[Transcriber's note: This work is derived from
https://archive.org/details/greatchristianso00guizuoft
which is missing pages 226 and 227. These are obtained from
https://archive.org/details/greatchristianso00guiz]
{i}
Great Christians Of France
Saint Louis
And
Calvin
By
M. Guizot
Member Of The Institute Of France
London
Macmillan And Co.
And New York
1890
{ii}
{iii}
Contents.
St. Louis.
Chapter I. -- 5
Origin Of The Title 'most Christian King,' As Given To
The Kings Of France. Canonization Of Charlemagne
And St. Louis.
Chapter II. -- 9
Education Of St. Louis. Influence Of His Century, And
Of His Mother, On The Formation Of His Character.
Chapter III. -- 19
Majority Of St. Louis
His Marriage, And The Commencement Of His Government.
Chapter IV. -- 26
Relations Of St. Louis With His Vassals.
His Feudal Conflicts.
War With Henry III. Of England.
Chapter V. -- 37
Attitude Of St. Louis In The Struggle Between The German Empire
And The Papacy.
Chapter VI. -- 43
Christian Europe And Mahometan Asia In The Thirteenth Century.
Chapter VII. -- 51
Origin Of The Passion Felt By St. Louis For The Crusades.
His Sickness In 1244.
His Vow.
His Departure On His First Crusade In 1248.
Chapter VIII. -- 58
St. Louis In Egypt. 1249-1250.
{iv}
Chapter IX. -- 80
St. Louis In Palestine And Syria.
Chapter X. -- 95
Return Of St. Louis To France.
His Domestic Policy.
Chapter XI. -- 102
Foreign Policy Of St. Louis.
Chapter XII. -- 109
The King's Legislative And Administrative Power.
Chapter XIII. -- 117
Christianity Of St. Louis In His Private And Social Life, As Well
As In His Public Career And Political Relations.
Chapter XIV. -- 130
The Crusade The Ruling Passion Of St. Louis.
In Spite Of Strenuous Opposition, He Decides On A Second Crusade (1270).
His Arrival And Death Before Tunis (25th August, 1270)
Chapter XV. -- 140
Portrait Of St. Louis As The Ideal Man, Christian, And
King Of The Middle Ages.
His Participation In The Two Great Errors Of His Time.
-------------------------------------------------
John Calvin.
Chapter I. -- 145
Final Judgment On Great Men And Great Events Must Be Reserved For
Future Generations.
Characteristics Of The Religious Reform Of The Sixteenth Century.
Chapter II. -- 152
Birth And Parentage Of Calvin.
His Brother Charles.
Education Of Calvin.
His Choice Of A Career.
{v}
Chapter III. -- 157
Calvin The Law Student, At Orleans And Bourges.
Calvin The Reformer, In Paris.
Chapter IV. -- 165
Calvin A Fugitive.
Persecution Of The Protestants In Paris.
Chapter V. -- 173
Calvin The Theologian.
Chapter VI. -- 181
Calvin's Belief In The Plenary Inspiration Of The Bible.
Chapter VII. -- 189
Calvin's Theory Of Free-will And Predestination.
Chapter VIII. -- 202
Calvin Preaches Religious Reform In Italy.
The Duchess Of Ferrara.
Calvin's Flight From Aosta.
Chapter IX. -- 212
William Farel.
Calvin In Geneva.
Chapter X. -- 232
Calvin's Polemics.
Chapter XI. -- 241
Calvin, Luther, And Melancthon.
Calvin In Search Of A Wife.
Chapter XII. -- 250
Calvin Returns To Geneva.
Chapter XIII. -- 258
Calvin's Ecclesiastical Polity.
Chapter XIV. -- 266
Calvin's Civil Legislation.
{vi}
Chapter XV. -- 278
Division Of The Religious And Civil Authorities On The Question
Of The Lord's Supper.
Chapter XVI. -- 283
Defeat Of The Libertines.
Chapter XVII. -- 290
Calvin's Theological Controversies.
Servetus.
Chapter XVIII. -- 312
Servetus In Geneva.
His Trial And Execution.
Chapter XIX. -- 326
The Two Opponents.
Calvin's Letter To Socinus.
Chapter XX. -- 333
Calvin's Influence Over The Reformed Churches.
His Presbyterianism.
Chapter XXI. -- 345
Calvin The Author.
His Church Catechism.
His Respect For The Intellect.
Chapter XXII. -- 355
The End.
{1}
Preface.
'Go ye and preach to all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.'
This was the last injunction of Jesus Christ to His Apostles.
_Universality_ is therefore the first principle and ultimate
aim of Christianity. It has been designed for and is intended to
become, in fundamental belief, the religion of the universe.
The _Universality_ of Christianity in fundamental belief is
accompanied by _Diversity_ in institutions and forms of
worship, which are secondary and external developments; for this
_Diversity_ is the inevitable result of difference of place,
of time, of degrees of civilization, and of all those events
which mould the destiny and constitute the history of nations.
When the Apostles were commanded to instruct all nations 'in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' they
also received the gift of tongues. This gift, which was a
consequence of the _Diversity_ of their means and methods of
instruction, also bore witness to it, and at the same time
manifested the _Unity_ and _Universality_ of their
mission.
{2}
The whole history and progress of Christianity verifies these two
facts. There has been great _Diversity_ in the numerous
developments of the Christian religion which we find over the
face of the whole earth, and it has often entailed deplorable
strife. But Christian _Unity_ has never ceased to be the
fundamental principle of these different manifestations, and
_Universality_ has remained the ultimate aim of
Christianity, in spite of the different methods which it has
adopted and forms in which it has been clothed, as it has spread
from land to land.
In Europe, and in the states which have grown out of European
colonies, Catholicism and Protestantism are the two great
branches which have sprung from the Christian stem. For a long
time a grievous and sanguinary war was waged between these two
Churches. They triumphed or succumbed on different battle-fields.
But where Catholicism has conquered, as in France, Protestantism
has not perished; where Protestantism has been the victor, as in
England, Catholicism still survives. After having subjected each
other to so many trials and so much suffering, these two Churches
have at last learnt that they can and ought to live together in
peace, and that liberty must be their watchword and their
safeguard.
From the brightest epochs of Catholicism and Protestantism, I
have endeavoured to select some of their most earnest and noble
representatives,--men whom no intelligent and well-informed man
of the present day can refuse to recognise as Christians.
{3}
I was born a Protestant, and the experience of life, as well as
the study of history, have more and more confirmed me in the
faith of my forefathers; but, at the same time, they have taught
me to recognise and to revere those true Christians who are
members of Churches not my own.
The thirteenth and the seventeenth centuries are the two noblest
and fairest epochs of French Catholicism. The sixteenth century
and the beginning of the seventeenth are the two noblest and
fairest periods of French Protestantism.
Among French Catholics I have chosen St. Louis in the thirteenth
century and St. Vincent de Paul in the seventeenth, as two great
and noble Christians, two earnest and illustrious representatives
of the Christian faith and life, as well as of the loftiest
thought and purest morality of their country and their
generation. Among the Protestants of the sixteenth century,
Calvin and Du Plessis Mornay present the same characteristics,
and deserve an equal glory.
These four men were emphatically and first of all Christians, in
thought and life. Christian faith and piety shone out in all of
them, notwithstanding their profound divergence and their fierce
controversies. That is why I have selected them; and I have tried
to depict them as glorious and profitable examples of
Christianity, and of its persistent _Unity_ in the midst of
its most striking _Variety_.
Guizot.
Val Richer, 1868.
{4}
{5}
St. Louis, King Of France.
Born At Poissy, Near Paris, _April_ 25, 1215.
Died Before Tunis, _August_ 25, 1270.
Chapter I.
Origin Of The Title 'most Christian King,' As Given To
The Kings Of France. Canonization Of Charlemagne And St. Louis.
It was one of the chief glories of the kings of France to be
called 'Most Christian King.' This was a title of traditionary
honour rather than a testimony to their personal and religious
merits, for, to tell the truth, the majority of these monarchs
were very indifferent Christians. It is not mere external
profession which makes the Christian, but the condition of a
man's soul and the manner of his life.
By a startling coincidence, it was under the reign of one of the
most villanous, knavish, and yet able sovereigns France ever
had--Louis XI.--that the title 'Most Christian King' became the
permanent and official attribute of French royalty. Before the
middle of the fourteenth century we sometimes find it in letters
from the popes to the kings of France, but rarely and casually,
or else in documents of questionable authenticity.
{6}
In 1286, Pope Honorius IV. writing to Philip the Fair, styled him
'the Catholic King,' a name, he said, 'belonging specially to the
kings of France.' And even in 1456, Pope Calixtus III. addressed
a brief to Charles VII. under no other title than that of
'Illustrious King of the Franks.' Twelve years after, in 1468,
Pope Paul II., in replying to the complimentary address which had
been conveyed to him by Guillaume de Montreuil, envoy of Louis
XI., recalled all that the kings of France had done for the Holy
See since the days of Pepin le Bref and Charlemagne, and declared
that, if his predecessors had not always given the title of 'Most
Christian' to these sovereigns, he himself had begun, and
intended to continue so to designate them. Since that time, both
at home and abroad, the French monarchs have claimed and received
this august title.
Another title, more august still--that of 'Saint'--has been
received by only two, Charlemagne and Louis IX., out of this long
line of sovereigns. We must not exact a very strict proof of the
right of Charlemagne to this title in the Catholic Church. He was
only canonized in 1165 or 1166 by the Antipope Pascal III. and
through the influence of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Since
then, not one of the legitimate popes has ever officially
recognised or proclaimed his canonization, but still they have
tolerated and tacitly admitted it, no doubt on account of his
services to the Papacy. Nevertheless, besides emperors and popes,
Charlemagne had warm and powerful admirers; he was the great man,
the popular hero, of nearly the whole German race, who
acknowledged his sanctity with enthusiasm, and have always
religiously honoured it.
{7}
From the earliest days of the University of Paris, Charlemagne
has been the patron-saint of all the German students there. In
France, however, his position in the calendar remained obscure
and uncertain until the end of the fifteenth century, when, from
some motive which we cannot now discover, (perhaps to snatch from
his great enemy, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, possessor of
the finest German provinces in Charlemagne's empire, the
exclusive privilege of showing reverence to the memory of so
great a man,) Louis XI. ordained saintly honours to be paid to
the illustrious emperor, and fixed as his fête-day the 28th of
January, threatening with death all who refused to acknowledge
this new object of worship. In vain: the sanctity of Charlemagne
has never been generally recognised by the Church of France; but
the University of Paris has remained faithful to her tradition,
and in 1661, two centuries after the death of Louis XI.--without
expressly bestowing the title of _Saint_--she publicly
proclaimed Charlemagne her patron, and ordered his fête-day to be
solemnly kept every year. In spite of the hesitations of the
'Parlement' [Footnote 1] of Paris, and the revolutions of our
century, it is still celebrated as the chief fête-day of the
great classical schools in France.
[Footnote 1: The French 'Parlement' was not a representative
assembly like the English Parliament. It consisted originally
of the great vassals of the King, who were called together to
deliberate on the general affairs of the kingdom on the 1st
of March or the 1st of May every year, or if any urgent
necessity arose, were summoned whenever the King had need of
their advice. By degrees this assembly was transformed into a
great judicial court; at first it also preserved its
political character, and this was strongly manifested even as
late as the sixteenth century, in the so-called religious
wars. But starting from the reigns of Louis XIII. and Louis
XIV., the 'Parlement' became merely a court of justice, which
was joined on solemn occasions by the royal princes, and the
dukes and peers of the realm.]
{8}
Thus the University of France has repaid her emperor for his
benefits towards her: he protected her students and her learning,
she has protected his saintship.
That of Louis IX. did not require such pertinacious and erudite
defence, nor suffer such uncertainties of fate. Proclaimed
immediately after his death, not only by his son, Philip the
Bold, and the barons and prelates of the kingdom, but by the
public voice of France and of Europe, it became immediately the
object of papal inquiry and deliberation. For twenty-four years,
nine popes--Gregory X., Innocent V., John XXI., Nicholas III.,
Martin IV., Honorius IV., Nicholas IV., St. Celestine, and
Boniface VIII.--swift successors in the papal chair, pursued the
customary inquiry into the faith and life, virtues and miracles
of the defunct king; and it was at last Boniface VIII.
(afterwards destined to maintain a fierce conflict with the
grandson of St. Louis, Philip the Fair) who, on August 11, 1297,
decreed the canonization of the most Christian of all the
monarchs of France, nay, of one of the truest Christians, monarch
or peasant, that either France or Europe ever knew.
{9}
Chapter II.
Education Of St. Louis.
Influence Of His Century, And Of His Mother,
On The Formation Of His Character.
Born to a throne, a powerful monarch, a valiant soldier, and a
noble knight, the object of devoted attachment to those about his
person and of admiring respect to those further removed from him,
whether friends or enemies,--these honours and pleasures failed
either to dazzle or intoxicate King Louis. They held the first
place neither in his thoughts nor his actions. Before all things
and above all things, he desired to be--and was--a Christian, a
true Christian, guided and governed by the determination to keep
the faith and fulfil the law of Christianity. If he had been born
in the lowest worldly estate, or if he had occupied a position in
which the claims of religion would have been most imperative; if
he had been poor, obscure, a priest, a monk, or a hermit, he
could not have been more constantly and passionately pre-occupied
with the desire to live as Christ's faithful servant, and to
insure by pious obedience upon earth his eternal salvation
hereafter. It is this peculiar and original feature in the
character of St. Louis,--the rare, perhaps the sole instance of
the kind in the annals of monarchs,--which I wish now to bring
forward into the light.
{10}
The causes which could influence and produce such a character
have been sometimes sought in the general or special influences
of the age in which St. Louis lived. The thirteenth century was
one of faith and religious observances. The creeds and ordinances
of Christianity exercised a very strong influence over all
classes. The mother of Louis IX., Queen Blanche of Castile, was a
remarkable woman in mind and character, and as pious as she was
clever. She gave her son a sound Christian education in his
youth, and wise counsel and valuable support during the whole
course of her life. Some writers have considered that these facts
are sufficient to account for the spiritual development and life
of the King. But this is a very superficial view, for neither the
religious spirit of the thirteenth century nor the influence of
Queen Blanche could have produced such a lofty moral nature as
that of St. Louis; nor will they suffice to account for its
existence.
Though the thirteenth century was fruitful in faith and Christian
observances, still the Christians of that age were neither so
numerous nor so influential as, in order to shame our present
day, is often averred. The Crusades, that great outbreak of
Christian zeal, had introduced tastes, passions, and habits of
great licence into all classes. I find, in a learned and
judicious 'History of St. Louis,' to which the French Academy has
lately awarded a prize, the following faithful and authentic
summary of the moral disorders of the time: '"People start on
these sacred expeditions in order to become holy," says Rutebeuf,
the contemporary poet, "and they come back--those who do come
back--reprobate vagabonds."
{11}
Their faith was tainted by association with the Mussulmen, and
their lives by the manners and customs of the East. The clergy
even did not escape corruption. ... The priests were so despised
by the laity that they looked down upon them as if they had been
Jews, saying, "I'd rather be a priest than do so-and-so." The
young priests, when they appeared in public, hid the tonsure,
which they wore close to the forehead, by drawing the hair from
the back of the head over it. The nobles no longer allowed their
sons to take holy Orders; they found it more convenient to
appoint to the churches the children of their vassals, from whom
they could exact some share of the pecuniary dues. The bishops
had no chance of choosing their own priests, but were reduced to
accept any who would condescend to enter such a discreditable
profession.'
At the same time, the luxury of the higher orders of the clergy
was a subject of great scandal. 'The councils of the Church had
often attempted to check it, and in 1179 the third Council of
Lateran suggested the following regulation as a reform: "The
archbishops on their journeys shall have at the utmost from forty
to fifty horses, the cardinals twenty-five, the bishops twenty or
thirty, the arch-deacons seven, and the deans and their inferiors
two." The progress of the legates of the Holy See was justly
dreaded as causing absolute ruin. "Wherever they went," says Abbe
Fleury, "they exacted magnificent entertainment from the bishops
and abbots; and in order to defray these expenses the monasteries
were sometimes even compelled to sell the sacred vessels from
their churches." [Footnote 2]
[Footnote 2: Faure, 'Histoire de Saint Louis,' vol. i. p. 38.]
{12}
Such a clergy,' adds the historian, 'was unable to check the evil
tendencies of the age, either by setting the example of a life of
self-denial or by teaching a pure and enlightened religion.' Nor
could such a period produce religious kings. The history of the
thirteenth century gives a striking proof of this fact, for the
grandfather and grandson of Louis IX., though able and energetic
princes, who served both the throne and the nation well, showed
much more tendency towards worldly policy and keen self-interest
than towards Christian faith. Philip Augustus was no type of St.
Louis, and Philip le Bel no imitation of him.
Nor will the education he received from his mother, and her
influence over him, both during a regency of ten years and even
after he had attained his majority and assumed the reins of
power, fully account for the profoundly Christian character of
St. Louis, both in word and deed. Queen Blanche was a sincere
believer and a pious woman, and she was very anxious to secure
the moral and religious welfare of her son. We cannot doubt this,
because it is proved by numerous facts, by many documents of the
period, and by the testimony of the King himself. On the day of
his birth, the 25th of April, 1215, when the feeble new-made
mother noticed that the bells of the church of Poissy did not
ring as usual, and was told they had been stopped that she might
take repose, Blanche immediately commanded that she herself
should be moved to a distance if necessary, but that nothing
should hinder the summoning of the faithful to prayer.
{13}
She herself took charge of the early education of her boy 'as
being the future ruler of so great a kingdom, and her own
favourite child.' As soon as he entered his fourteenth year, she
gave him a strict and careful preceptor, 'who followed him about
everywhere, even in his amusements, by wood or stream, so that he
might always be teaching him, and who even sometimes used to beat
him--which he bore with patience,' say the contemporary
chronicles. Later still, when the King related to his intimate
friends his recollections of his mother: 'Madame used to say,' he
often repeated, 'that if I were sick unto death, and could only
be cured by committing some mortal sin, she would let me die
rather than utterly offend my Creator.' [Footnote 3]
[Footnote 3: 'Vie de Saint Louis,' by the Confessor of Queen
Marguerite, in Bouquet's 'Recueil des Historians des Gaules
et de la France;' Tillemont, 'Vie de Saint Louis,' &c. &c.]
A guardianship so careful, firm, and righteous, joined to rare
skill in the difficult task of ruling France during a long
minority, could not fail to secure to Queen Blanche great
influence over her son's character and actions; an influence so
great and so lasting that we are sometimes tempted to be
surprised at it, and to fancy that Louis, when he was not only a
king but a great king, was too weak and too dependent as a son.
He had the deepest respect for his mother, great confidence in
her political ability, and very lively gratitude for her
invaluable energy and maternal devotion. But mother and son were
so unlike, both by nature and instinct, that there could be no
spontaneous and familiar intercourse between them; none of that
communion which is the truest bond of two human souls, because it
adds the charm of mutual sympathy to the strong power of
affection.
