shut himself up there for study, reading rather the
Holy Fathers than the writings of the best doctors of his own time.
St. Louis was a steadfast friend to the religious orders. On his
return from the Holy Land he brought with him six monks from Mount
Carmel and established them on the north bank of the Seine, near the
present Quai des Celestins; they were subsequently transferred to the
University quarter, on a site now occupied by the Marche aux Carmes.
The prior of the Grande Chartreuse was also prayed to spare a few
brothers to found a house in Paris; four were sent, and the king
endowed them with his Chateau de Vauvert, including extensive lands
and vineyards. The chateau was reputed to be haunted by evil spirits,
and the street leading thither as late as the last century was known
as the Rue d'Enfer. St. Louis began a great church for them, and the
eight cells, each with its three rooms and garden, were increased to
thirty before the end of his reign; in later times the order became
one of the richest in Paris and occupied a vast expanse of land to the
south of the Luxembourg. The fine series of paintings illustrating the
life of St. Bruno, by Lesueur, now in the Louvre, was executed for the
smaller cloister of the monastery. The Grands Augustins were
established on the south bank of the Seine, near the present Pont
Neuf, and the Serfs de la Vierge, known later as the Blancs Manteaux,
from their white cloaks, in the Marais. They were subsequently
amalgamated with the Guillemites, or the Hermits of St. William, and
at No. 14 Rue des Guillemites some remains of their monastery may yet
be seen. The church of the Blancs Manteaux, rebuilt in the seventeenth
century, also exists in the street of that name.
In 1217 the first of the Dominicans were seen at Paris. On the 12th of
September seven preaching friars, among whom were Laurence the
Englishman and a brother of St. Dominic, established themselves in a
house near the _parvis_ of Notre Dame. In 1218 the University gave
them a home opposite the church of St. Etienne des Grez (St. Stephen
of the Greeks), in the Rue St. Jacques, and in the following year,
when St. Dominic came to Paris, the brothers had increased to thirty.
The saint himself drew up the plans of their monastery and always
cherished a particular affection for the Paris house. Their church was
opened in 1220, and being dedicated to St. Jacques, the Dominicans
were known as Jacobins all over France. St. Louis endowed them with a
school; they soon became one of the most powerful and opulent of the
religious orders, and their church, a burial-place for kings and
princes. The Friars Minor soon followed. St. Francis himself, in his
deep affection for France, had determined to go to Paris and found a
house of his order, but being dissuaded by his friend, Cardinal
Ugolin, sent in 1216 a few of his disciples. These early friars, true
_poverelli di Dio_, would accept no endowment of house or money, and
supporting themselves by their hands, carried their splendid devotion
among the poor, the outcast, and the lepers of Paris. In 1230 the
Cordeliers, as they were called,[53] accepted the _loan_ of a house
near the walls in the south-western part of the city; St. Louis
built them a church, and left them at his death part of his library
and a large sum of money.[54] They too soon became rich and powerful
and their church one of the largest and most magnificent in Paris. St.