{14}
Blanche was ambitious, proud, imperious. These qualities appeared
in her youth both towards her husband, Louis VIII., and her
father-in-law, Philip Augustus. In 1216 she strongly urged the
former to accept the English crown, offered him by the barons of
England when at war with King John on the question of Magna
Charta; and when Philip Augustus prudently refused to assist his
son openly in this hazardous enterprise, the Princess Blanche
recruited a band of knights who were to uphold the cause of the
French prince on the other side of the Channel, and she herself
was present at their meeting and at their departure. Ten years
later, when the death of Louis VIII. made her Regent of France,
she had to battle for ten years more, until her son's majority,
with intrigues, plots, insurrections, open wars; and with what
was much worse for her, the secret insults and calumnies of the
principal vassals of the Crown, who were eager to snatch back
from the rule of a woman the power and independence of which
Philip Augustus had deprived them. But Queen Blanche resisted
them, either with direct, masculine, and most persevering energy,
or with the adroit finesse and ingenious fascination of a mere
woman. Although forty years of age when her regency began, she
was still beautiful, graceful, abounding in attractions, both of
manner and conversation; gifted with the power to please, and the
will to use that power with a coquetry that was sometimes a
little too obvious to be prudent. Her enemies spread the most
odious reports concerning her.
{15}
One of the highest vassals of the kingdom, Thibaut IV. Count of
Champagne, a clever and voluminous poet, a gay and brilliant
knight, was declared to be madly in love with her--her slanderers
said, not in vain; and added that she had with his aid
assassinated the king her husband. In 1230, some of the principal
barons of France--the Count of Bretagne, the Count of Boulogne,
and the Count of St. Pol--united to attack Count Thibaut and to
seize Champagne; whereupon the Queen Regent, with her young son,
came to his rescue, and arriving near Troyes, commanded the
barons in the King's name to retire. 'If you have any complaint
against the Count of Champagne,' said she, 'present it, and I
will grant you justice.' 'We will not plead before you,' was
their scornful reply. 'We know it is the way of women to fix
their choice above all men upon the man who has killed their
husband.' Nevertheless, in spite of this cruel insult, the barons
left the field.
Five years after, in 1235, the Count of Champagne himself took up
arms against his sovereign. But he was compelled to make peace on
very hard terms in order to escape an ignominious defeat, and an
interview took place between him and the Queen Regent. '"_Par
Dieu!_" said Blanche; "Count Thibaut, you ought not to be our
adversary. You should remember all the goodness of my son, and
how he went to your aid when all the barons of France were
against you, and would have burnt your lands to charcoal." The
Count looked at the Queen, who was so wise and so fair, till he
was quite abashed by her great beauty, and he answered, "By my
faith, Madame, my heart and my body and all my domain are at your
command. There is nothing you may deign to desire that I will not
gladly do, and, if it please God, never will I fight against you
or yours."
{16}
He departed pensively from her presence, and the sweet looks of
the Queen, and her beautiful presence, came often to his mind, so
that tender and yearning thoughts entered his heart. But when he
remembered how noble a lady she was and how good, and of such a
great purity that she would never return his love, his tender and
yearning thoughts changed to a great sadness. And because these
sad thoughts engender melancholy, he was advised by several wise
men to study song and poesy. And he made after that time the most
beautiful songs and the most delectable and melodious that were
ever heard.' [Footnote 4]
[Footnote 4: Jubainville, 'Histoire des Dues et des Comtes de
Champagne,' vol. iv, p. 249; 'Chroniques de St. Denis;'
Bouquet's 'Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la
France,' vol. xxi. p. 111.]
I can find nothing in history to justify the accusations of Queen
Blanche's enemies. I do not know if the songs of Count Thibaut
ever touched her heart; certainly they never influenced her
conduct. She continued to oppose the claims and plots of the
great vassals of France, whether her foes or her lovers, and to
increase the possessions and the power of the Crown in spite of
them. Though a sincere believer and a wise, devoted mother, she
was essentially a politician, engrossed by the love of power, the
claims of her position, and her temporal success. I can find in
her no trace of the lofty moral impulses, the sensitive
conscience, the enthusiasm and sympathy, which are characteristic
of Christian piety, and which guided the whole life of St. Louis.
{17}
He derived these noble impulses neither from the teaching nor the
example of his mother; and if we would understand how they
existed in him, we must consent to acknowledge one of the
mysteries of creation: we must recognise the distinct
individuality of each human soul, the separate personality and
infinite diversity of disposition given by the Creator in
accordance with an unknown and impenetrable design. Enthusiasm,
sympathy, and conscientiousness,--these words describe the
condition of that man whose whole nature is entirely penetrated
and influenced by Christianity; for Christianity says to a man,
'There is none good but one, that is, God; and so leads him to
put his trust and hope in God; it lifts him above the interests
and chances of this life, and this is the true and essential
character of enthusiasm. Christianity teaches a man to love his
neighbours as himself, and thus calls out in him that tender,
ready, and universal charity which is justly called sympathy. It
gives him a profound conviction of his own moral infirmity, makes
him therefore keep watch and guard over his actions, and fills
him with doubt lest with all his efforts he should not keep
abreast of his duties. In a word, it makes him conscientious. The
true Christian, be he great or small, rich or poor, is such a man
as this; and Louis IX. was such a man and a king. But neither the
general influence of his contemporaries nor the personal
influence of his mother could have made him what they themselves
were so far from being.
{18}
What St. Louis really owed to Queen Blanche, and this was not
little, was the authority she gained and kept during her regency
over the great vassals, either by force of arms or negotiations,
and the predominance which she secured to the Crown, even amidst
the fierce contests of the feudal system. She had an instinctive
knowledge of what powers and what alliances would strengthen the
royal authority against its rivals. When, on the 29th November,
1226, three weeks only after the death of her husband, Louis
VIII., her young son was crowned at Rheims, Blanche invited to
the ceremony not only the hierarchy and nobility of the kingdom,
but the common people of the neighbourhood; she wished to show
the royal child to the great vassals, supported and surrounded by
the people. Two years afterwards, in 1228, there was an
insurrection of the barons assembled at Corbeil, and they
proposed to seize the person of the young King, whose progress
had been arrested at Montlhéry, on his march to Paris. The Queen
Regent summoned around her, besides those lords who remained
faithful, the burgesses of Paris and of the country round, who
hastened to respond to her call. 'All armed, they started for
Montlhéry, where, having found the King, they conducted him to
Paris, marching in battle array. From Montlhéry to Paris the road
was lined the whole way with armed men and others, who prayed
aloud that God would grant the young King a happy and prosperous
life, and preserve him from all his enemies. Then the great
vassals, hearing of this and not being able to oppose such a mass
of the people, withdrew to their own homes, and by the mercy of
God, who orders all things according to His will, they dared not
attack the King any more during the rest of that year.'
[Footnote 5]
[Footnote 5: Tillemont, 'Vie de St. Louis,' vol. ii. p. 354.]
{19}
Chapter III.
Majority Of St. Louis
His Marriage,
The Commencement Of His Government.
In 1236, Louis attained his majority and received from his
mother's hands the full royal power; a power held in fear and
respect, even by the vassals of the Crown, turbulent and
aggressive as they still were. But they were also disunited,
enfeebled, intimidated, and somewhat fallen into discredit; while
for the last ten years they had been invariably baffled in all
their plots.
When she had secured his political position, and he was
approaching his majority, Queen Blanche began to busy herself
with her son's domestic life. She was one of those who like to
play the part of Providence towards the objects of their
affection; to plan, rule and regulate everything in their
destinies. Louis was nineteen years old; handsome, though with
that kind of beauty which indicates more moral than physical
strength. He had delicate and refined features, a brilliant
complexion, and fair hair--shining and abundant--which, through
Isabella, his grandmother, he inherited from his ancestors, the
Counts of Hainault. He was a man of refined tastes and high
spirits; he loved amusement; delighted in games of all sorts and
in hunting; was fond of dogs and falcons; took pleasure in rich
clothes and magnificent furniture.
{20}
Nay, a monk is said to have once reproached his mother for having
tolerated in the young man some love-fancy which threatened to
become an irregular connexion; upon which Queen Blanche
determined to have her son married immediately. She found no
difficulty in inspiring young Louis with the same creditable
wish. Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence, had an eldest
daughter, who, according to the chronicles, 'was at that time
said to be the noblest, fairest, and best brought up princess in
all Europe.' By the advice of his mother and of the wisest
counsellors of the kingdom, the young King demanded her in
marriage. Her father received the offer with great joy, but was a
little troubled at the thought of the large dowry which he was
told would be expected with her. However, his most intimate
friend and adviser, a Provençal gentleman named Romée de
Villeneuve, said: 'Count, let me manage the matter, and do not
let the heavy expenses weigh upon your mind. If your eldest
daughter makes this royal marriage, the connexion will be so
desirable that all the others will marry the better for it, and
at less expense.' So Count Raymond followed this advice, and soon
recognised its wisdom. He had four daughters, Margaret, Eleanor,
Sancia, and Beatrix. After Margaret was Queen of France, Eleanor
became Queen of England; Sancia married the Earl of Cornwall, and
was afterwards Queen of the Romans; and Beatrix was first
Countess of Anjou and Provence, and ultimately Queen of Sicily.
Princess Margaret of Provence entered France, escorted by a
brilliant embassy, which Louis had sent to fetch her; and the
marriage was celebrated at Sens on the 27th of May, 1234, in the
midst of great public festivities, and public charities likewise.
{21}
When he was married and in the enjoyment of domestic happiness
Louis renounced of his own accord his former pleasures, both
royal and worldly. His entertainments, his hunting, his
magnificent ornaments and dress gave place to simpler pleasures
and the good works of a Christian life. From that time the active
duties of royalty, earnest and scrupulous attention to his
religious duties, the tender and vigilant cares of charity, the
pure and intense delights of conjugal love, combined with the
noble projects of a true knight--a soldier of the Cross--filled
up the whole life of this young king, who was humbly striving to
become a saint and a hero.
But trouble came to him sometimes in the midst of his felicity.
As soon as her son was married, Queen Blanche became jealous of
the wife and the happiness which she herself had procured for
him--jealous as mother and as queen, who saw a rival both in
affection and in sovereignty. This odious sentiment led her on to
acts equally undignified, malignant, and unjust.
'The cruelty of Queen Blanche to Queen Margaret was,' says
Joinville, 'so great that she would not allow her son to enjoy
his wife's companionship during the daytime at all, if she could
prevent it. The favourite abode of the King and Queen was at
Pontoise, because there the apartments of the King were above
those of the Queen, and they had arranged so well that they used
to sit and talk on a winding staircase which led from one story
to the other, and they had contrived all so cleverly that when
the King's guard saw the Queen-mother coming to the apartment of
her son the King, they used to knock with their rods against his
door, and the King would come running to his own room, that his
mother might find him there.
{22}
Likewise the guard of Queen Margaret learned to apprise their
mistress when her mother-in-law was approaching, in order that
she might be in her own apartment. Once, when the King was
sitting beside the Queen, his wife, who had been in great peril
of childbirth, the Queen-mother entered, and saying, "Come away,
you can do nothing here," took him by the hand, and carried him
off. Whereupon Queen Margaret cried out, "Alas! you will not let
me see my lord whether I am living or dying!" and fainted, so
that they thought she was dead; and the King, who believed that
she was dead, returned, and after great difficulty she was
restored.'
Louis, in this strait, comforted his wife, but yet did not desert
his mother. In the noblest of souls and the happiest of lives,
there are oftentimes some incurable wounds and some griefs which
can only be accepted in silence.
The young King's accession to royal power caused no change in the
royal policy, nor in the management of public affairs. There were
no innovations dictated by mere vanity; no change in the acts and
words of the sovereign or in the choice of his advisers and the
amount of consideration shown to them. The son's reign was but
the continuation of the mother's regency. Louis continued to
oppose the power of the great vassals in order that he might
establish the supremacy of the Crown: he succeeded in subduing
Pierre Mauclerc, the turbulent Count of Bretagne; won from
Thibaut IV. Count of Champagne, the right of suzerainty in the
lands of Chartres, Blois, Sancerre, and Châteaudun; and bought
from their owner the fertile lands of Mâcon.
{23}
It was almost invariably by pacific measures, negotiations ably
conducted, and treaties scrupulously fulfilled, that he thus
extended the domains of the Crown.
Queen Blanche, during her regency, had practised a far-sighted
economy which placed large funds at the disposal of her son.
Following her example, Louis was economical at ordinary times,
but liberal when policy demanded it. The property, and the rights
belonging thereto, which he purchased from the Count of
Champagne, cost him a sum which would now in English money be as
nearly as possible equivalent to £144,000 paid down, and an
annual ground-rent of £7,200. [Footnote 6]
[Footnote 6: 40,000 livres Tournois paid down, and a
ground-rent of 2,000 livres Tournois, or in modern French
money about 3,600,000 francs paid down, and a ground-rent of
180,000 francs.]
The learned language of the political economy of our time--the
terms 'sound system of taxation,' 'financial responsibility,' and
'balance of receipts and expenditure' cannot be applied to the
thirteenth century, and to feudal royalty. But we may truly say,
that St. Louis, free from all frivolous fancies, and desiring
only the well-being of his subjects, managed to maintain order in
his royal treasury, and knew both how to economize and how to
spend freely for the success of his designs.
{24}
I notice here one fact characteristic of both the King and his
century. Many of these amicable transactions with his great
vassals were almost immediately followed by the departure of the
latter on a new crusade. The Christian world had not renounced
the hope of freeing Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre from the
yoke of the Mussulman. The desire to astonish the world by
startling acts of penance, and the love of military adventure,
still agitated both the highest and lowest ranks of feudal
society. Pope Gregory IX. continued to preach a crusade--a
double crusade--to Jerusalem for the deliverance of the Holy
Sepulchre, to Constantinople for the succour of the recently
established Latin Empire, which was already tottering. The King
of France found, doubtless, that it was very convenient to extend
his dominion thus without war at the expense of his vassals, and
to get rid of these turbulent individuals. But to these reasons
of general or private interest was certainly added the personal
influence of Louis, already passionately absorbed in the thought
of the glory and religious salvation which he hoped to win for
himself in one of these expeditions.
As early as 1239, some of the principal vassals with whom he had
just concluded advantageous treaties--the Counts of Champagne,
Bretagne, and Mâcon--started for Palestine at the head of an
army of Crusaders, numbering (so it is said) fifteen hundred
knights and forty thousand squires. Louis was not content simply
with encouraging and promoting this enterprise. 'He desired,'
says De Tillemont, 'that Amaury de Montfort, his constable,
should in this war serve Jesus Christ in his stead. Therefore he
gave him his arms and granted him a daily sum of money, for which
Amaury thanked him on his knees. That is, he did him homage after
the custom of the time. The Crusaders were much rejoiced to have
this noble lord with them.'
{25}
The heavy sickness from which the King suffered five years after,
and his pious thankfulness for his cure, are said to have given
rise to his resolve to take the Cross. But this is a grave
mistake, for from the year 1239, when he saw his chief vassals
departing for Palestine with the cross embroidered on their
shoulder, the heart of St. Louis had already taken flight towards
Jerusalem.
{26}
Chapter IV.
Relations Of St. Louis With His Vassals.
His Feudal Conflicts.
War With Henry III. Of England.
While awaiting the time when he should be able to gratify his
pious hope of becoming a Crusader, Louis diverted himself and
feudal France by royal and knightly festivities. He had assigned
the province of Poitiers to his second brother Alphonse, but the
young prince had not yet received his investiture as a knight,
nor had he been put in possession of his domain. In order to
perform this double ceremony, the King summoned to Saumur his
full court--that is, all his noble vassals, lay and ecclesiastic.
There were political motives for this assemblage and for the
place of its meeting. The monarch of France displayed all his
power and all his magnificence on the confines of Poitiers, and
in the centre of a district formerly possessed by the kings of
England.
{27}
'The King,' says Joinville, who was present, 'gave this feast in
the halls at Saumur, which the great King Henry of England
[Footnote 7] had erected, it was said, for his own banquets.
[Footnote 7: Henry II. son of Geoffrey Plantagenet,
Count of Anjou.]
This edifice is built after the fashion of cloisters belonging to
the White Monks' (monks of the Cistercian order), 'but I doubt if
any cloisters could ever have been nearly so large. And I will
tell you why I think so: in that aisle of the hall at Saumur
where the King banqueted, surrounded by all his knights and
officers, who occupied a great deal of space, there was a table
where twenty bishops and archbishops were feasted. And beyond the
bishops and archbishops there was another table at which was the
Queen-mother, Blanche: this was at the further end of the
cloisters, and not where the King was eating. In waiting upon
Queen Blanche were the Count of Boulogne, afterwards King of
Portugal; the good Count of St. Pol, and a German, aged about
eighteen, who was said to be the son of the holy Elizabeth of
Thuringia. On this account it was said that Queen Blanche used to
kiss him on the forehead, out of religious devotion, because she
thought his mother must many times have kissed him there. At the
furthermost part of the cloister, moreover, there were kitchens,
butteries, pantries, and other offices; from this part bread,
meat, and wine were served out to the King and Queen. In the
other aisles and in the open space in the centre of the cloisters
there feasted such a harvest of good knights that I could not
attempt to number them, and the people who looked on said they
had never seen such a number of surcoats and other vestments of
cloth of gold at any banquet as there were there, and they say
that above three thousand knights and cavaliers were present.'
From the festivities at Saumur, Louis went to Poitiers, where the
new-made Count, his brother Alphonse, was to receive in his
presence the homage of the neighbouring lords who had become his
vassals. But ill news came to disturb their pleasures; a
confidential letter was received, addressed, not to the King but
to his mother, who was regarded by many faithful subjects as the
true sovereign of the kingdom, and who doubtless still had her
own confidential and secret agents.
{28}
An inhabitant of La Rochelle wrote to tell Queen Blanche of the
existence of a conspiracy among various powerful lords of La
Marche, La Saintonge, L'Angoumois, and still further districts,
who proposed to refuse homage to the Count of Poitiers, and thus
to rebel against the King himself. This unpleasant warning was as
true as it was circumstantial. Hughes de Lusignan, Count of La
Marche, the principal vassal of the new Count of Poitiers, if he
had not originated was certainly the leader of the plot. His
wife, Isabella of Angoulême, widow of the late King John of
England, and mother of the reigning sovereign, Henry III., was
indignant at the idea of becoming a vassal to a prince who was
himself the vassal of the King of France, and furious at finding
herself, once a queen and still the widow and mother of a king,
placed in rank below a mere Countess of Poitiers. When her
husband, the Count of La Marche, returned to Angoulême, he found
his lady melting from wrath into tears, and from tears rising
back again into wrath.
'"Did you not perceive," said she, "that when in order to gratify
your king and queen I waited three days at Poitiers, and then
appeared before them in their chamber, the King was seated on one
side of the bed, and the Queen with the Countess of Chartres and
her sister the Abbess at the other, and they never summoned me to
sit beside them. They did it designedly, to disgrace me before
all these people.
{29}
And neither on my entrance nor my departure did they so much as
rise from their seats; putting me to shame, as you must have seen
yourself. I can scarcely speak of it, so overcome am I with grief
and shame. I shall die of it; it is even worse than the loss of
our lands, of which they have so disgracefully robbed us. But at
least, by God's grace, they shall repent of this, or I may see
them miserable in their turn, and deprived of their own lands, as
I am of mine. And for this end, I, for my part, will strive
whilst I have life, even though it should cost me all that is
mine."
'"The Count," adds Queen Blanche's secret correspondent, "who is
a good man as you know, seeing the Countess in tears, said to
her, deeply moved, 'Madame, give your commands, and I will do all
that I can: be sure of that.' 'If you do not,' said she, 'you
shall never enter my presence more, and I will never see you
again.' Whereupon the Count, with many oaths, swore that he would
do everything his wife desired."' [Footnote 8 ]
[Footnote 8: This letter, the original of which is in the
Bibliothèque Impériale at Paris, was discovered and published
by M. Léopold Delisle, with a learned commentary, in the'
'Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Chartres.']
He was as good as his word. In late autumn of the same year 1241,
'the new Count of Poitiers, holding his court for the first time,
did not fail to summon all the nobles who were his vassals; and
as the chief among them, the Count and Countess of La Marche.
They went to Poitiers. But four days before Christmas, when all
the guests had assembled, the Count of La Marche was seen
advancing towards the prince mounted on his war steed, his wife
behind him on a pillion, escorted by a troop of men-at-arms also
on horseback, their cross-bows in their hands, as if ready for
battle.
{30}
Everybody waited eagerly for what was going to happen. Then the
Count of La Marche, addressing the Count of Poitiers in a loud
voice, said, "In a forgetful and weak moment I did once think of
paying thee homage, but I now swear with a resolute heart that
thy liege servant I will never be. Unjustly thou callest thyself
my lord: unworthily hast thou stolen these lands from my
son-in-law, Count Richard, while he was faithfully fighting for
God in the Holy Land, where by his prudence and tender mercy he
delivered many captives." After this insulting speech, the Count
of La Marche caused his men-at-arms to disperse roughly all those
who were in his way; rushed, as a last insult, and set fire to
the quarters which his host had assigned him, and, followed by
all his people, quitted Poitiers at full gallop.'
This meant war without doubt: and in early spring of the
following year it broke out. But King Louis was found well
prepared and fully resolved to carry it on. However, with all his
determination, he lacked neither justice nor prudence; he
respected popular opinion and wished for the approval of those
whom he must needs call upon to compromise themselves with him
and for him. He called together the vassals of the Crown. 'What
think you?' asked he. 'What ought to be done to a vassal who
wishes to hold his lands independent of any liege lord, and who
refuses the faithful homage which has been paid time out of mind
by him and his forefathers?'
They answered that the lord of the soil ought then to resume this
fief as his own property.
{31}
'By my royal name,' said the King, 'this Count of La Marche
pretends to hold lands after such a fashion--lands which have
been a fief of France ever since the time of the brave King
Clovis, who took all Aquitaine from unbelieving Alaric, King of
the Goths, and conquered the whole country up to the Pyrenees.'
The vassals promised their king active help against his foe.
The Count of La Marche began the contest. He had powerful allies,
but the chief of them, his stepson, Henry III. of England, and
his neighbour, Raimond III. Count of Toulouse, were tardy in
their movements. Provoked by the devastations committed on his
lands, Louis suddenly took the field. He had made great
preparations, had provided large stores of provisions, means of
transport and encampment, and machinery for carrying on a siege.
Four thousand knights and twenty thousand men-at-arms followed
him. The provincial militia joined: in short, as it neared the
enemy's country, the King's army swelled apace, says the old
chronicler, 'like rivers when they approach the sea.' Many
fortresses in La Saintonge and L'Angoumois were carried by
assault. Furious and desperate with her ill success, the Countess
Isabelle of La Marche tried another form of warfare: she gave two
of her serfs a poison which they undertook to mix either with the
food or wine of the King and his brothers. But when they reached
the royal camp, the two poor wretches were discovered, taken, and
hanged.
At length the King of England landed at Royan, at the mouth of
the Gironde. His Parliament, disliking this war, had refused him
any assistance in it; but he brought with him seven of his
principal vassals, three hundred knights, and, above all, the
treasure which he had succeeded in amassing: 'thirty hogsheads
full of esterlings,' says Matthew Paris, 'enough to pay a whole
army of Poitevins and Gascons.'
{32}
A truce had subsisted for some time between France and England.
Henry sent messengers to Louis, informing him that this truce was
now broken, since he considered it his duty to defend his
step-father, the Count of La Marche, by force of arms. Louis
replied, that on his part he had scrupulously respected the
truce, and had no thought of breaking it; but that he considered
himself quite at liberty to punish a rebellious vassal. So the
war began with ardour on both sides; and this young king, docile
son of so capable a mother, soon showed himself to be an
unsuspected hero.
Near two towns in Saintonge, Taillebourg and Saintes, on a bridge
which commanded the approach to the one and before the walls of
the other, Louis fought two battles, where his brilliant personal
valour and the enthusiastic devotion of his troops decided the
victory and caused the surrender of both places.
'At sight of the numerous banners above which the Oriflamme was
floating in front of Taillebourg, and of the multitude of tents
pitched close together so as to look like one great populous
city, Henry III. turned quickly round to the Count of La Marche.
"My father," said he, "is that what you promised me? Is this the
countless army which you engaged yourself to raise for me; while
my sole care should be to provide the money?" "I never said
that," replied the Count. "Yea, truly," observed the Earl Richard
of Cornwall, brother of Henry III. "I have in my possession a
letter in your own hand upon this point."
{33}
And when the Count of La Marche energetically denied having
either signed or sent such a letter, the English king reminded
him with some bitterness of his many messages and anxious
solicitations for help. "I swear these were never with my
knowledge," said the Count. "Blame your mother, who is my wife.
_Par la gorge de Dieu_, it has all been managed without my
knowledge."'
Henry III. was not alone in his disgust at the war into which his
mother had thus drawn him. The greater part of his English
knights quitted him, and asked of Louis permission to travel home
to England through France. Some persons about the court objected
to this. 'Let them depart,' said Louis. 'I only wish I could get
rid of all my foes thus peacefully.' And when he heard his
courtiers making a mock of Henry III. who, deserted by the
English and pillaged by the Gascons, had taken refuge in
Bordeaux, 'Cease,' said he. 'I forbid you either to ridicule him,
or to cause him to hate me for your folly. His charity and piety
will save him from all danger and all disgrace.'
When the Count of La Marche himself begged for peace, it was
granted by the King with all the prudence of a far-seeing
politician, and the pitying kindliness of a Christian. He only
exacted that the conquered lands should remain the property of
the Crown, and, under the suzerainty of the Crown, should belong
to the Count of Poitiers; and that with regard to the rest of his
estates, the Count of La Marche, his wife, and children should
come and ask them as a grant from the mere will of the King. To
this the Count added, as a pledge of his future fidelity, that he
would maintain in three of his castles a royal garrison at his
own expense.
{34}
His submission being thus fully made, the Count was brought into
the presence of the King with his wife and children, 'where' (it
is chronicled) 'they fell upon their knees and broke into sobs
and tears, and began to cry aloud, "Most courteous sire, take
away thy anger and displeasure from us, and have pity on us, for
we have sinned grievously and haughtily against thee. Sire,
according to the multitude of thy great mercies, pardon us our
misdeeds!" At which the King, who could not contain himself at
the sight, bade them rise, and forgave the Count frankly all the
evil he had done.'
As long as the war lasted, Louis had conducted it vigorously and
heroically; but he was at the same time a true and generous
knight towards his adversaries, full of respect for the laws of
chivalry and for feudal honour. His brother Alphonse had been
grievously wounded at the siege of Fontenay, and when, after a
brave resistance, the place was taken, the son of the Count of La
Marche was among the prisoners. Some persons counselled the King
to inflict cruel punishments upon the vanquished, in order to
avenge the wound which Count Alphonse had received and the
obstinate defence of the town. 'No,' said he, 'how can a son
merit death for having simply obeyed his father, or vassals for
having faithfully served their lord?' Later on, 'Hertold, lord of
Mirebeau--a strong castle in Poitou--and vassal of Henry III.,
seeing the rapid success of the French king, and finding himself
unable to resist him, went to seek the King of England at Blaye,
where he had taken refuge.
{35}
"My Lord King," said he, "your excellence may perceive that
fortune is against us. What shall I do? Can you help me in such
great danger, or deliver me if I am besieged? Or shall I, like my
neighbours, be overwhelmed by a general disaster and forced to
yield to the hated French yoke, which my ancestors resisted for
so long?" "Hertold," replied the English king, with a dejected
aspect, "thou seest that I can hardly deliver even myself from
danger. Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was betrayed by His
disciple Judas: who then can be secure? The Count of La Marche,
whom I looked upon and honoured as my father, has given you all a
pernicious example. I leant on a broken reed, and it has pierced
me. Thou alone, in consulting me thus, thou hast acted with
honour. The lands which thou holdest as my vassal, I will gladly
give thee as thy own possessions. Freely therefore do that which
seems to thee best." Hertold quitted, weeping, the presence of
the English sovereign; and went to the King of France, before
whom he presented himself with dishevelled hair and reddened
eyes. "My Lord King," said he, "God has in His anger poured out
upon me so many misfortunes, that I am constrained, much against
my own will, to take refuge under your merciful protection.
Abandoned and alone, I throw myself in great sorrow before your
royal excellence, begging you to accept and receive my castles,
and the homage of my service." To which the King of France
replied with a gracious air, "Friend, I know that thou hast been
with the King of England, and all that thou hast said to him.
Thou alone hast acted faithfully. I receive thee heartily, and
will protect thee and thy possessions.
{36}
Men like thee are those of whom I most approve, and the merciful
heart should never be closed against them." Therefore Hertold
gave up to the King of France the noble Castle of Mirebeau, with
all its lands, and it was immediately restored by Louis, after
the Count had taken an oath of fidelity to him. After this
example, the whole country, with the exception of Montauban and a
few other places, passed into the possession of the French.'
[Footnote 9]
[Footnote 9: Matthew Paris.]
A prince who knew so well how to conquer and how to treat his
vanquished enemies might have been tempted to abuse both victory
and clemency, and to seek exclusively his own aggrandizement, but
Louis was too entirely a Christian for this. Unless war was a
necessity or a duty, this valiant and distinguished knight, from
the very equity and goodness of his soul, preferred peace to war.
The success of his campaign in 1242 did not lead him to make this
the first step in a career of glory and conquests; his chief aim
was rather to consolidate his victories by securing the benefits
of peace to Western Europe, obtaining it for his enemies as well
as for himself. He negotiated successively with the Count of La
Marche, the King of England, the Count of Toulouse, the King of
Arragon, and the divers princes and great feudal lords who had
been more or less openly engaged in this war. The latest and most
appreciative of his biographers, M. Felix Faure, says that, in
January 1243, 'the Treaty of Lorris marked the end of all the
feudal troubles so long as the reign of St. Louis lasted. He
never again drew his sword save against the Mussulmans, those
enemies of the faith and of Christian civilization.'
{37}
Chapter V.
Attitude Of St. Louis In The Struggle Between
The German Empire And The Papacy.
If ambition had been the ruling passion of King Louis, he might
have fostered the dissensions of his neighbours to his own
advantage, for he had many opportunities of interfering in their
affairs when his influence would have had considerable weight.
The whole of Christendom was agitated at this time by the great
struggle between the secular and sacerdotal powers, represented
by Frederick II. and the two Popes Gregory IX. and Innocent IV.
The Emperor and the Pope claimed the right of entire control over
each other's actions, and asserted their power of determining
each other's destiny.
Louis IX. had only just attained his majority when, in 1237, he
received an invitation from Frederick II. to meet him at
Vancouleurs, and come to an understanding as to the course which
the lay sovereigns ought to pursue with regard to the claims of
the Holy See. The King of France had good reason for distrusting
the Emperor of Germany. Frederick II. had not long previously
married the sister of Henry III. of England, and had on several
occasions shown an inclination to help his brother-in-law of
England to regain his French provinces.
{38}
Louis did not decline the meeting at Vancouleurs, but he took the
precaution of commanding that an escort of 2,000 knights should
accompany him thither. When Frederick heard of this he adjourned
the interview to the following year, and there was then no
further mention of it. Louis, after this, tried to induce the two
sovereigns to restore peace to Christendom, but he failed, and
thenceforward maintained an attitude of strict neutrality towards
them.
The Pope had very recently pronounced a sentence of
excommunication against the Emperor, and had declared him to be
deposed from his throne. And now, in order to enlist Louis on his
own side, the Holy Father suggested the possibility of the
election of the Count of Artois (brother of Louis) as Emperor of
Germany, and promised to assist the Count not only with influence
but with money.
Louis consulted the barons of the kingdom. 'If the crimes of the
Emperor,' they said, 'make it necessary that he should be
deposed, his sentence can be pronounced by a General Council
only.'
Louis acquainted the Emperor with the proposal which he had
received from Rome and the answer which he intended to make to
it, and also informed him of the religious offences which the
Pope alleged against him as a justification of the sentence of
excommunication. 'We do not intend,' said the French envoys to
Frederick, 'to attack you without lawful grounds. As to any
advantages which the imperial crown may bring, we think that our
sovereign, the King of France, who is raised to the throne by the
hereditary nobility of his royal blood, is high above an Emperor
who owes his elevation to an election which may be refused. Count
Robert thinks it honour enough to be the brother of our King.'
{39}
The Emperor did not protest against these words; for though they
were haughty enough, they were at the same time reassuring.
The Pope convoked a General Council. The Emperor, who foresaw the
result of a meeting of his enemies, declared that he would oppose
it by force of arms. On the 3d of May, 1241, his fleet attacked
and completely defeated the Genoese fleet, which had on board the
prelates who were summoned to the Council at Rome. Legates,
archbishops, bishops, abbots, delegates from the chapters, more
than a hundred eminent ecclesiastics, were seized, thrown into
the holds of the victorious vessels, and conveyed to Naples,
where the Emperor kept them imprisoned in the castle of San
Salvatore. Many French ecclesiastics were among those who
suffered from this act of violence. Louis peremptorily demanded
their liberty: Frederick refused it, not without a touch of
irony: 'Let not your royal Majesty be astonished,' he wrote to
Louis, 'if Cæsar keeps in tribulation the prelates of France who
came to cause Cæsar tribulation.'
Again Louis remonstrated, this time haughtily and with threats:
'Hitherto,' he said, 'we have had a sure trust that, owing to the
reciprocal affection, established for so long a time, no cause
either of hatred or variance could arise between the empire and
our kingdom; for all the kings of blessed memory, our
predecessors, showed themselves eager to contribute to the honour
and glory of the empire, and we, who by the grace of God have
succeeded them, were animated by the same sentiments. Therefore
this is a thing that surprises us greatly.
{40}
We are deeply moved, and not without reason. You have no cause,
no pretext even, of offence against us, and yet you have seized
the prelates of our kingdom on the sea. They were on their way to
the Apostolic seat, to which they are bound both by faith and
obedience, so that they dare not disobey its commands, and yet
you detain them in prison. We are more deeply wounded than your
Majesty may probably suppose. Their letters have clearly shown us
that they entertained no designs against your imperial Majesty,
nor would they have taken any share in the less legitimate steps
which the sovereign Pontiff may have contemplated. Since, then,
their captivity is owing to no fault of their own, your Majesty
must restore their rightful liberty to the prelates of our realm.
By doing this you will put an end to all estrangement on our
part, for be assured that we look upon their detention as a wrong
done to our own self. Our royal power must be strangely
diminished and debased if we could patiently endure such
treatment. Turn your eyes upon the past, and remember how, as
every one knows, we repulsed the offers of the Bishop of
Palestrina and the other legates of the Church when they
endeavoured to obtain our co-operation against you. They could
obtain no help in our kingdom against your Majesty. We pray you,
therefore, in your imperial prudence, to pause and reflect, and
we counsel you to weigh what we have written in the balance of
your royal judgment; do not listen only to the promptings of
power and to your own will, and so reject our demand, for the
kingdom of France is not so exhausted or so weak that you may
venture to prick us with your spurs.'
{41}
The threat uttered by Louis was not without effect. The Emperor
hesitated a little longer, and then set the French prelates at
liberty.
Gregory IX. died, and under the pontificate of Innocent IV. the
struggle between the Papal See and the Empire became more and
more fierce. The two parties and the two adversaries divided the
whole of Christendom; sovereigns and peoples were to be found
first in one camp and then in the other, now estranged by the
Pope's acts of violence and now by those of the Emperor. Doubt
and indecision at length affected even the clergy. In 1245,
Frederick II. was excommunicated for the third time, and at Paris
the Curé of St. Germain de l'Auxerrois announced the sentence in
the following words:--
'Listen, all of you! I am commanded to pronounce a solemn
sentence of excommunication--tapers lighted and bells
tolling--against the Emperor Frederick. I do not know the
reason of this. I know there is a fierce quarrel, and that
inexorable hatred has grown up between him and another. I know
that one of them is doing injustice to the other. But which of
them? And to which?--I cannot tell. Therefore, so far as it is
in my power, I hereby excommunicate, and declare to be
excommunicated, that one who has done wrong to the other; and I
absolve him who suffers the wrong--a wrong which embitters the
whole Christian world.' [Footnote 10]
[Footnote 10: Matthew Paris, ed. 1644, p. 442.]
In the midst of this conflict of passions, and at a time of such
great perplexity in the minds of men, the conduct of Louis
remained unchanged. He took the part of neither one adversary nor
the other; he preserved the most scrupulous neutrality in his
relations with the Empire and the Papal See, and laboured hard to
establish peace.
{42}
In the thirteenth century the principles of national law,
especially that of the right of intervention on the part of one
government in the struggles either of the sovereigns or the
subjects of its neighbours, had not been as systematically laid
down and defined as they are now. But the good sense and moral
rectitude of St. Louis led him to follow the right path, and no
temptation, not even his own fervent piety, ever induced him to
swerve from it. It was his constant care not to allow either the
State or Church of France to take any part in the struggle
between the Papacy and the Empire, and he strove to uphold the
dignity of his crown and the well-being of his subjects by using
his influence to secure the establishment of a just and peaceful
policy throughout Christendom.
{43}
Chapter VI.
Christian Europe And Mahometan
Asia In The Thirteenth Century.
A just and peaceful policy throughout Christendom was the great
need of Christianity in the thirteenth century, for it had to
struggle with two enemies, and was exposed to two very formidable
dangers.
The Crusaders had inaugurated a fierce and bitter struggle with
the Mahometans in Asia; and towards the middle of the thirteenth
century, in the very heat of the conflict, and from the depths of
Asia itself, a barbarous and almost pagan people--the Mongol
Tartars--spread like a foul flood over Eastern Europe. They swept
over Russia, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and Germany, ravaging and
threatening with total destruction every province through which
they passed. M. Abel Rémusat has studied all the documents
relating to these terrible invasions, which he describes with the
accuracy of a scholar. He writes as follows:--
{44}
'According to the laws established by their first great chief
Tchinggis Khan, the Mongols were commanded to show mercy to
those princes and nations that gave proof of their submission
by surrendering their towns and consenting to pay tribute. All
others were given up to the fury of the soldiers, and massacred
without distinction of age or sex, the very animals being often
included in an indiscriminate slaughter. It was impossible to
negotiate with the Tartars in their early invasions; men had
either to submit or die, and countless pyramids of human bones,
which they erected on the sites of ruined cities, testified to
the danger of resistance. These ghastly monuments were to be
seen long afterwards, and were the terror of our travellers who
passed through the regions which the Tartars had swept over and
made desolate.'
The chronicles of the thirteenth century describe
the Tartars as--
'A terrible race rushing down from the mountains of the North;
an impious multitude who fear nothing, believe nothing, and
worship nothing but their king--him they call the great King of
kings and Lord of lords; men, or rather brutes, who are
relentless; monsters having nothing human about them; greedy
for blood, and drinking it with delight; tearing and devouring
the raw flesh of animals, of dogs--nay, even of human beings;
having an enormous head on a misshapen body, huge chests, large
arms and short strong legs; clothed in the skins of cattle, and
armed with iron lances; untiring warriors, unequalled archers,
and of astounding courage, riding on great and strong horses
which are so swift that they can go three days' journey in one
day, and require no other food than leaves and the bark of
trees. These horses they mount by means of three stirrups
suspended one from the other, for they need this ladder on
account of the shortness of their legs; crossing the broadest
and most rapid rivers without delay or difficulty by means of
boats made of ox-hide which they carry about with them: and for
the matter of that, it gives them no more trouble to swim than
to eat' [Footnote 11]
[Footnote 11: M. Felix Faure has also very ably collected the
characteristic features of the Mongol portraits, and put them
together so as to form a striking picture. He has taken his
materials from the chronicles of the time, and especially
from the works of Matthew Paris and Albéric des Trois
Fontaines.]