Bonaventure and Duns Scotus taught at their school of theology; their
monastery in the sixteenth century was the finest and most spacious in
Paris, with cells for a hundred friars and a vast refectory, which
still exists. St. Louis founded the hospital known as the
Quinze-Vingts (15 + 20) for three hundred poor knights whose eyes had
been put out by the Saracens. Subsequently it became a night shelter
for a like number of blind beggars whither they might repair after
their long quest in the streets of Paris. St. Louis at his death left
them an annual _rente_ of thirty livres parisis that every inmate
might have a good mess of pottage daily, and Philip le Bel ordered a
fleur-de-lys to be embroidered on their dress that they might be known
as the king's poor folk. The buildings, now transferred to the Rue de
Charenton, originally covered a vast area of ground between the Palais
Royal and the Louvre, and were sold in 1779 to a syndicate of
speculators by Cardinal de Rohan of diamond-necklace[55] notoriety; an
act of jobbery which brought his Eminence a handsome commission. The
Quinze-Vingts were privileged to place collecting-boxes and to beg
inside the churches. Since, however, the differences in the relative
opulence of churches was great, the right to beg in certain of the
richer ones was put up to auction every year, and those who promised
to pay the highest premium to the funds of the hospital were
adjudicated the privilege of begging there. This curious arrangement
was in full vigour until the latter half of the eighteenth century,
when the foundation was removed. Twelve blind brothers and twelve
seeing brothers--husbands of blind women who were lodged there on
condition that they served as leaders through the streets--had a share
in the management of the institution. Luxury seems to have sometimes
invaded the hostel, for in 1579 a royal degree forbade the sale of
wine to the brethren and denounced the blasphemy with which their
conversation was often tainted. In 1631 they were forbidden to use
stuffs other than serge or cloth for their garments, or to use velvet
for ornament.
[Footnote 53: On account of the cord they wore round their habit.]
[Footnote 54: St. Louis loved the Franciscans, and in the _Fioretti_ a
beautiful story is told how the king, in the guise of a pilgrim,
visiting Brother Giles at Perugia, knelt with the good friar in an
embrace of fervent affection for a great space of time in silence.
They parted without speaking a word, marvellously comforted.]
[Footnote 55: The innocence of Marie Antoinette in this scandalous
affair has been clearly established. See _L'affaire du Collier_, by M.
Funck Brentano. Paris, 1903.]
[Illustration: REFECTORY OF THE CORDELIERS.]
The establishment of the abbeys of St. Antoine, of the Friars of the
Holy Cross, and of the Sisters of St. Bega or Beguines, were also due
to the king's piety, and the whole city was surrounded with religious
houses. "Even as a scribe," says an old writer, "who hath written his
book illuminates it with gold and silver, so did the king illumine his
kingdom with the great quantity of the houses of God that he built."
St. Louis was, however, firm in his resistance to ecclesiastical
arbitrariness. The prelates complained to him on one occasion that
Christianity was going to the dogs, because no one feared their
excommunications, and prayed that he would order his sergeants to lend
the secular arm to enforce their authority. "Yes," answered the king,
"if you will give me the particulars of each case that I may judge if
your sentence be just." That, they objected, appertained to the
ecclesiastical courts, but St. Louis was inflexible, and they remained
unsatisfied.
Many were St. Louis' benefactions to the great hospital of Paris, the
Hotel Dieu. Rules, dating from 1217, for the treatment of the sick
poor were elaborated in his reign with admirable forethought. The
sick, after confession and communion, were to be put to bed and
treated as if they were the masters of the house. They were to be
daily served with food before the nursing friars and sisters, and all
that they desired was to be freely given if it could be obtained and
were not prejudicial to their recovery. If the sickness were dangerous
the patient was to be set apart and to be tended with especial
solicitude. The sick were never to be left unguarded and even to be
kept seven days after they were healed, lest they should suffer a
relapse. The friars and sisters were to eat twice a day: the sick
whenever they had need. A nurse who struck a patient was
excommunicated. Viollet le Duc was of opinion that in many respects
the Hotel Dieu in the Middle Ages was superior to our modern
hospitals. Among many details denoting the tender forethought of the
administrator, we may note that in the ward for the grievously sick
and infirm the beds were made lower, and 60 _cottes_ of white fur and
300 felt boots were provided to keep the poor patients warm when they
were moved from their beds to the _chambres aisees_. In later times,
lax management and the decline of piety which came with the religious
and political changes of the Renaissance made reform urgent, and in
1505 the Parlement appointed a committee of eight _bourgeois clercs_
to control the receipts. The buildings were much increased in 1636,
but were never large enough, and in 1655 the priory of St. Julien was
united to the hospital. "As many as 6000 patients," says Felibien,
writing in 1725, "have been counted there at one time, five or six in
one bed." No limitations of age or sex or station or religion or
country were set. Everybody was received, and in Felibien's time the
upkeep amounted to 500,000 livres per annum. The old Hotel Dieu was
situated to the south of Notre Dame, and stood there until rebuilt on
its present site in 1878.