{45}
The name and description of these barbarians, the report of their
devastations, and the terror which they inspired, were soon
spread throughout Christendom. The princes of Eastern Europe
wrote to their relatives and allies in the West, warning them of
the danger which threatened them, relating their own troubles,
and imploring help against the common enemy.
'What must be done in so sad a case?' said Queen Blanche to her
son the King of France. Louis answered, the chronicles say, 'with
mournful voice, and yet not without a certain divine
inspiration.' 'My mother,' he said, 'there is one heavenly
consolation in which we may find support. If these Tartars, as we
call them, come here, either we shall send them back to Tartarus,
the place from whence they come, or they will send us up to
Paradise.'
M. Abel Rémusat says: 'This play upon the words Tartarus (the
infernal regions) and Tartar, which is here attributed to St.
Louis, is found in almost all the documents of the period, and it
is just possible that it affords the true explanation of the
change made in the word Tatars by all the nations of the West.
These tribes are called Tatari in the Russian chronicles, Tattari
by Christophorus Manlius, and Tatari or Tattari in a letter
written by Ives of Narbonne to Giraud, Archbishop of Bordeaux.
{46}
But, as a rule, we find that they were called Tartars from the
very first, and "Tartari, imò Tartarei"--Tartars from the depths
of Tartarus--as the Emperor Frederick called them, became a
favourite expression. There was certainly a very general
impression that these Mongols were either demons sent to chastise
mankind, or men who had dealings with demons.' [Footnote 12]
[Footnote 12: Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et
Belles Lettres, tome vi. p. 408.]
Another incident of less importance for Europe had, however, a
more personal interest for Louis, and had already turned all the
ardent piety of his inquiring spirit more and more towards the
East. In the summer of 1237 he was at Compiègne, celebrating the
marriage of his brother Robert, whom he had invested as knight
and endowed with the province of Artois for an appanage. In the
midst of the festivities people remarked with surprise that four
strangers were present, men of foreign race and unfamiliar
appearance, whom the King seemed to treat with great
consideration. These, say the chronicles, were emissaries from
the Old Man of the Mountain, the chief of an Arab sect and tribe
which had sprung up in the midst of the religious, political, and
warlike agitations of Islamism. This tribe had established itself
in the mountains of Anti-Lebanon, between Antioch and Damascus,
and its members had been known in the East for more than a
century under the name of Assassins. It is said that they owed
this name to the blind fanaticism with which they executed the
orders of their sheikh (a word which means both chief and old
man), who insured their passionate devotion to himself by all
kinds of material indulgences, and made use of them to get rid of
his enemies, near and far, Christian and Saracen.
{47}
In 1190 they assassinated Conrad, Marquis of Montserrat, then
about to ascend the throne of Jerusalem, and the great Saladin
himself, in spite of all his victories over the Christians, had
twice nearly fallen a victim to their blows.
The fame of the young King's piety and valour had reached Syria,
and it was said that Louis was about to start for the East at the
head of a new crusade, and to re-establish the kingdom of
Jerusalem. This report caused the Old Man of the Mountain to send
two of his fanatical followers to France, with orders to kill the
future enemy of their country. But, on the receipt of further
information, he renounced the design, and sent other two of his
followers to France to prevent the execution of the murder. In
this they succeeded: they not only warned Louis of his danger,
but had time to return and meet the first emissaries of their
master, with whom they went back to Compiègne. 'Louis, who had
taken every precaution against their attempt, received them
well,' say the chronicles, 'and sent them home to the Old Man of
the Mountain with rich gifts.'
Voltaire ridicules the whole story with that levity and shallow
common sense which so often led him to place blind confidence in
his own scepticism, and made him ready to reject as absurd fables
any facts which he could not easily explain. 'The great Prince of
the Assassins,' says he, 'fearing lest the King of France, Louis
IX., of whom he had never heard, should journey to the East at
the head of a new crusade, and snatch away his dominions, sent
two noble adherents from his court in the caverns of Anti-Lebanon
to assassinate the King in Paris.
{48}
But next day he was told what an amiable and generous prince this
was; so he sent two other nobles by sea to countermand the
assassination.' [Footnote 13]
[Footnote 13: Œuvres de Voltaire, tome xxvii. Edit, de
Beuchot.]
But, in order to disprove the records of the thirteenth century,
something more is necessary than merely to burlesque them in the
language of the eighteenth. The chronicles of the time give
numerous and detailed accounts of these early transactions
between the Old Man of the Mountain and St. Louis. The accounts
agree with all the documents of the time which refer to the
relations existing between the East and West after the
commencement of the Crusades. They are confirmed by other and
almost contemporaneous testimony, which shows the Old Man of the
Mountain, four years later, asking the help of St. Louis against
the Mongol Tartars, from whose invasions Western Asia suffered as
much as Eastern Europe. Without thinking of any difference of
race or religion, the foes of yesterday eagerly sought each
other's help against the common enemy of to-day. Such a
complication of nations, princes, and events would give rise to
many improbable and contradictory facts, and the true history of
the period lies hidden under the many legends which exaggerate
and disfigure it.
Another apprehension and another temptation were added about this
time to those which already attracted the thoughts and heart of
Louis to the East. The dangers of the Latin empire of
Constantinople increased daily.
{49}
It was assailed alike by Greek, Mussulman, and Tartar. In 1236
the young Emperor Baldwin II. resolved to solicit in person the
help of the princes of the West, more especially of the young
King of France, who was already renowned for his piety and his
chivalrous zeal.
Baldwin was the possessor of a treasure which fascinated the
imagination of the Christians of those days--the crown of thorns
worn by Christ during His passion. He had pledged it at Venice as
a security for a considerable loan from the Venetians, and he now
offered to make it over to Louis in return for efficient help
either in men or money. Louis accepted the offer with rapture.
Not long before he had been greatly alarmed at the reported loss
of another precious relic, one of the nails said to have fastened
the body of our Lord to the cross. It had been deposited in the
Abbey of St. Denis, and disappeared one day during a religious
ceremony. When it was found, Louis said: 'I would rather that the
earth had opened and swallowed up one of the chief cities of my
kingdom than have lost it.'
He took every care to avoid the disgrace which would attend any
kind of traffic in so sacred a matter, and ultimately obtained
the crown of thorns for a sum which, including all expenses,
would equal about 54,000_l_. of our money. [Footnote 14]
[Footnote 14: 12,000 livres Parisis, about 1,350,000 francs
in modern French money. The French _livre_ (like the
English _pound_) was formerly a pound's _weight_ of
silver. Charlemagne ordained that a silver sou should be
precisely the twentieth part of twelve ounces of silver, and
in this way twenty sous came to be looked upon as a livre.
Both weight and value have been very greatly reduced in the
course of time. Again, the weight of the livre, and
consequently its value, varied in different parts of France.
The _livre Parisis_ was the livre of Paris, the _livre
Tournois_ (p. 19) the livre of Tours, &c.]
{50}
We cannot, in the present day, sympathise with the eager
credulity which Christian faith does not require and sound
criticism entirely condemns; but we ought to and we can
understand it in an age when men contemplated every fact and
every tradition of the Gospel with a deep, poetic faith, and when
the belief that they were in the presence of any fragment or
relic of sacred times was sufficient to call forth emotion and
reverence as deep as their faith.
It is to such feelings that we owe one of the most perfect and
graceful monuments of the Middle Ages, the Sainte Chapelle, built
by Louis between 1245 and 1248, to contain the precious relics
which he had accumulated. The architect, Pierre de Montreuil,
comprehended and glorified the piety of the King in a marvellous
manner, and no doubt his own genius was kindled by the same
strong religious feeling which animated St. Louis.
{51}
Chapter VII.
Origin Of The Passion Felt By St. Louis For The Crusades.
His Sickness In 1244.
His Vow.
His Departure On His First Crusade In 1248.
At the close of the year 1244, in the midst of all these European
troubles, and when his sympathy with them was so great, Louis
fell ill at Pontoise and was soon in extreme danger. The alarm
and grief of his realm reached the highest point. Bishops,
abbots, priests, barons, knights, citizens, and peasants hurried,
some to Pontoise and some to their churches, to learn 'how it
would please the Lord to deal with the King.' Louis himself
thought that his last hour was come. He caused all the members of
his household to be summoned, thanked them for their services to
himself, bade them serve God faithfully, and 'did all that a good
Christian ought to do' in sight of death. His mother, wife,
brothers, and all those who were about him, prayed for him
incessantly; 'his mother more than all the others,' say the
chronicles, 'and she added to her prayers great austerities.'
At one time the King lay motionless and without sign of breath,
so that those around him thought he was dead. 'One of the ladies
watching him,' says Joinville, 'wished to cover his face, saying
that he was dead; but another lady on the opposite side of the
bed would not allow it, for she said that the soul had not yet
left the body.
{52}
The King heard these ladies speaking, and, by the grace of our
Lord, he began to breathe again; he stretched out his arms and
legs, and said in a voice as hollow as that of one who has risen
from the grave, "The dayspring from on high hath visited me, and
by the grace of God recalled me from among the dead."'
No sooner had he regained consciousness and the power of speech,
than he sent for William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris, and Peter
of Cuisy, Bishop of Meaux, in whose diocese he then was, and
asked them to affix the holy cross to his shoulder, as a sign
that he should journey beyond the seas to the Holy Land. The two
bishops tried to dissuade him from this idea, and the two queens,
Blanche and Margaret, implored him on their knees to wait until
he was well, and after that to do whatsoever he would. But he
persisted, and said that he would touch no food until he had
received the cross, and at length the Bishop of Paris yielded and
bestowed it upon him. The King received his cross with the
deepest emotion; 'he kissed it, and laid it down very gently upon
his breast.'
'When the Queen, his mother, knew that he had taken the cross,'
says Joinville, 'she showed as much sorrow, according to his own
account, as if she had seen him lying dead.' [Footnote 15]
[Footnote 15: Joinville, chap. xxiv.; 'Vie de St. Louis, par
le Confesseur de la Reine Marguerite,' in Bouquet's 'Recueil
des Historiens des Gaules et de la France,' vol. xx. pp. 66,
67; Tillemont, 'Vie de St. Louis,' vol. iii.; Faure,
'Histoire de St. Louis,' vol. i.]
{53}
More than three years passed away before Louis was able to fulfil
the engagement to which he had thus pledged himself. We might
almost say that he was pledged to himself and by himself alone,
and against the will of nearly every one about him.
The Crusades still possessed great fascination for the public
mind, and were still the object of religious and chivalric
enthusiasm; but, at the same time, they were dreaded and
discouraged from a political point of view, and there were many
men of very considerable standing, both among the clergy and
laity, who would not have dared to say so, but who had no desire
whatever to take part in a new crusade. Under the influence of
this state of public feeling, not the less seriously entertained
because it shrank from showing itself openly, Louis continued for
the next three years to busy himself with the affairs of France
and Europe. He tried to mediate in his neighbours' quarrels, and
attempted to bring about a reconciliation between the Pope and
the Emperor, as if it had been the one object of his life. His
mother and the wisest of his advisers had once for a short time
entertained some hope of being able to induce him to abandon his
enterprise. The Bishop of Paris, the same who in the crisis of
his illness and at his urgent request had given him the
Crusader's cross, one day said to him: 'My lord the King, bethink
you that when you received the cross, when suddenly and without
due consideration you made this portentous vow, you were very
feeble, and, to confess the truth, of clouded mind; your words,
therefore, had not the weight of royal authority and verity. Our
lord the Pope knows the requirements of your kingdom and the
weakness of your bodily health, and he will very willingly grant
you a dispensation.
{54}
Consider how many dangers threaten us: the power of the
schismatic Frederick, the snares of the rich King Henry of
England, the treason of the Poitevins, only just crushed out, and
the subtle disputes of the Albigenses. Germany is agitated; Italy
has no peace. The Holy Land is difficult of access; you may never
reach it, and, if you do, you leave behind you the implacable
hatred for each other of the Pope and the Emperor.'
Queen Blanche made an appeal of a different kind. She reminded
her son of the good counsel she had always given him, and told
him that a son who obeyed and trusted his mother was well
pleasing in the sight of God. She promised that if he would be
content to give up his project, the Holy Land should not suffer,
for more troops should be sent thither than he would have marched
at the head of. The King listened attentively to all that was
said, and was deeply moved by it. Then he answered:
'You tell me that I was not in the possession of all my faculties
when I took the cross. Therefore, since it is your wish I
renounce the cross, I restore it to you.' And with his own hands
he unfastened the cross from his shoulder: 'There, my lord
bishop, I place the cross with which I was invested in your hands
again.'
All present were full of joy, and began to congratulate each
other, when, with a sudden change of countenance and of manner,
the King said: 'My friends, at this present time I am assuredly
in possession of my reason and of all my senses. I am neither
weak in health nor of clouded mind.
{55}
I now ask to have my cross given back to me. He who knows all
things knows that not one morsel of food shall enter my lips
until it is once again affixed to my shoulder.' 'These words
plainly showed that the finger of God was in this matter, and
therefore no one ventured to raise a single objection to the will
of the King.' [Footnote 16]
[Footnote 16: Matthew Paris, p. 407.]
Louis proclaimed his resolve openly, and urged forward the
preparations for a new crusade. He announced that he would start
after Pentecost in the following year, 1248.
His brothers first, and then the majority of his vassals, knights
as well as great barons, also took the cross. The enthusiasm of
Louis was contagious, and many were kindled by it, whilst others
for very shame could not forsake their king and lord, who was so
noble a prince and so faithful a Christian. On Friday, the 12th
of June, 1248, the King went to St. Denis, and there received the
oriflamme, and then the pilgrim's wallet and staff. After this,
he returned to Paris, and went barefooted to Notre Dame to hear
mass, followed by a great crowd of people. Queen Margaret was to
accompany him to the East, and she went through the same farewell
ceremonies, sometimes with and sometimes after her husband. Queen
Blanche waited for her son at Corbeil, and Louis there took leave
of her, having first appointed her Regent of France, and granted
her the fullest powers during his absence. Some say, however,
that she accompanied him as far as Cluny.
{56}
'O my fair son, my fair and gentle son!' she said when he bade
her adieu. 'O my most tender son, my heart tells me that I shall
never see thee more!' And one account adds that, in spite of her
high spirit and great courage, she fainted twice when she saw her
son finally depart.
The King went on his way, and at Lyons received the benediction
of the Pope Innocent IV.; he there put a stop to the brigandage
of the wicked lord of one of the castles on the banks of the
Rhone, and at length reached Aiguesmortes, in Provence, as some
say in July, according to others in the beginning of August. He
was to set sail from thence, and had requested all the Crusaders
who intended to cross the sea with him to meet him there. He took
up his abode in a very humble house, which, as it was the King's
residence, was dignified by the name of 'palace;' it would not
accommodate his own suite and the retinue of his brothers, tents
were therefore erected for them outside the town, and in the
neighbouring hamlets. A great number of Crusaders, vassals or
allies of the King of France, arrived in rapid succession, and
these had separate camps distinguished by their standards. There
were thirty-eight large ships in the port hard by, and a whole
host of vessels of transport. The preparations of the fleet were
completed on the 20th of August, and on Tuesday, the 25th, Louis
went to the humble church, Notre Dame des Sablons, to invoke the
protection of God for his enterprise, and on the same day he
embarked. A young writer of the present age, who has collected
local details full of interest with regard to this solemn event,
says:--
{57}
'It was left entirely to the master-mariners to decide when the
wind would be favourable for setting sail, and on Friday the
28th, after careful deliberation, they were all agreed. They
then summoned the pilot. "Are you ready?" said they. "Yes,
masters," he answered. One of them stepped up to the King of
France: "Sire, call up your parsons and priests, for the
weather is fair and fine." Chaplains, monks, and bishops came
on deck, and the same master-mariners called out, "Sing, good
fathers; sing, in the name of God!" Whereupon they chant the
"Veni Creator," which is taken up in vessel after vessel, until
it is heard from one end of the fleet to the other. This pious
canticle ended, the pilots call out to the sailors, "Hoist your
sails in God's name!" And first from one ship and then from
another you hear the captain calling, "Weigh your anchor, for
you are too near, and may do us harm."
'Before long the wind filled our sails, and bore us out of
sight of the land; we saw nothing but sky and sea, and every
day the wind carried us farther away from the places of our
birth. And I think this will show you that a man must be very
foolhardy if he will run into such danger with other people's
goods, or when he is in a state of mortal sin, for he goes to
bed at night in a place which may be at the bottom of the sea
the next morning.' [Footnote 17]
[Footnote 17: Topin, 'Aiguesmortes' (1865);
Joinville, chap, xxviii.]
Thus thought and wrote the companion and historian of St. Louis,
the Sire de Joinville, when, a few days after the King had left
Aiguesmortes, he sailed from Marseilles to join him at Cyprus,
the general rendezvous of the Crusaders.
{58}
Chapter VIII.
St. Louis In Egypt.
1249-1250.
I am not now writing the history of St. Louis, and of his heroic
and unfortunate crusade. What I desire at this time specially to
do is to show the man and the Christian in this king. The world
is a stage on which we may see much that impresses us, but not
much that we can imitate; great events abound, but noble and
virtuous lives are rare, and therefore in every age they possess
the charm of novelty, and afford the most salutary spectacle that
can be presented to mankind.
Louis arrived at the island of Cyprus on the 12th of September,
1248. He did not expect to stay long there; he hoped to set sail
without delay for Egypt, where he proposed to commence the
struggle against the Mussulmans. At that time the Christian world
believed that in order to deliver the Holy Land from the hands of
the infidel, the first blow at Islamism must be struck in Egypt,
its stronghold. Louis had appointed Cyprus merely as a
meeting-place for the Crusaders who had set out from so many
different parts; he had concentrated vast stores of all kinds in
the island, provisions, arms, and implements of war, provided at
his expense and by his care; but his intention was to convey them
immediately to the shores of the Nile.
{59}
At Cyprus, however, the difficulties and dangers of the
expedition began to show themselves. These may have originated
either in the social condition and manners of the period, or in
the faults of individual men. Many of the crusading
princes--nobles who were impatient of control and soldiers from
choice--arrived tardily and at long intervals. The King of
Cyprus, Henry of Lusignan, and his Cypriot vassals received the
Crusaders kindly; and even promised to join the expedition, but
they had not received due notice of it, and were not prepared to
set out at once. They were glad to prolong the stay of the
crusading army, which furnished the court with an opportunity for
indulging in the festivities in which chivalry delighted, and
proved a source of unexpected profit to the inhabitants of the
island. The leader of the crusade, Louis, showed more
perseverance in his religious zeal than tenacity of purpose in
his practical aims, and he inspired admiration more readily than
he exercised power over those with whom he was brought into
contact. His opinion as to the wisdom of proceeding at once to
Egypt did not guide the council of war, consisting of the
principal leaders of the army; they decided on passing the winter
in the island of Cyprus; and during those seven months of
enforced idleness, the improvidence of the Crusaders, their
ignorance of the places, people, and facts of every kind which
they were rushing to meet, their blind self-confidence, their
obstinate rivalry, their moral disorders and military
insubordination, daily aggravated the already enormous
difficulties of the enterprise.
{60}
Louis spent his whole time amongst them in making peace,
adjusting quarrels, repressing licence, reconciling the Templars
and the Hospitallers. He received envoys from the King of
Armenia, the Khan of Tartary, and many other princes of the East,
Christian and Pagan, who came, not to offer support in the
crusade, but by their intrigues to draw the Crusaders into their
own quarrels, and to obtain help in promoting their own private
interests.
'The Empress of Constantinople [Footnote 18] sent me word,' says
Joinville, 'that she had arrived at Baffe, [Footnote 19] a city
of Cyprus, and that I must needs go and seek her, I and
Monseigneur Erard de Brienne. When we arrived we found that her
vessel had dragged its anchors in a storm, and drifted over to
Acre, and that she had nothing out of the whole of her luggage
except the mantle she was wearing and a surcoat. [Footnote 20]
[Footnote 18: Marie de Brienne, wife of the Latin Emperor
Baldwin II.]
[Footnote 19: The ancient Paphos.]
[Footnote 20: A garment worn by ladies over their petticoat
and tight-fitting jacket.]
We escorted her to Limisso, where the King, the Queen, and all
the nobles received her with great honour. On the morrow I sent
her a piece of cloth for a garment, and some taffetas to line it
with. She had come to ask the King's help for her lord, and she
managed so well that she carried back two hundred letters and
more from me and other friends she had there. In these letters we
were bound by oath, if the King or the legate would send three
hundred knights to Constantinople after the return of the King
from the crusade, we were then bound, I say, by our oath, to go
thither also.
{61}
And when we were about to return, in order to fulfil this oath, I
appealed to the King before the Count of Eu, whose letter I still
have, saying that if he would send three hundred knights I would
go and fulfil my oath. And the King answered that he had not the
wherewithal, and that great as his treasure was he had poured it
out to the very dregs.' [Footnote 21]
[Footnote 21: Joinville, c. xxx.]
In fact Louis had exhausted his means not only in paying the
expenses of the expedition, but in providing money for the
Christians scattered in the East, and for the Crusaders who
accompanied him. This is a point on which Joinville could speak
from experience: 'When I arrived in Cyprus,' says he, 'I found
that, after my shipping expenses were paid, I had only 240 livres
Tournois [Footnote 22] left. On this account some of my knights
sent me word that, if I did not provide myself with money, they
would leave me. But God, who has never failed me, provided for me
in a wonderful manner, for the King, who was at Nicosia, sent to
seek me, and put 800 livres into my coffers, and then I had more
than I knew what to do with.' [Footnote 23]
[Footnote 22: See page 49.]
[Footnote 23: Joinville, c. xxix.]
At last they left Cyprus, but not without trouble, for a violent
storm stranded a hundred and fifty vessels on the coast of Syria.
They arrived in sight of Egypt and of Damietta. The principal
Crusaders met on board the King's ship, the _Montjoie_. One
of those present, Guy, a knight in the suite of the Comte de
Melun, wrote to one of his friends, a student in Paris, and said
that the King spoke as follows:
{62}
'My friends good and true! If we are inseparable in our love we
shall be invincible. We could not have reached this place so
quickly without the approval of God. Let us therefore land and
take possession of it in all confidence. I am not the King of
France; I am not the Holy Church. It is all of you who are both
King of France and Holy Church. I am but a man, whose life will
fade away like that of all other men when it pleases God.
Whatever may be the result of our enterprise, it must be for our
good. If we are defeated, we shall ascend to heaven as martyrs;
if we conquer, the glory of the Lord will be exalted, and the
renown of all France, still more of the whole of Christendom,
will be increased. It would be madness to suppose that God, who
is all-wise, has raised me up in vain. In our cause He will see
His own cause, His great cause. Let us fight for Christ, and
Christ will triumph in us, not for us, but for the honour and
glory of His blessed name.'
The disembarkation was then decided upon, and commenced on the
following day. Large numbers of Saracens were seen upon the
shore. The boat which carried the oriflamme was one of the first
to reach the land. 'When the King heard that the standard of St.
Denis had touched the shore, he walked along his ship with mighty
strides, and, in spite of the dissuasions of the legate who was
with him, he leaped into the sea to follow it, although the water
was up to his shoulders, and he made his way through it to his
people who were on the shore, with his shield before his breast,
his helmet on his head, and lance in hand. When he had landed he
saw the Saracens, and asked who they were. He was told that they
were Saracens; whereupon he couched his lance, held his shield
before him, and would have made a course against them at once had
not some of his more prudent followers prevented it.' [Footnote
24]
[Footnote 24: Joinville, chap, xxxv.; Matthew Paris.]
{63}
The knights were no less impetuous than their king. As soon as
the Crusaders were encamped on the shore, one of the knights,
Gautier d'Autrèche, issued all armed from his tent, 'put spurs to
his horse,' says Joinville, 'and galloped off against the Turks;
but before reaching them he was thrown, and the horse trod upon
him. Four Turks attacked him as he lay upon the ground, and as
they rode past struck him heavy blows with their maces. The
Constable of France and some of the King's troops rescued him,
and carried him back to his tent. Late at night we went to see
him, for he was a man of high repute and of great valour. His
chamberlain came to meet us, and begged us to walk softly so as
not to awaken his master. We found him lying upon a coverlid of
miniver, and we went up to him very softly and saw that he was
dead. When the King heard of it, he said that he would not have a
thousand such knights even if he could, for they would all take
their own way as this one had done, and pay no heed to his
commands.'
Louis remembered at that moment that he was a king and must be
obeyed, but he himself was the first to give way to transports of
blind unreflecting valour, and the very devotion to his cause
made him continually forget, not only the difficulty of success,
but the first conditions of it. The whole campaign in Egypt was a
series of heroic and irrational actions. At first the boldness of
the Crusaders' attack and their brilliant courage struck terror
to the hearts of the Mussulmans.
{64}
They abandoned Damietta notwithstanding its great strength and
importance, and the Crusaders took possession of it without
difficulty. When the Turkish commander, Fakr Eddin, appeared
before the Sultan of Egypt, who was very ill and at the point of
death: 'Could you not have held out even for an hour?' said the
monarch. 'Was there not one man amongst you who would give his
life for the place?' When he saw the Crusaders established in
Damietta he tried to dislodge them, by proposing to the King that
on the day after St. John the Baptist's day, which was near at
hand, there should be a general engagement in a place to be
agreed on by both sides, so that the East and West might fairly
try the fortune of war, and those to whom fate gave the victory
might have great glory, while the vanquished should retreat with
due humility. 'Our lord the King answered, "I do not defy the
enemy of Christ more on one day than on another; I do not fix any
time when I shall rest; but I defy him now and always, to-morrow
and all the days of my life, unless he takes pity upon his own
soul and believes on our Lord Jesus Christ, who wishes that all
men should be saved, and opens His compassionate heart to all
those who turn to Him."'
The Sultan still prolonged his attempts at negotiation, and sent
to ask the King, 'Why have you brought ploughs, spades, and other
implements wherewith to cultivate a land which is ours? I could
have given you quite enough wheat for the time that you will be
here.' As if to say ironically, 'You are young and delicate, and
will not remain here long.'
{65}
To which the King answered, 'I made a vow and took an oath to
come hither, and as far as it was in my power I fixed a time for
my arrival, but I have neither made a vow nor taken an oath to
return, nor have I fixed any time for my departure. That is why I
brought agricultural implements with me.'
There were the same delays and loss of time in Damietta as there
had been in Cyprus. The army waited for the arrival of new
Crusaders, and whilst waiting they quarrelled over the booty
taken in the city, consuming and wasting it without forethought;
they fell into all kinds of excesses, which Louis saw and mourned
over, but had not the power to repress. 'The barons began to give
sumptuous banquets,' says Joinville, 'with great profusion of
dishes, and the common soldiers gave themselves up to low
debauchery; and it was for this reason that, when we returned
from captivity, the King dismissed nearly all his attendants.
When I asked him why he had taken such a step, he told me that he
knew for certain that the men whom he had dismissed had kept
places of ill fame within a stone's throw of his own tent, and
that at a time when the army was enduring greater hardships and
misery than it had ever known.'
At length, on the 20th of November, after five months of
inactivity in Damietta, the army resumed its march: it had
received important reinforcements from Europe; among others it
had been joined by Alphonse, Count of Poitiers, one of the
brothers of the King, and his suite; there was also a strong
force of English crusaders just returned from Palestine, whither
they had gone at first. Queen Margaret and many pilgrims were
left at Damietta under the charge of five hundred chosen knights.
{66}
There was no port at Damietta, and therefore many prudent leaders
urged the seizure of Alexandria, so as to obtain a seaport before
proceeding further; but, in opposition to their advice, it was
decided that the army should march direct upon _Babylon_,
that suburb of Cairo now known as 'Old Cairo,' which in their
ignorance the majority of the Crusaders believed to be the true
Babylon, and in which they hoped to find vast treasures and to
avenge the ancient wrongs of the Hebrew captives. 'It is the head
of the whole kingdom of Egypt,' said the Count of Artois, the
impetuous brother of the King, 'and he who would destroy the
serpent entirely must crush its head.' But the Mussulmans had now
had time to recover from their first panic. They had reassembled
their forces and prepared a vigorous resistance at all points;
every day, at every step, the Crusaders were exposed to sudden
attacks, and were assailed by instruments of war hitherto unknown
to them. Louis was grievously disquieted. 'Every time,' says
Joinville, 'that our holy king heard that the Saracens were
throwing Greek fire, he would cast himself upon his couch and
stretch out his hands towards the crucifix, saying, "Dear Lord
God, take care of my people, keep them for me!" But his people
would not take care of themselves, and the wisest counsels could
not influence them so much as the impulsive ardour of the Count
of Artois. On the 8th of February, 1250, twenty leagues from
Damietta, at a place called Mansourah (or the City of Victory),
which stands on the right bank of the Nile, the battle began.
{67}
There was at first a promise of brilliant success for the
Christians, but dissension arose between the Count of Artois and
William of Sonnac, the Grand Master of the Templars: the latter
wished to wait until the King and the bulk of the army came up,
so that they might push their victory to the uttermost. 'At all
events,' he said, 'it is to the Templars that the King has
assigned the front rank on the march, and Count Robert's place is
behind them.' Whilst this dispute was going on, an old tutor of
the prince, called Foucault de Merle, who was deaf, and
understood nothing that was being said, seized the bridle of
Robert's horse and urged him onward, shouting, 'Forward,
forward!' Robert turned to the Grand Master, and said that if he
was afraid he could stay behind. 'Neither I nor my brethren are
afraid,' answered William of Sonnac, 'we will not stay behind, we
will go with you, but I greatly doubt whether any of us will ever
return.' William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, the chief of the
English crusaders, also put forward a few objections, but the
Count of Artois replied to them with insults. 'Count Robert,'
said William, 'I shall face danger and death without any fear,
and we shall soon be in a place where you will not venture to
come near my horse's tail.'
A messenger now arrived, saying that the King commanded his
brother to wait for him. But Robert did not heed this, and
galloped forward so as to be the first to enter Mansourah,
followed by all those who had attempted to dissuade him. The
Saracens, thinking that the whole Christian army was upon them,
fled from the place; soon, however, they began to rally,
especially the Mamelukes, a force consisting of Turkish slaves,
and the chief strength of the Egyptian army; they rushed back
into Mansourah and attacked the Christians, who were now broken
up into small groups and scattered in all directions.
{68}
The Count of Artois fell, covered with many wounds, and with him
more than three hundred knights, his followers; the same number
of English knights, with their leader, William Longsword, as also
two hundred and eighty Templars, paid with their lives for the
intemperate zeal of the French prince.
The King hastened to the support of his brother, but before he
reached him or knew his fate he was himself surrounded by a host
of Saracens, and he and his suite were engaged in a fresh and
exciting scene of action. 'Never,' says Joinville, 'have I beheld
so noble a knight; he was seen above all the rest, for he was
taller by the whole head and shoulders; he had a gilded helmet on
his head and a long German sword in his hand.' The combat grew so
fierce that Louis was for a moment separated from his companions,
and on the point of being taken prisoner by six Saracens, who had
already seized his horse's bridle; he freed himself by some
tremendous sword strokes, and was immediately surrounded by his
knights, who had rushed to his rescue in alarm and fury. 'It is
said,' writes Joinville, 'we should all have been lost on that
day if the King had not been there in person.'
The Saracens began to give way: one of the knights of Malta,
Henry of Ronnay, approached the King. Louis asked him if he had
news of the Count of Artois, his brother; the knight answered
that he had great news, for he was certain that the Count of
Artois was in Paradise. 'Ah, sire!' he added, 'be of good
comfort, for never King of France attained to such honours as you
have done; you have crossed a dangerous river to meet your
enemies, and have defeated them and put them to flight.
{69}
You have captured their engines of war and their tents, and this
night you will sleep in their quarters.' 'And the King answered,
"that we ought to praise God for all His good gifts," and great
tears fell from his eyes.'
All those who were engaged in this great struggle were as deeply
affected as the King, but they did not all show such pious
sorrow. In the heat of the tumult, 'Seneschal,' said the Comte of
Soissons to Joinville, 'let these curs howl on, but, _par la
Coiffe-Dieu_--his usual oath--we shall yet tell of this day in
the ladies' bowers.'
Although the Crusaders held possession of the field of battle,
they did not occupy it as victors: their losses had been heavy
and memorable; the enemy hovered on all sides of them, and
increased in number and audacity from hour to hour. On Friday,
the 11th of February, three days after the battle of Mansourah,
the King's camp was attacked by a swarm of Saracens, mounted and
on foot. 'When they approached our army they began to throw bolts
and darts, and to hurl stones according to their custom, and they
fell so thick and fast that many of those present said they had
never seen a heavier hail-storm. It was easy to see that these
men had no fear of death, and held their lives cheap. When some
were tired, others, fresh and eager, took their places. To me
they did not seem like men, but more like savage wild beasts.'
The Crusaders defended themselves heroically, sometimes
entrenched behind their palisades, at others rushing forth to
scatter their assailants. Louis was always to be found at the
point of greatest danger. 'He was never of sad countenance, nor
timorous, nor dismayed, and his face showed very clearly that
there was neither fear nor perturbation in his heart.'
{70}
The Saracens were driven back at all points; and at the close of
the day, when his nobles were gathered around him, the King said:
'We owe hearty thanks to our Lord for what He has done for us
twice during this week; such great honour, that on Tuesday, the
day before Lent, we drove the infidels from their camp, which we
now occupy, and on the Friday following, the day just ended, we
have defended ourselves against them, although we were on foot,
whilst they were mounted.' [Footnote 25]
[Footnote 25: Faure, vol. i. p. 561; Joinville, chap. liv.]
But the most exalted virtues cannot compensate for the want of
prudence and forethought, and neither great valour nor devout
trust in God can remedy the defects of an ill-timed and
badly-planned enterprise. When Louis rushed into his crusade he
had not duly considered his own position and his strength, nor
had he taken into account the difficulties and chances of the
enterprise. He was not a victorious barbarian like Tchinggis
Khan, overrunning and laying waste the whole world at the head of
a wandering nation. Nor was he an adventurer-king like Richard
Cœur-de-Lion, engrossed by his own pleasure and glory. In the
middle of the thirteenth century the Crusades were no longer the
objects of popular and universal interest throughout Christendom
as they had been at the end of the eleventh. They had lost the
seduction of novelty and the illusion of success.
{71}
The crusades of Louis le Jeune and Philippe-Auguste had both
failed; the Christian kingdom had disappeared from Jerusalem, and
at Constantinople the Latin Empire was falling into ruin. When
Louis left Damietta to conquer Egypt he was at the head of from
30,000 to 40,000 men, knights and soldiers, but a campaign of two
months and two battles had sufficed to reduce this army to such
an extent that from the 11th of February, 1250, king and nobles
hoped for no more than to defend themselves against their
enemies. Sickness and want of provisions soon augmented the
difficulties of their situation; each day the Christian camp was
more and more encumbered by the starving, the dying, and the
dead: the necessity of retreat was evident to all. There was now
a new Sultan, Malek-Moaddam, with whom Louis opened negotiations,
offering to evacuate Egypt and give up Damietta provided that the
kingdom of Jerusalem was restored to the Christians, and his army
allowed to retreat unmolested. The Sultan seemed inclined to
entertain this proposal, and asked what security the King would
give him for the surrender of Damietta. Louis offered one of his
brothers as a hostage. The Mussulman demanded the King himself.
With one voice the whole army protested: 'We would rather,' said
Geoffrey of Sargines, 'have been all slain or taken prisoners
than have endured the reproach of having left our King in pawn.'
The Sultan broke off all negotiations; and on the 5th of April,
1250, the Crusaders decided on a retreat.
{72}
It was at this time that all the virtues of the Christian were
shown in their noblest and most attractive form in the King.
Before the departure of he army, and whilst disease and famine
were ravaging the camp, he went about to visit, to console, and
to tend the sufferers; his presence and his words exercised a
subtle influence over the sick and desponding. One day he had
sent his chaplain Guillaume de Chartres to visit one of his
personal attendants, a very worthy and humble man, named
Gaugelme, who was at the point of death. As the chaplain was
leaving--'I am waiting until my lord our holy King comes,' said
the dying man: 'I cannot leave this world until I have seen him
and spoken to him; then I shall die.' So the King went to see his
servant, and spoke to him with much affection, and consoled him.
He had only just left him, and had not reached his own tent, when
he was told that Gaugelme was dead.
When the 5th of April arrived, the day fixed for the retreat,
Louis himself was ill and very weak. He was urged to embark in
one of the boats which was to sail slowly down the Nile carrying
the wounded and those who were dangerously ill; but he refused
peremptorily, saying, 'I will not be separated from my people in
the hour of danger.' He remained on shore, and when the time came
for starting he fainted several times from exhaustion. 'They
called to us as we were sailing down the river,' says Joinville,
'to say that we must wait for the King.' But Louis persisted in
his resolve; he was one of the last to leave the camp, mounted on
a small Arab horse covered with silk housings; he accompanied the
rear-guard, watched over by Geoffrey of Sargines, who was by his
side, and 'defended me against the Saracens,' said Louis himself
to Joinville, 'like a good servant who drives off the flies from
his master's winecup.'
{73}
But the courage of the King and the devotion of his faithful
followers could not even enable them to make good their retreat.
About four leagues from the camp which they had just left, in a
village situated on a slight eminence where it was still possible
to attempt a defence, the rear-guard of the Crusaders, pressed,
harassed, surrounded by Saracen troops, was compelled to halt.
Louis could no longer sit upon his horse. 'They carried him into
a house,' says Joinville, 'and laid him down almost dead, and a
citizen's wife from Paris took his head upon her knees; they did
not believe that he would last until evening.' With his consent
one of his faithful followers went out to parley with one of the
Mussulman chiefs: a truce was about to be concluded, and the
Mussulman was in the act of taking the ring off his finger as a
pledge that he would keep it; 'but meantime,' says Joinville, 'a
very great misfortune befell us, for a vile traitor of a
sergeant, whose name was Marcel, began shouting out to our
people, "Sir knights, give up your arms, the King commands it; do
not cause your King to be slain." And so, believing that the King
had commanded it, they gave up their swords to the Saracens.'
Being made prisoners, the King and all the rear-guard were now
taken back to Mansourah. The King was put on board a boat; his
two brothers, the Counts of Poitiers and Anjou, with all the
other Crusaders, were bound with cords, and followed in a great
troop marching on foot along the banks of the river.
{74}
The vanguard and all the rest of the army--those who, like
Joinville, were sailing down the Nile, and those who travelled by
land--soon met with the same fate. 'We thought it better,' says
Joinville, 'to surrender to the Sultan's galleys, because then we
had a chance of keeping together, than to surrender to the
Saracens on the shore, who would have separated us, and sold us
to the Bedouins. An old quartermaster said, "Sire, I can't
swallow this advice." I asked him what he would like better, and
he said, "To my mind it would be much better if we were all
slain, for then we should go to Paradise." But we did not agree
with him.'