St. Louis sought diligently over all the land for the _grand sage
homme_ who would prove an honest and fearless judge, punishing the
wicked without regard to rank or riches; and what he exacted of his
officers he practised himself. He punished his own brother, the Count
of Artois, for having forced a sale of land on an unwilling man, and
ordered him to make restitution. The Sire de Coucy, one of the most
powerful of his barons, was summoned to Paris and in spite of his
bravado, arrested, imprisoned in the Louvre and sentenced to death,
for having hanged three young fellows for poaching. The sale of the
provostship of Paris was abolished and a man of integrity, Etienne
Boileau, appointed with adequate emoluments. So completely was this
once venal office rehabilitated, that no seigneur regarded the post as
beneath him. Boileau was wont to sleep in his clothes on a camp bed in
the Chatelet to be in readiness at any hour, and often St. Louis would
be seen sitting beside the provost on the judgment seat, watching over
the administration of justice. The judicial duel in civil cases was
forbidden; the Royal Watch instituted to police the streets of Paris;
the charters of the hundred crafts of Paris were confirmed and many
privileges granted to the great trade guilds.
In 1270 St. Louis put on a second time the crusader's badge, "the dear
remembrance of his dying Lord," and met his death in the ill-fated
expedition to Tunis. So feeble was the king when he left Paris, that
Joinville carried him from the Hotel of the Count of Auxerre to the
Cordeliers, where the old friends and fellow-warriors in the Holy Land
parted for ever. When stricken with the plague the dying monarch was
laid on a couch strewn with ashes. He called his son, the Count of
Alencon to him, gave wise and touching counsel, and, after holy
communion, recited the seven penitential psalms: having invoked
"Monseigneurs St. James and St. Denis and Madame St. Genevieve," he
crossed his hands on his heart, gazed towards heaven and rendered his
soul to his Creator. _Piteuse chouse est et digne de pleurer le
trepassement de ce saint prince_, says Joinville, to whom the story
was told by the king's son--"A piteous thing it is and worthy of tears
the passing away of this holy prince."
The bones of the dead king, from which the flesh[56] had been removed
by boiling, were sent for burial to St. Denis, which he had chosen for
the place of his sepulture. Joinville,[57] his friend and companion,
from whose priceless memoirs we have chiefly drawn, ends his story
thus:--"I make known to all readers of this little book that the
things which I say I have seen and heard of the king are true, and
steadfastly shall they believe them. And the other things of which I
testify but by hearsay, take them in a good sense if it please you,
praying God that by the prayers of Monseigneur St. Louis it may please
Him to give us those things that He knoweth to be necessary as well
for our bodies as for our souls. Amen."
[Footnote 56: It was buried in the church of Monreale at Palermo.]
[Footnote 57: Joinville was a brave and tender knight; he tells us
that before starting to join the crusaders at Marseilles he called all
his friends and household before him, and declared that if he had
wronged any one of them reparation should be made. After a severe
penance he was assoiled, and as he set forth, durst not turn back his
eyes lest his heart should be melted at leaving his fair chateau of
Joinville and his two children whom he loved so dearly.]
King Louis was tall of stature, with a spare and graceful figure; his
face was of angelic sweetness, with eyes as of a dove, and crowned
with abundant fair hair. As he grew older he became somewhat bald and
held himself slightly bent. "Never," says Joinville, when describing a
charge led by the king, which turned the tide of battle, "saw I so
fair an armed man. He seemed to sit head and shoulders above all his
knights; his helmet of gold was most fair to see, and a sword of
Allemain was in his hand. Four times I saw him put his body in danger
of death to save hurt to his people."
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF NOTRE DAME.]