All the prisoners were collected at Mansourah--more than ten
thousand in number, says Joinville. And here the King met with
fresh trials, and we have again to record his heroic Christian
deeds. He was a prisoner, and was at first loaded with chains; he
was so ill and weak that he could not stand: his teeth chattered,
his face was pallid and covered with sores, and he was so thin
that his bones seemed as if they would start through his skin.
All his clothes were lost, and he had nothing but just one green
surtout which a poor fellow in his service stripped off and gave
to him; he had but one attendant left, a man named Ysambert, who
cooked for him, dressed and undressed him, even carried him
about, and this man says that never did he see the King angry or
cast down, or complaining: on the contrary, he bore his own
sufferings and the adversity of his followers with great
patience, and prayed without ceasing. His fervent and unwearied
piety excited the respect of the Mussulmans, and one of them
brought him his Breviary, which had been lost at his capture.
Louis received it with great joy, and at once resumed his
observance of the services of the Catholic Church.
{75}
The Sultan, Malek-Moaddam, freed him from his fetters and put an
end to all his privations; he even treated him with a certain
magnanimity; but at the same time he asked as the price of a
truce and his liberty the immediate surrender of Damietta, a
heavy ransom, and the restitution of several places in Palestine
still held by the Christians. The Sultan would have liked to
treat separately with all the principal Crusaders, in the hope of
setting them at variance, and he therefore addressed the same
demands to all of them. Louis forbade his followers to enter into
any private negotiations, saying that it was for him alone to
make terms for all of them, and that he would pay for all. The
Sultan sent word to the Christian chiefs that he would have them
beheaded if they refused his demands; but they all obeyed the
King's injunction. Louis on his side answered that the places
which he was called upon to surrender were not his; some of them
belonged to foreign princes, who alone had any right to dispose
of them, and others to the religious orders, Templars and
Hospitallers, who had taken an oath never to surrender them for
the ransom of any one, let him be whom he might.
The Sultan was surprised and annoyed. He threatened to put the
King to the torture, or send him to the Grand Khalif of Bagdad,
who would keep him in prison for the rest of his life. 'I am your
prisoner,' said Louis; 'you can do with me as you will.'
{76}
'We are greatly astonished,' said the Mussulman. 'You say that
you are our prisoner, and we had indeed thought so; but you treat
us as if we were held captives by you.' The Sultan understood
that he had to deal with a man of indomitable will, and the
negotiations were therefore restricted to arrangements for the
ransom and the surrender of Damietta. Louis was asked 500,000
livres [Footnote 26] (about £405,280 of our money) as the price
of his liberty. 'I will gladly pay 500,000 livres as the ransom
of my followers,' said he, 'and I will restore Damietta in return
for my own liberty, for I am not a man who can be redeemed with
gold.'
[Footnote 26: It is probable that the livre spoken of is the
livre Tournois, and, according to M. de Wailly, this would be
a sum of about 10,132,000 francs in modern French money.]
'By my faith,' said the Sultan, when he heard this, 'the Frank is
a fine fellow not to higgle over such a sum of money. Go back,
and tell him that I will give him 100,000 livres to help him pay
the ransom.'
The negotiations were concluded on this basis: victors and
vanquished left Mansourah, and travelling some by land and others
down the river Nile, they arrived within a few leagues of
Damietta. There, for the first time, the King and the Sultan had
an interview; they decided on the manner in which the convention
should be carried out, and appointed the 7th of May for the
surrender of Damietta.
But on the 2d of May there was a great tumult in the Mussulman
camp. Hurried movements and confused cries indicated some serious
outbreak; Louis and his nobles waited anxiously, not knowing what
was going on, or what the result would be to themselves. Suddenly
several Mussulmans, Emirs of the Mamelukes, entered the King's
tent, sword in hand, with an excited but not threatening aspect:
they had just killed the Sultan Malek-Moaddam; he had incensed
them, and they had been plotting against him for a long time.
{77}
'Fear nothing,' they said to Louis, with great deference, 'and,
gentlemen, do not be alarmed. You need not be astonished at what
has just taken place; there was no help for it. Fulfil your part
of the treaty that has been made, and you shall soon be free.'
Then one of the Mameluke conspirators, Faress-Eddin-Octaï, who
had just helped to kill the Sultan with his own hands, and to
tear out his heart, entered the tent, sword in hand: 'What will
you give me?' he said to the King, 'I have killed your enemy, who
would have put you to death if he had lived;' and he then
abruptly demanded that Louis should make him a knight. It was a
very honourable title in the eyes of Orientals, and Saladin
himself had been willing to receive it at the hands of one of his
Christian prisoners. Louis answered nothing; several Crusaders
around him urged him to gratify the wish of the Emir, with whom
the decision of their fate now rested.
'I will never make a knight of an infidel,' said Louis. 'Let the
Emir become a Christian, then I will take him back to France with
me, and enrich him, and make him a knight.' At this the Mameluke
withdrew in silence.
It has been said that the Mussulman conspirators, being puzzled
in the choice of a new sovereign, and filled with admiration for
the piety and resolution of Louis, which were equally
indomitable, entertained the notion of making him their sultan.
'Do you think that I ought to have accepted the kingdom of
Babylon [Footnote 27] if it had been offered me?' he once asked
of Joinville. '"I answered," says Joinville, "that if he had he
would have done a very foolish thing, seeing that they had just
murdered their lord." Nevertheless, he said that he would not
have refused it. And you must know that the project only failed
because they said that the King was the haughtiest Christian ever
known.'
[Footnote 27: See page 66, line 6: "_Babylon_, that
suburb of Cairo now known as 'Old Cairo,'..."]
{78}
After three days of excitement and uncertainty in both camps,
during which the Christians were at one moment threatened with a
general massacre and the next treated with the greatest
consideration, the negotiations were resumed and concluded, the
terms being almost the same as those agreed upon by the King and
the late Sultan. On the 5th of May, Louis with his nobles and the
Mameluke chiefs had arrived before the walls of Damietta. There
fresh dangers awaited them: some of the Saracens wanted to take
possession of the town by force, and made an unsuccessful attempt
to scale the walls; the Crusaders whom Louis had left to defend
it, and at their head Queen Margaret, who had only just given
birth to a son, hesitated to give the town back into the hands of
the infidels. At every new difficulty and delay the Emir
Faress-Eddin-Octaï, he whom Louis had refused to make a knight,
said to the messengers who passed between, them, 'Tell the King
from me that, so long as he is in our hands, he must not show in
any way that this annoys him, or he is a dead man.' At length all
the difficulties were removed, and the conditions agreed upon for
the payment of the ransom and setting the Christian prisoners at
liberty were fulfilled.
[Footnote 28 (unknown location on this page): Guillaume de
Chartres; Bouquet's 'Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de
la France,' vol. xx. p. 31; Joinville, chap. lxxii.]
{79}
On the morning of the 7th of May, 1250, Geoffrey of Sargines
restored the keys to the Emirs; the Saracens rushed into the town
in great disorder, and committed all kinds of acts of violence.
While the King was waiting on board his ship for the completion
of the payment of the ransom for his brother the Count of
Poitiers, a Saracen came up to him very well clad and a goodly
man as to his person, and presented him with some jars of curdled
milk and flowers of divers kinds, telling him that they were from
the children of the Nazar [Footnote 29] of the former Sultan of
Babylon. He spoke in French, and the King asked him where he had
learnt it; upon which he answered that he had formerly been a
Christian. Then the King said, 'Depart from me, for I will not
speak another word to you.'
At length Louis saw a galley approaching in which he recognised
his brother: 'Light up! light up!' he shouted to his sailors. It
was the signal agreed upon for their departure, and leaving the
shores of Egypt the whole Christian fleet set sail for the Holy
Land.
[Footnote 29: Farmer-general Inspector. ]
{80}
Chapter IX.
St. Louis In Palestine And Syria.
Independently of the heavy losses which he had incurred during
his stay in Egypt, the forces of the King were still further
diminished when he set sail for the Holy Land by the desertion of
some of the principal leaders who had accompanied him. The Count
of Soissons, of Bretagne, and many others, who were either sick,
disheartened or penniless, renounced the crusade and set out for
Europe. When on the 14th of May he arrived at St. Jean d'Acre--a
remnant of the kingdom of Jerusalem still belonging to the
Christians--Louis had no difficulty in discovering that many of
those who had accompanied him so far now wished to leave him. He
had at all times shown great consideration for the opinion and
wishes of his subjects--a very rare virtue in monarchs--and he
preferred the acquiescence of free men to the obedience of
slaves. He called them together in council, and said:--
'My Lords! The Queen my mother has entreated and commanded me, so
far as it is in her power, to return to France, as my kingdom is
in great danger, for I have neither peace nor truce with the King
of England. On the other hand, the people of this country to whom
I have spoken tell me that this land is lost if I leave it, for
all those who are in Acre will follow me, since none dare remain
in it with so small a force.
{81}
I beg you, therefore, to take this matter into consideration; and
because this question is of such grave importance, I give you
until this day week to deliberate, and then you will answer as it
seemeth good to you.'
'On the following Sunday,' says Joinville, 'we presented
ourselves before the King, who then asked his brothers and other
lords what advice they gave him, whether to go or stay. They all
answered that they had deputed Guy of Mauvoisin to convey their
opinion to the King. The King commanded him to proceed with that
which he had undertaken to do, and he spoke as follows: "Sire, my
lords, your brothers and the other nobles here present, have
carefully considered your position, and they see that you cannot
remain in this country with honour either to yourself or your
kingdom. For of the knights who accompanied you, and who joined
you in Cyprus, numbering in all two thousand eight hundred, there
are not now a hundred in this town. Therefore, sire, they advise
you to go back at once to France and provide yourself with men
and money, so that you may quickly return to this country and
avenge yourself on the enemies of God who held you in prison."
The King would not rest content with the opinion expressed by Guy
of Mauvoisin, but questioned the Count of Anjou, the Count of
Poitiers, and many other nobles who were seated behind them, and
they all agreed with him who had spoken for them. . . . I was the
fourteenth in rank, and sat opposite the legate,' continues
Joinville; 'he asked me what I thought, and I said that, if the
King could manage to carry on the campaign for a year, he would
gain great honour by remaining.
{82}
And the legate said angrily, "How is it possible for the King to
carry on the campaign with such a handful of troops?" I answered
with equal warmth, for I thought he had said it to annoy me,
"Sir, since you wish it, I will tell you. It is said--I do not
know if it is true--that the King has not yet spent any of his
own money, but only the money of the clergy. Let the King
therefore now expend the royal treasure, and send to seek for
knights in the Morea and over the sea. When they hear of the high
pay which the King offers, knights will come to him from all
quarters, and then he will be able to carry on the campaign for a
year if it pleases God, and by staying he will deliver the poor
prisoners who were taken captive when they were serving God and
the King, and who will never be set free at all if the King goes
away." There was not one present who had not dear friends in
prison; therefore no one answered, but all began to weep. The
legate next questioned William of Beaumont, who was at that time
Marshal of France, and he answered that I had spoken well. "And I
will tell you why," said he. But his uncle, the good knight Jean
of Beaumont, who was very anxious to return to France, stopped
him most rudely, crying out, "Now, long tongue! what do you want?
Sit down and be quiet." The King said, "My lord Jean, that was
not well done: let him speak." "Certes, sire, I will not let
him;" and the Marshal was forced to be silent. No one else agreed
with me except the lord of Chatenay. Then the King said, "My
lords, I have listened with attention to all that you have to
say, and I will answer you on this day week, and inform you what
it is my pleasure to do."
{83}
'When we had left the presence of the King I was attacked on all
sides. "The King is mad, Sieur de Joinville, if he takes your
advice rather than that of the whole kingdom of France." The
tables were laid soon after this, and the King bade me sit near
him during the repast, in the place where I always sat when his
brothers were not present. He did not speak one word to me while
the meal lasted, which was not his wont, for he always showed me
great attention at that time. I verily believed that he was angry
with me for saying that he had not employed his own money, when
he had really expended such very large sums. Whilst the King was
at prayers after the repast, I went away to a grated window which
was in a recess near the head of the King's bed, and put my arms
through the bars, and then folded them outside the window; and I
stood there leaning against the window, and thinking that if the
King returned to France I would go to the Prince of Antioch (who
was a kind of relation, and had sent to seek me) until there was
another crusade, by the help of which the prisoners might be set
free. ...
'At that moment the King came up, and leant on my shoulder, and
placed his two hands on my head. I thought it was Philip of
Nemours, who had annoyed me the whole day on account of my advice
to the King, so I said, "Leave me in peace, Monseigneur
Philippe!" Now it chanced that, as he was trying to turn my head
towards him, the King's hand slipped down over my face, and then
I knew that it was the King, because of an emerald which he wore
on his finger.
{84}
And he said, "Be still; I want to ask how you, who are so young,
could be so bold as to venture to advise me to stay, in
opposition to all the greatest and wisest men of France, who
counselled me to go?" "Sire," I answered, "if I had an evil
thought in my heart, I would never, at whatever cost, advise you
to carry it out." "Do you say," he continued, "that I shall do an
ill deed if I leave this land?" "Yes, sire, I do believe it, so
help me God in time of need!" And he said, "If I stay, will you
stay?" I replied, "Yes, if I can; either at my own expense or at
that of some one else." "Now be of good cheer," he said; "for I
am right well pleased with what you have said; but tell no one of
it all this week."
'On the following Sunday we met again in the presence of the
King, and when he saw that we were all assembled, he said, "My
lords, I thank all those who advised me to return to France, and
I also return many thanks to those who advised me to stay here.
Now I have considered this matter, and if I stay here I do not
see that there is any danger of the loss of my kingdom, for the
Queen Regent has plenty of men who will defend it. And I have
thought much, also, of what the knights in this country say, that
if I depart Jerusalem is lost, for no one will dare to stay after
I am gone. I have determined, therefore, that I will not at any
cost leave the kingdom of Jerusalem which I came to conquer and
to keep. And now I am firmly resolved to stay here for the
present, and therefore I ask the great lords who are here, as
well as all good knights who are willing to stay with me, to come
and speak to me freely, and I will give you such ample supplies
that the fault shall not be with me if you do not remain." Many
who heard these words were put to shame by them, and many wept.'
[Footnote 30]
[Footnote 30: Joinville, chap. lxxxii. &c.]
{85}
Having resolved to stay in the East, Louis hastened the departure
of his two brothers, the Count of Anjou and the Count of
Poitiers, together with those Crusaders who wished to renounce
the expedition; and he sent them to France, bearing a long letter
addressed 'to his dear and faithful prelates, nobles, knights,
citizens, burgesses, and the whole people of the kingdom of
France.' It contained an admirably candid account of all that he
had done and what had befallen him in Egypt, from the capture of
Damietta to the time that he had set sail for Acre, and a
pressing exhortation to send the reinforcements which he wanted
in order to obtain the freedom of all the Christians still kept
in captivity by the Mussulmans, and to insure the safety of all
the towns and possessions still held by Christians in Palestine
and Syria. I do not hesitate to affirm that never, in any age or
in any country, has a sovereign laid before his people his
actions and motives, his aims, his failure, his success and his
needs, with more unflinching frankness, with so much modest
dignity, and such deep religious feeling. [Footnote 31]
[Footnote 31: My account of this remarkable document is taken
from the text given in the supplements to the edition of
Joinville published by Ducange (1668), pp. 384-388.]
{86}
To such an extent did Louis carry his conscientious scruples and
virtuous inflexibility, that, after the departure of his
brothers, 'he called together all the officers of his household,
exhorted them to lead sober and chaste lives, and said that, if
any were afraid of failing in this duty, he was prepared to grant
leave for their return to the West. Not one asked for this
permission. But some time after St. Louis found that there were
sixteen or seventeen who had not lived as they ought to have
done; he dismissed them from his household, and would not pardon
them for three or four months, until Easter of the following
year.' [Footnote 32]
[Footnote 32: Tillemont, vol. iii. p. 392.]
We have no very definite or reliable information as to the
numerical strength of the army after the desertion of the King's
brothers, but there can be little doubt that it was unequal to
the double task which Louis had set before him--the liberation of
the Christian captives held by the Saracens, and the security of
the Christians in Palestine and Syria. In his own heart Louis
always brooded over another project which he did not openly
proclaim; this was to snatch the Holy Sepulchre from the
Mussulmans and once more establish the kingdom of Jerusalem:--his
was one of those ardent natures which hope against hope. Twice he
seemed on the point of realizing this dream: in 1250, Malek
Hasser, the Sultan of Aleppo and Damascus, who was then at war
with the Mameluke Emirs of Egypt, offered to restore the kingdom
of Jerusalem if he would enter into active alliance with him
against his enemies. The temptation was strong; but, on leaving
Damietta, Louis had concluded a ten years' truce with the Emirs,
who on their side had undertaken to set free all their Christian
captives.
{87}
The agreement was at that time being carried out. Louis would not
break his word to the Mussulmans, nor would he leave the
Christians, whom he had promised to deliver, in captivity, and
very probably exposed to a frightful massacre. He made answer to
the Sultan of Damascus that he would call upon the Egyptian Emirs
to fulfil their engagement without any further delay, and that,
if they refused, he would willingly make war upon them. The Emirs
did not refuse; they even set free a considerable number of the
captives, but they still retained some thousands. Louis waited,
negotiating slowly both with the Sultan of Damascus and the
Egyptian Emirs. In 1252 the latter, being hard pressed by the
enemy, applied in their turn to the King, offering to restore the
ancient kingdom of Jerusalem with the exception of four places,
to set free all their Christian captives, and to excuse the
payment of the 200,000 livres still owing for the ransom. Louis
accepted the offer, and a treaty was concluded at Cæsarea; but at
the very time when it should have been carried out the Egyptian
Emirs and the Sultan of Damascus changed their minds, forgot
their differences, and united to attack the remnant of crusading
Christians.
Louis had not been dismayed by danger or discouraged by reverses,
nor could he be daunted by disappointment: he at once threw his
whole energy into a consideration of the position of the
Christians in Syria and Palestine; he made every effort both to
insure their present safety and also to train and prepare them as
a basis of support in future crusades.
{88}
He resolved to spend in the fortification of their towns the
200,000 livres which he was now prevented from devoting to the
ransom of Christian prisoners in Egypt, and preparations were at
once begun for putting St. Jean d'Acre, Jaffa, Cæsarea, and Sidon
in a state of defence; he visited them constantly, and in case
of need protected them against the attacks of the Saracens with
such forces as he had,--the Crusaders who had not deserted him,
the Templars and Hospitallers, and the Christian population of
the East. He had sent a great number of workmen to fortify Sidon;
the Saracens surprised them, and massacred nearly all of
them,--two or three thousand, say the chronicles. The King
resolved to avenge them, and to pay them a solemn act of homage;
after making a raid upon the towns and lands of the Mussulmans in
the vicinity, he arrived before Sidon.
'The corpses of the Christian workmen had been left unburied on
the ground, and emitted a pestilential stench. The King did not
content himself with giving orders that they should receive
Christian burial, nor even with superintending their interment;
he put his own hands to the work, touching the ghastly remains
with the greatest reverence, and helping to place them in sacks
which had been prepared for the purpose. "Let us go," he would
say in the morning to his attendants, "let us help to bury those
martyrs who have suffered death for the sake of our Lord. And do
not be weary in well-doing, for they have endured far greater
things than this will cost us." And when he saw his knights
shrink with disgust from the task, "Do not loathe these poor
bodies," he said, "for these men are martyrs and in Paradise."'
[Footnote 33]
[Footnote 33: M. Faure, who gives this account, has collected
his material from scattered notices in Joinville, the
Confesseur de la Reine Marguerite, Guillaume de Nangis,
Guillaume de Chartres, &c.]
{89}
Asiatic and European, Mussulman and Christian, the inhabitants of
Syria and of the neighbouring countries, all beheld this
manifestation of faith, piety, loyalty, persevering courage, and
sympathetic goodness with surprise and respectful admiration. The
King's name and his person became the object of curiosity and
reverence. 'A great troop of pilgrims from Upper Armenia,' says
Joinville, 'on their way to Jerusalem, came to me, and begged
that I would show them the saintly King. I went to the King, and
found him sitting in a tent on the bare sand, without carpet or
cushion under him. I said, "Sire, there is a great crowd of
pilgrims here, and they have begged me to show them the royal
saint; for my own part I have no desire to kiss your bones just
yet." The King laughed heartily, and bade me bring them to his
presence, which I did. And when they had seen the King, they
commended him to God; and the King did the same by them.'
The Mussulmans were sometimes rough and threatening, but Louis
speedily made them respectful. The Old Man of the Mountain, who
was accustomed to inspire fear in all around him, one day sent a
messenger to express his astonishment that the King had not yet,
'in order to keep him as a friend, offered him rich presents, as
is done yearly by the Emperor of Germany, the King of Hungary,
the Sultan of Babylon, and others.' Louis received the messenger
coldly, and told him to return in the afternoon. He did so, and
found the King sitting in state, having on his right hand the
Grand Master of the Templars, and on his left the Grand Master of
the Hospitallers, the two Orders for which the Old Man of the
Mountain showed most consideration; 'knowing well,' says
Joinville, 'that if he had caused one of the chiefs of either
Order to be killed by his assassins he would be replaced by
another equally good.'
{90}
The King had deputed the two Grand Masters to answer for him;
they told the messenger 'that his master must be very fool-hardy
to venture to send such an insolent message to the King, and that
if it had not been for the great respect they felt for the King
to whom the messenger had been sent, they would have had him
thrown into the filthy sea of Acre in spite of his master. And we
command you,' added they, 'to return to your lord, and to come
back within a fortnight, bringing such letters and jewels from
your prince that King Louis shall be contented with him and with
you.'
The Old Man of the Mountain did not venture to resist this
summons: his messenger returned a fortnight later bringing
presents, to which Louis responded by sending back 'a great
abundance of jewels, scarlet cloth, cups of gold, and silver
bridles.'
The position of St. Louis was precarious and full of peril, and
yet he contrived to inaugurate and maintain friendly relations
with the non-Christian races that did not make war on him. It was
during his sojourn in Syria that he sent the monk Rubruquis,
whose quaint account is still extant, on a mission to Mangou,
Khan of the Mongol Tartars.
Louis was influenced not only by political motives, but by the
hope of attracting these barbarians to Christianity, and he
displayed the credulity of blind zeal in giving credit to the
slightest rumour of any readiness on their part to receive the
Christian faith.
{91}
More than once Mussulmans from Egypt or Syria were so deeply
touched by his piety and many virtues that they had gone to him,
begging to be made Christians. 'He received them with great joy,'
says his confessor, Geoffrey of Beaulieu, 'and had them baptized
and carefully instructed in the faith of Christ. He supported
them entirely at his own expense, took them with him to France,
and provided means of subsistence for them, their wives and
children.' But this was not all; in 1270, by his will, he
enjoined his successor to continue 'to all the converts, great
and small, whom we brought from over the sea with us, the
supplies which we set apart for them.' [Footnote 34]
[Footnote 34: Bouquet's 'Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et
de la France,' vol. xx. p. 16; Duchesne, vol. v. p. 430.]
The ardent piety and royal generosity of the King impressed even
his greatest enemies, and extorted from them expressions of
esteem, and almost of sympathy. Whilst he was at Jaffa the Sultan
of Damascus sent him word that, if he wished, he might make a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and that he should do so in perfect
safety. 'The King held a great council,' says Joinville, 'and no
one advised him to go. They pointed out to him that if he, who
was the greatest of Christian kings, visited Jerusalem as a
simple pilgrim, without delivering the city from the hands of the
enemies of God, all other kings and pilgrims who followed in his
steps would be contented to perform their pilgrimage in the same
manner as the King of France had done, and would trouble
themselves no further about the deliverance of Jerusalem.' They
also cited in support of the advice a great example: in 1192,
sixty years earlier, an illustrious Crusader, less holy but quite
as brave as himself, Richard Cœur-de-Lion, King of England,
discovered that he was quite close to the Holy City.
{92}
One of his knights cried out, 'Come, sire, come hither, and I
will show you Jerusalem.' When Richard heard that, he covered his
eyes and wept, and cried to our Lord, 'Ah! Lord God, I pray Thee
not to let me even see Thy Holy City, since I am not able to
deliver it out of the hands of Thine enemies.'
In the beginning of the year 1253 Louis was still in Syria,
undertaking many expeditions, devoting himself to the Christian
cause, and working for it with more perseverance than success,
when at Sidon he received news which caused him the greatest
sorrow and anxiety. Queen Blanche, his mother, had resumed her
regency during his absence, and he now heard of her death at
Paris, the 27th November, 1252. The Pope's legate, the Archbishop
of Tyre, and Geoffrey of Beaulieu, the King's confessor,
endeavoured to break the sad tidings to him as gently as
possible; they went with him into a small private chapel
adjoining his chamber, and all sat down near the altar. At their
first words Louis uttered a great cry, and, bursting into tears,
fell on his knees before the altar. 'So great was his grief,'
says Joinville, 'that for two days he could see no one. After
that he sent one of his attendants to seek me. When I entered the
room in which he was sitting all alone, he stretched out his
arms, and said, "Ah, Seneschal, I have lost my mother!"'
{93}
His loss was indeed a heavy one, both as son and as king. Even
those contemporary writers who are least favourable to her
acknowledge that Queen Blanche was 'the most discreet woman of
her time, singularly acute and sagacious, with a man's courage,
but the attractions and keen perceptions of her sex; magnanimous
in her nature, a woman of indomitable energy; sovereign mistress
of all the affairs of the century; guardian and protector of
France; best to be compared to Semiramis, the greatest among
women.'
During her son's minority, and from the time of his departure for
the East, she had given him constant proofs of enthusiastic but
not blind devotion, and had been very useful to him in spite of
being slightly tyrannical. Several of the chroniclers assert that
the absence of her son from 1248 to 1252, her anxiety on his
account, and the duties which she undertook to perform for him,
shortened her life. She died at the age of sixty-five; a few days
before her death she bade farewell to the world, took the veil
and made her vows as a nun of the Abbey of Maubuisson, which she
had founded ten years previously and in which she was buried.
Queen Margaret shared her husband's grief. 'Madame Marie de
Vertus,' says Joinville, 'a very excellent and pious woman, came
to tell me that the Queen was in great affliction, and begged me
to go to her and comfort her. When I entered I found her weeping,
and I said that he had spoken truly who said that no faith was to
be placed in women, "for she was the woman whom you hated above
all others, and yet you show all this sorrow for her." She
replied that she did not weep for the death of Queen Blanche, but
for the King's grief, and for her daughter Isabella, [Footnote
35] who had been left in France under the care of her
grandmother, and would now fall to the charge of men.'
[Footnote 35: Afterwards Queen of Navarre.]
{94}
Louis had a sincere love for his wife, and it was well merited,
for during the whole crusade both in Egypt and Syria Queen
Margaret had displayed both the constancy and courage of her
affection. And yet when she rejoined the King at Sidon, in 1253,
on hearing of her arrival, Louis asked his seneschal if the Queen
and the children were well, and Joinville remarks: 'During the
five years I had been with him he had never spoken of the Queen
or of his children either to me or any one else. It seemed to me
not a right thing thus to be a stranger to his own wife and
children.'
But let the degree of affection in the royal household have been
what it might, there can be no doubt that his mother Queen
Blanche was the woman whom the King most admired, whom he most
trusted, and who was treated by him with the greatest respect and
consideration.
{95}
Chapter X.
Return Of St. Louis To France.
His Domestic Policy.
On the death of the Regent, all the letters which Louis received
from France urged his immediate return. The Christians of Syria
gave the King the same advice. 'The King,' they said, 'has done
everything for us that he can do here; he will now serve us much
better if he sends us help from France.' Louis decided on his
departure, and embarked at Acre on the 24th of April, 1254. 'He
told me that it was the same day of the month as that on which he
was born,' says Joinville, 'and I told him he might well say that
he had been born again now that he had escaped from that land of
peril.'
Thirteen vessels, large and small, composed the King's fleet. As
they drew near the isle of Cyprus, the King's ship struck on a
sandbank in the night, and seemed in danger of becoming a wreck.
The terror of those on board was very great. Queen Margaret was
there with the three young children to whom she had given birth
in the East. The nurses went to her and said: "Madame, what shall
we do with your children? Shall we wake them and take them up?"
The Queen, despairing of life in this world either for herself or
her children, said: "You will not wake them nor take them up; you
will let them go to God in their sleep."
{96}
The King was entreated to leave the ship and go on board another;
he summoned the master-mariners, and said, "Suppose the vessel
was yours, and was laden with merchandise; I ask you, upon your
honour, if you would abandon it?" And they all answered No,
because they would rather run the risk of being drowned than pay
4,000 livres or more for a new ship. "Then why do you advise me
to leave the ship?" "Because," they answered, "the stakes are not
equal; for no amount of gold or silver can equal the worth of
your life, nor of the lives of your wife and children who are on
board, and for that reason we urge you not to put yourself and
them in danger." Then the King said: "Sirs, I have heard your
opinion, and that of my own people, and now in my turn I will
give you mine, which is this. If I abandon this ship, there are
five hundred persons who will remain in the isle of Cyprus for
fear of bodily peril (for there is not one of them who does not
love his life as well as I love mine), and who, peradventure,
will never return to their own land. Therefore I prefer to place
myself, my wife, and my children in the hands of God rather than
cause so great an injury to so many persons as are on board."'
I do not think that history affords any other example of a king
so mindful of the fate and interests of strangers in the midst of
such great danger to him and his. However, the royal vessel got
off the shoal, and went on its way; on the 8th of July, after
sailing for ten weeks more, the King and all his fleet reached
the port of Hyères in Provence, which then belonged to the Empire
and not to France.
{97}
For two days Louis refused to disembark, as he was most anxious
on his return to set foot for the first time on the soil of his
own land at Aiguesmortes, from whence he had set out six years
previously. But at length he yielded to the entreaties of the
Queen and of all those with him, landed at Hyères, journeyed
slowly through France, and arrived at Vincennes on the 5th of
September, 1254. On Sunday, the 6th, he went to St. Denis to
thank God for having protected him during his long pilgrimage,
and on the following day he made his royal entry into Paris. 'The
burgesses and all others in the city went to meet him, decked and
dressed in their best, each one according to his means. Other
cities had received their king with delight, but Paris showed
greater joy than any. For many days there were bonfires, with
dances and other public entertainments, which however were put an
end to sooner than the people desired; for St. Louis was much
troubled at the great expense, the dances, and the frivolities in
which they were indulging, and so he went away to Vincennes, in
order to put a stop to the whole thing.' [Footnote 36]
[Footnote 36: Joinville, chap. cxxi.--cxxiii.; Bouquet's
'Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France,' vol. xx.
p. 70; Tillemont, vol. iv. pp. 31-45.]
I find in Joinville an anecdote relating to just this period of
the King's life which is too characteristic to be passed over in
silence.
'Whilst the King was staying at Hyères,' he says, 'in order to
procure horses to take him into France, the Abbot of Cluny made
him a present of two palfreys which were worth quite 500 livres,
one for himself and the other for the Queen. When the abbot had
made this present, he said: "Sire, I will come to-morrow to speak
of things which concern me."
{98}
On the morrow the abbot returned; the King listened very
attentively, and for a very long time. When the abbot had taken
leave, I went to the King and said: "Sire, if you will allow me,
I wish to ask you whether you have not listened more graciously
to the Abbot of Cluny because he gave you those two palfreys
yesterday?" The King reflected for some time, and then said,
"Yes, truly." "Sire," I said, "do you know why I put this
question to you?" "Why?" he asked me. "Because," I answered, "I
warn you and advise you to forbid your sworn councillors, when
you come to France, to take anything from those who have to plead
before them, for rest assured that, if they receive anything,
they will listen more patiently and attentively to those who
give, as you have done to the Abbot of Cluny." Then the King
summoned his council, and repeated what I had said, and they told
him I had given him good advice.'
It was in this frame of mind--humble, conscientious, free from
egotism, with ready sympathies, and animated not only by
reverence for truth and justice, but by love for them--that Louis
returned to France, and resumed the government of his kingdom
after an absence of six years, during which his efforts on behalf
of Christianity had been as heroic as they were unavailing. Those
who were nearest to him, and knew him best, were astonished not
only at what he had remained, but also at what he had become
during his long and severe trial.
{99}
'When happily the King had returned to France, with what piety he
conducted himself towards God, with what justice towards his
subjects, how compassionately towards the afflicted, with what
humility in all that concerned himself, and how zealously he
endeavoured, according to his strength, to grow in grace,--these
things can be attested by those who watched his life closely, and
knew how sensitive was his conscience. Persons of most
intelligence and discernment think that as gold is more precious
than silver, so the life and conduct of the King, after his
return from the Holy Land, were devout and regenerate, and of
higher excellence than his old manner of life, although even in
his youth he was always good and pure, and worthy of great
esteem.'
Thus speaks Geoffrey of Beaulieu, the King's confessor, in a
brief and simple chronicle--the brevity, in fact, almost
amounting to dryness, but the work of a man who was well
acquainted with his subject. [Footnote 37]
[Footnote 37: Bouquet's 'Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et
de la France,' vol. xx. p. 18.]
These words of his confessor are fully confirmed by the King's
subsequent career, by the laws which he enacted, by his domestic
policy and relations with foreign Powers, in short by every act
in the reign of St. Louis during the fifteen years which elapsed
between the return from his first and his departure on his second
crusade. His idea of government differed from that of many
sovereigns. He did not desire to establish a deliberate and
inflexible policy, recognising only one special aim, and pursuing
it by means which may be more or less justifiable and more or
less successful, but which must always be accompanied by a large
share of crime in the rulers, of iniquity in their actions, and
of suffering to the country at large.
{100}
Before the time of St. Louis this had been the policy of his
grandfather Philip Augustus, and after him it was more especially
that of his grandson Philip le Bel. Both one and the other of
these able monarchs laboured ceaselessly to extend the dominion
and power of the Crown, to subjugate not only their neighbours
but their vassals. Their aim was to destroy the feudal system by
force and fraud, and to substitute for it an absolute monarchy;
by liberality, as well as usurpation, to place the royal
authority high above the power and rights of the nobles and the
people.
St. Louis neither desired nor attempted anything of the kind; he
did not make war upon the feudal system either openly or
covertly, but loyally accepted its general principles which he
found embodied in the facts and spirit of the age. Whilst he
repressed with great firmness all the attempts of his vassals to
throw off their allegiance to him and make themselves independent
of the Crown, he respected their rights, was scrupulously mindful
of his promises, and exacted no more than was really due to him.
He had granted a charter to the heirs of the Countess Mahaut of
Boulogne, promising them the county of Dammartin, of which he
meanwhile retained possession. At her death, one of her heirs,
Renaud, Seigneur de Trie, brought the charter to the King, and
claimed fulfilment of the promise. But the seal was broken; and
at that time the seal was held to be the only proof that a
document was genuine. All that remained of the King's effigy
consisted of part of the legs and the stool for the royal feet.
{101}
'The King showed it to all of us who were of his council,' says
Joinville, 'and asked us to help him in coming to a decision. We
all said, without a single exception, that he was in no way bound
to execute the charter. Then he asked John Sarrazin, his
chamberlain, to hand him a document for which he had asked, and
when he received it he said, "Sirs, this is the seal which I used
before I crossed the sea, and you can plainly perceive from it
that the impression on the broken seal is similar to that on the
seal which is entire; therefore I cannot, with a clear
conscience, keep back the county." He then called Renaud de Trie,
and said, "I make over the county to you."'
Many of his vassals were also vassals of the King of England, and
this gave rise to many subtle and difficult questions as to the
extent of the service they owed to both kings. These conflicts
between custom and duty were very displeasing to Louis.
'At the beginning of the year 1244, he commanded all those nobles
who held fiefs in English territory to appear before him in
Paris, and addressed them as follows: "As it is impossible for
any man living in my kingdom and having possessions in England to
serve two masters rightly, you must therefore either attach
yourselves altogether to me, or inseparably to the King of
England." After saying this, he left them entire freedom of
choice.' [Footnote 38]
[Footnote 38: Faure, 'Histoire de St. Louis,'
vol. i. p. 401.]
He thus endeavoured to promote justice and peace in the heart of
feudal society, instead of cultivating those germs of difficulty
and constantly recurring occasions for dissension which he might
have used to increase his own power.
{102}
Chapter XI.
Foreign Policy Of St. Louis.
In his relations with neighbouring sovereigns Louis showed the
same loyalty and endeavour to promote peace which we have noticed
in his domestic policy.
'Some members of his council,' says Joinville, 'told him that he
did not act wisely in not allowing these foreigners to make war
upon one another; for if he left them to impoverish themselves,
they would not be so likely to run a-muck at him as if they were
very rich. To this the King answered that these words were not
well spoken, "for," said he, "if the neighbouring princes see
that I leave them to fight, they may well take counsel together,
and say, 'The King has some evil design in allowing us to attack
each other.' And then, out of the hatred they would bear me, they
would all run a-muck against me, and I might lose everything,
without taking into account that I should earn the enmity of God,
who has said, 'Blessed are the peace-makers.'"
So great was his fame as a true friend of peace and an equitable
arbitrator in the contests between princes and people, that his
intervention and his decisions were often asked for and accepted,
in disputes beset with great difficulty and danger.
{103}
In spite of his brilliant victories in 1242, over Henry III. of
England at Taillebourg and Saintes, Louis saw, after his return
from the East, that there was no solid peace between England and
France, and that at any moment the possessions which he had
acquired by these victories might again give rise to new wars,
which would be injurious to both, and possibly disastrous to one
people or the other. He conceived the idea of establishing this
very desirable peace upon a sound basis, by founding it on a
transaction which both sides should acknowledge to be equitable.
He succeeded in this by restoring to the King of England some of
those possessions which he had lost in the war of 1242, and by
obtaining from him in return, 'both in his own name and in the
names of his sons and of their heirs, a formal renunciation of
all the rights to which they could lay claim in the Duchy of
Normandy, the counties of Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and Poitou; a
resignation of the homage paid for Berry, Bretagne, Auvergne,
Marche, Angoumois, and in general a cession of all the
possessions which he and his ancestors; had ever held on the
continent of Europe, with the exception of those which the King
of France restored to him by this treaty, and of those which he
still held in Gascoigne.' For all these the King of England
undertook to pay homage to the King of France in the character of
Peer of France and Duke of Aquitaine, and to fulfil strictly all
the duties of his fiefs.
When Louis informed the members of his council of this
transaction, 'they were strongly opposed to it,' says Joinville.
'It seems to us, sire,' they said, 'that if you believe you have
no right to the possessions which you and your ancestors have
conquered from the King of England, you do not make fitting
restitution to the said king unless you restore them all to him;
and if you believe that you have a right to them, you throw away
all those that you give up to him.'
{104}
'Sirs,' answered Louis, 'I am certain that the ancestors of the
King of England very justly lost the possessions which I keep;
and the land which I give him I do not give it to him and his
heirs because they have a right to it, but in order to create
love between his children and mine, who are cousins-german. And
it seems to me that what I give to him I use right well, for he
was not formerly my vassal, and now he comes to do me homage.'
And, in truth, Henry did go to Paris in order to take with him
the treaty which he had signed, and to perform the ceremony of
homage.
'Louis received him like a brother, but spared him nothing of a
ceremony which, according to feudal notions, was no more
humiliating than the name of "vassal," which the greatest lords
bore proudly. It took place on Thursday, the 4th of December,
1259, in the royal meadow before the palace, and in that part
which we now call the Place Dauphiné. There were great crowds of
prelates, barons, and other distinguished persons of the two
courts and of both nations. The King of England, kneeling and
bare-headed, without mantle, belt, sword or spurs, put his joined
hands into those of his suzerain the King of France, and said:
"Sire, henceforth I am your man, to serve you in word and deed,
and I swear and promise to be faithful and loyal and to maintain
your right to the utmost of my power, and to do justice at your
behest or the behest of your deputy, to the best of my judgment."
{105}
'The King then kissed him on the mouth, and raised him up.'
[Footnote 39]
[Footnote 39: Joinville, chap. xiv.; Faure, vel. ii. p. 151.]
Three years later Louis gave, not only to the King of England,
but to the whole English nation, a striking proof of his
prudence, justice, and good faith. A fierce civil war had broken
out between Henry and his barons, in which both sides were
defending their own rights, whilst neither respected the rights
of their adversaries, and England endured alternately the tyranny
of the King and the tyranny of the nobles.
Both sides had agreed to submit their differences to the
arbitration of the King of France, and on the 23d of January,
1246, Louis pronounced a solemn judgment in favour of the English
king, at the same time upholding the Magna Charta and the
traditional liberties of the people; his decision closed with
these conciliatory words:
'It is also our desire that the King of England and his barons
shall mutually forgive each other, and that they shall forget any
resentment which may still exist between them, and which has
arisen in consequence of the circumstances now submitted to our
arbitration; and that from henceforth they shall respectively
abstain from any annoyance or injury on account of these
circumstances.'
But when opinions and interests are violently opposed and
passions fully roused, the wisest decrees and most prudent
counsel that man can utter do not suffice to re-establish peace;
the lessons taught by experience are often absolutely necessary,
and the opponents will not submit until one or the other, and
perhaps both, are exhausted in the struggle, and feel the
absolute necessity either of making some concession or accepting
their defeat.
{106}
The conciliatory arbitration of the King of France did not put a
stop to the civil war in England; but Louis did not seek in any
way to take advantage of it in order to increase his own
possessions and power at the expense of his neighbours: he stood
aloof from their quarrels, and his unsuccessful mediation was
followed by an honest neutrality.
Five centuries later the great historian Hume wrote the following
encomium:--'Whenever this prince interposed in English affairs,
it was always with an intention of composing the differences
between the King and his nobility; he recommended to both parties
every peaceable and reconciling measure; and he used all his
authority with the Earl of Leicester, his native subject, to bend
him to compliance with Henry.' [Footnote 40]
[Footnote 40: Hume, vol. ii. p. 38.]
Louis pursued the same course towards all neighbouring states,
great and small, strong and weak. In Flanders, Piedmont,
Provence, Arragon, everywhere and on every occasion, his chief
aim was to promote peace and to uphold both the laws of the land
and the rights of the people. He was at the same time energetic
and circumspect, always ready to use the influence which
naturally belongs to a king of France, but he never allowed
France to be compromised by the difficulties and quarrels of
other nations; nor would he tolerate the use of his country's
name and weight to serve the ends of any mere personal ambition,
not even if these ends would have promoted his own interest or
that of his family.
{107}
He gave a very decided refusal to the offer of the crown of
Sicily for one of his sons. The Pope (Urban IV.) claimed the
disposal of it, and urgently desired Louis to take it. When the
crown was accepted by his brother Charles Count of Anjou, Louis,
who had no power to prevent his receiving it, showed his
displeasure openly and would give no sanction to the act.
The sovereign Pontiff wrote oftentimes to the King, entreating
him to help his brother, who was already in Italy. He described
the arrival of the Count of Anjou in Rome, without money, without
horses: he conjured the King 'in the name of their brotherly
love, in the name of Holy Church, his mother, or rather in the
name of Him who repays a hundredfold all that is lent to Him.'
But in vain; Louis contributed neither his son, his money, nor
his men. He disapproved of the enterprise; for although Pope
Innocent IV. had excommunicated and deposed the Emperor Frederick
II. [Footnote 41] in the presence of the Council of Lyons but
without its approbation, Louis considered that the House of
Suabia--of which Conradin was the last and only
representative--had an indisputable right to the crown of Sicily,
and he refused to be a party to any action which might weaken its
claims.
[Footnote 41: On the 17th of July, 1245.]
But prudence does not always suffice to prevent a government,
whether monarchy or republic, from rushing into a fruitless and
disastrous enterprise and dragging a whole nation after it;
political honesty and respect for right and justice give a far
more essential and much safer guarantee against the commission of
similar crimes than mere prudence.
{108}
Louis IX. was not a prudent monarch by disposition or nature; his
conduct with regard to the Crusades shows how far it was possible
for him to be led astray by irresistible impulse and rash
enthusiasm; but when there was a right to be respected, a duty to
be fulfilled, in his relations with his people and with other
sovereigns, he was cautious and circumspect. The nobility of his
nature made him more prudent than his descendant Louis XI. two
centuries later, in spite of the much-vaunted and undoubted
ability of that monarch.
{109}
Chapter XII.
The King's Legislative And Administrative Power.
Something higher than prudence, higher even than virtue is
required, if a monarch--a man to whom the government of men has
been committed--is to accomplish his entire task and actually to
deserve the title of 'Very Christian.' He must know the
'enthusiasm of humanity'; his heart and brain must be in sympathy
with the vast number of human beings over whose fate he exercises
so great an influence.
More than any king who has ever lived, St. Louis seems to have
been actuated by this generous sympathy and fellow-feeling with
his subjects. He loved his people and he loved mankind
spontaneously, and because he could not help it; he took the
tenderest and deepest interest in their destiny, their happiness,
their sorrows. He was dangerously ill in 1259, and desired to
give his last and most earnest advice to his son, Prince Louis,
who died the year following. He said: 'Fair son, I pray you to
teach the people of your kingdom to love you; for verily I would
rather that a Scotchman should come from Scotland and govern the
people of this realm loyally and well, than that you should
govern them badly.'
{110}
To govern wisely, to watch over the interests of all classes in
his kingdom, to secure strict and ready justice to all his
subjects, these things were sources of continued and anxious
solicitude to St. Louis. M. Félix Faure, in the history to which
I have alluded, enumerates all the journeys which the King
undertook in his own country between 1254 and 1270, in order to
make himself acquainted with the facts and details of his
government; and he also gives an account of all the 'Parlements'
which Louis held during the same period for the better
administration of justice: these two tables show how unceasing
was his activity. Joinville's account of the simple and kindly
manner in which St. Louis would himself listen to the grievances
of his subjects, and administer justice, has been often quoted,
but I cannot resist the temptation of repeating it.
'Now many a time it befell,' he says, 'that in summer, after
mass, the King would go and sit down in the wood at Vincennes
with his back to an oak, and would make us all sit round him. And
all those who had any grievance came to speak to him without
hindrance from any ushers or such folk. And then with his own
lips he would question them. "Is there any one here who has a
suit to bring before me?" And all those who wished to appeal to
him would stand forward; then he would say, "Be silent, all of
you, and your cases shall be dispatched one after the other."
Upon that he would call Monseigneur Pierre de Fontanes and
Monseigneur Geoffroy de Villette, [Footnote 42] and would say to
one of them, "Dispose of this case for me." When he saw anything
to correct in the words of those who spoke for him, or in the
words of those who spoke for others, with his own lips he would
correct it.
{111}
Sometimes, in summer, I have seen him come into the garden at
Paris to administer justice to his people, and he would be
dressed in a camlet coat [Footnote 43] and a surcoat of tiretaine
[Footnote 44] without sleeves, a coat of black taffetas on his
shoulders, his hair very carefully combed and without coif, and a
hat with white peacock's feathers on his head. Carpets were
spread that we might sit around him, and all the people who
brought suits before him stood round about, and he would have
their cases dispatched in the manner I have described before, as
he used to do in the wood at Vincennes.'
[Footnote 42: Two eminent jurists and councillors of St.
Louis.]
[Footnote 43: The 'cotte,' or coat, was the principal
vestment at that time; the 'surcoat' was worn over it.]
[Footnote 44: 'Tiretaine,' a coarse woollen material, grey,
still manufactured in France.]
The active benevolence of St. Louis extended beyond this paternal
interest in the private affairs of his people; he gave quite as
much attention and interest to those measures which were required
by the social conditions of the age and the general welfare of
his kingdom. Among the twenty-six ordinances, edicts, and
official letters of his reign contained in the first volume of
the 'Recueil des Ordonnances des Rois de France,' seven at least
were acts of great legislative and administrative importance.
These decrees all bear the same character, and whatever may have
been their result, their aim was never to extend the power of the
Crown or to serve some special interest of royalty when it was
struggling with other social forces; they were intended to effect
great social and moral reforms, were directed against the
violence, the disorder and the abuses of feudal society, and
aimed at the extension of justice and peace in the nation, but
they did not seek to destroy the existing conditions of society,
or to control them exclusively in the interest either of the King
or of any one class of citizens.
{112}
Many other of the King's ordinances and decrees have been
published, either in the later volumes of the work already
alluded to or in similar collections. M. Daunou, in an article on
St. Louis which he has prepared for the continuation of
'L'Histoire Littéraire de France, par des Membres de l'Institut,'
vol. xix. has alluded to a great many inedited documents to be
found in different archives. The great collection of legislative
enactments known as the 'Etablissements' of St. Louis, which
seems to be a kind of general but confused code of laws of the
period, is probably a work of jurisprudence of later date than
this reign; but in it we see the same endeavour to secure
practical and moral reform, and note the same absence of attempt
to promote any private interests whatsoever. There is a spirit of
such true piety in the paragraph which serves as a preface to
this work, that it might have been dictated by St. Louis himself.
I reproduce it here, with only such modifications in the language
as may be necessary to render it intelligible.
'Louis, by the grace of God King of France, to all good
Christians dwelling in the kingdom and under the suzerainty of
France, and to all others present and to come, greeting in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ.'
{113}
'Seeing that malice and fraud are so prevalent in the human race
that some men often do wrong and injury and all kinds of evil to
their fellows against the will and the law of God, and that there
are many who have neither fear nor dread of the terrible day of
judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ; and seeing that we wish all
our subjects to live in peace and loyalty, and each one to beware
of doing any ill to his neighbour for fear of bodily chastisement
and loss of worldly goods; seeing that we desire also to punish
and repress malefactors by means of the law and by a rigorous
execution of justice, and by turning for help to God, who is a
true and just Judge above all others: We have therefore ordained
these enactments, and we require that justice shall be
administered in accordance with them in all lay courts throughout
the kingdom and suzerainty of France.'
At the head of one of his essays Montaigne wrote, 'This is an
honest book.' We may say of the measures and decrees of St. Louis
that they were acts of honest legislation, altogether devoid of
egotistical ambition, of party spirit, or the desire of inventing
a system; they were inspired solely by an instinctive respect for
the common rights of all men, and by love of the public good.
Another act, known as the Pragmatic Sanction, is also given
[Footnote 45] as the work of St. Louis, under date of March 1268.
Its object is first to assert the rights, liberties, and
canonical rules of the Church of France; then to forbid 'the
exactions and very heavy pecuniary dues imposed, or which may at
any future time be imposed, upon the said Church by the Court of
Rome, by which our kingdom has been miserably impoverished,
unless they arise from a reasonable, pious and very urgent
necessity, from some unavoidable cause, and are imposed with our
spontaneous and express consent, together with that of the Church
of our kingdom.'
[Footnote 45: Recueil des Ordonnances des Rois de France,
vol. i. p. 97.]
{114}
The authenticity of this document was eagerly maintained in the
seventeenth century by Bossuet, [Footnote 46] and has been
asserted in our own days by M. Daunou, [Footnote 47] but many and
weighty reasons have been urged in opposition to it, which M.
Faure sums up in the following words:--
[Footnote 46: In his defence of the declaration of the clergy
of France in 1682, chap. ix.]
[Footnote 47: L'Histoire Littéraire de France, vol. xvi. p. 75.]
'It is not mentioned by any writer of the period, or in any
contemporaneous document; in the correspondence between Louis and
the sovereign Pontiffs of his reign it is never once alluded to,
although analogous subjects were discussed, and the importance of
this would have given it precedence over all the others. It was
not until two hundred years after the date assigned to it (in the
remonstrances presented to Louis XI. by the 'Parlement' of Paris
when, on his accession to the throne, he violated the Pragmatic
Sanction of his father, Charles VII.) that the Pragmatic Sanction
of St. Louis was for the first time alluded to and quoted. The
authority of his name was then invoked in aid of legislative
measures to which the promoters wished to give the appearance of
ancient and venerable institutions. It is impossible to
understand why Philip le Bel--the grandson of Louis--did not
quote this document in his disputes with Boniface VIII. Why did
not Charles VI. succeed, if it existed when he tried to put a
stop to the exactions of the Court of Rome? Nay, how was it that
Charles VII., when he promulgated his Pragmatic Sanction, did not
rest it upon an authority and example so highly revered as that
of his sainted ancestor?'
{115}
I do not intend to discuss this unimportant problem of historical
criticism, but I wish to call attention to the fact that, even if
the authenticity of the document is open to doubt, there is
nothing in the 'Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis' which is not in
entire harmony with all that we know of the character and actions
of that prince. In his relation to the Papacy he was the
respectful, affectionate and faithful son of the Church, but he
took good care to maintain the independence of his crown in
temporal affairs, and his own right of supervision, and sometimes
even of intervention, in spiritual matters. I have already called
attention to his cautious and reserved attitude in the great
quarrel between the Papacy and the Empire, and to the firmness
with which he resisted the violent measures of Gregory IX. and
Innocent IV. against the Emperor Frederick II. He carried his
notions as to the entire independence of his authority and
judgment beyond political matters, and into questions that were
purely religious. The Bishop of Auxerre one day said to him, in
the name of several prelates: 'Sire, the archbishops and bishops
here present desire me to tell you that Christianity is perishing
in your hands.' The King made the sign of the cross, and said,
'Now tell me how that may be.' 'Sire,' said the bishop, 'it is
because people now-a-days think so little of excommunication that
those who are excommunicated are not afraid of dying before they
have obtained absolution, and rendered satisfaction to Holy
Church.
{116}
Therefore these prelates require of you, sire, for the love of
God, and because you ought so to do, that you command your
serjeants and bailiffs, by the seizure of their goods, to compel
all those who have been excommunicated for a year and a day to
obtain absolution.' And the King replied that he was quite
willing to command that this should be done when he had received
proof that they were in the wrong. The bishop said that the
prelates would not on any account consent to this, and that they
did not acknowledge the King's jurisdiction in ecclesiastical
matters; and the King said that he would not consent on any other
condition, for that it would be against God and against reason if
he were to compel those who were excommunicated to seek
absolution when not they, but the clergy, were in the wrong.
'For example,' said the King, 'take the case of the Count of
Bretagne, who for seven years was at law with the prelates of
Bretagne, and all that time was excommunicated, and at the end of
it he proved his case, and the Pope condemned them all. Now, if I
had constrained the Count to obtain absolution at the end of the
first year, I should have sinned against God and against him.'
Thereupon the prelates were forced to submit, and I have not
heard that any similar demand has ever since been made. [Footnote
48]
[Footnote 48: Joinville, chap. xiii. p. 43.]
{117}
Chapter XIII.
Christianity Of St. Louis In His Private And Social
Life, As Well As In His Public Career And Political Relations.
I now come to that which is perhaps the most striking and
original feature in the character of St. Louis. He was engrossed
by religion,--I may say that piety was his ruling passion; and
yet his naturally clear and upright judgment in secular and
social affairs was scarcely ever disturbed by his religious
views. He was not content with the mere forms and appearances of
a thing or a person, but must go straight to the very heart of
every fact, seeking truth and justice underneath all human
conditions, social relations, and royal customs.
Tillemont, the most thorough and minutely accurate of his
historians, analyses the life of Louis as the best method of
describing it.
'We will study him,' he says, 'first as a simple individual, with
no other care than that of his own soul; 'then as a father, the
head of a family, having the charge of a wife, children, and
servants; and last of all as a king, to whom has been confided
the guidance of a whole people, and who has to conduct himself as
a Christian prince both toward his own subjects and the nations
around.'
{118}
I am certain that this was precisely the order in which St. Louis
himself viewed his duties, and I shall preserve a certain harmony
and conformity with that which was passing in his own thoughts,
if I close this sketch by relating some of those incidents in
which the innermost recesses of so noble a nature are
spontaneously and truthfully revealed.
'He called me one day,' says Joinville, 'and said, "You are a man
of such a light nature that I do not dare to speak to you of
things relating to God, and I have called these monks who are
here because I wish to ask you a question." Now the demand was
this:
'"Seneschal, what is God?"
'"Sire," I answered, "so good a thing that better cannot be."
'"Truly," said he, "that is well spoken, for the answer you have
given is written down in the book which I hold in my hand. Now I
wish to ask," he continued, "which you would prefer to be, a
leper or to have committed a mortal sin?" And I, who never told
him a lie, I answered I would rather commit thirty mortal sins
than be a leper. When the monks had gone, he called me to him
alone, made me sit down at his feet, and said, "How could you
tell me what you did yesterday?" And I answered that I should say
the same thing over again. Then he said, "You spoke rashly and
foolishly, for there is no leper so hideous as he who is in a
state of mortal sin. When a man dies he is set free from the
leprosy of the body, but when a man dies who has committed a
mortal sin, he does not know, nor can he be quite sure, that his
repentance has been such as to secure the forgiveness of God. And
for this reason he ought to be greatly afraid lest this leprosy
of sin should last as long as God is in heaven.
{119}
Therefore I entreat you, as urgently as I can, for the love of
God and the love of me, to teach your heart to choose rather that
any ill should happen to your body, by leprosy or any other
disease, than that mortal sin should attack your soul."
'Another day he asked me,' says Joinville, 'if I wished to be
honoured in this world and to go to Paradise when I died; and I
said, "Yes." Then he said, "Beware, then, of doing or saying
anything wittingly which, if all the world knew, you would be
ashamed to own, and would hesitate to acknowledge, I did this, I
said that."'
Tillemont says, 'Even in his early youth he had a great dislike
to profane oaths in conversation; he contented himself with
affirming a thing in the simplest and plainest terms, without
introducing the name of God, or of the saints or evangelists, or
using a single word which could diminish the respect due to
things sacred, whatever cause he might have for anger. When he
wished to affirm a thing very strongly, he would say, "Truly it
is so," or "Truly it is not so." In order to avoid using other
oaths he used at one time to say, "_By my name!_" but
hearing that a religious person found fault with this expression,
he never after made use of it' [Footnote 49]
[Footnote 49: Tillemont, vol. v. p. 371.]
M. Faure says: 'It was with the utmost sincerity that he placed
the name of Christian high above his title as king. One day, at
the Castle of Poissy, the place of his birth, he said to those
around him: "In this castle God granted me the greatest blessing
and the greatest honour I ever received in this world."
{120}
'Every one tried to find out, but no one could guess this honour:
his words seemed to point rather to the town of Rheims, where he
had been crowned, than to Poissy. At last he said, with a smile,
"I was baptized here." He always retained a feeling of affection
and gratitude for Poissy, as if it had been his native land. In
the letters which he wrote as friend to friend when he wished to
discard even the shadow of royal dignity, he was in the habit of
styling himself "Louis of Poissy," or "Louis, lord of Poissy."'
[Footnote 50]
[Footnote 50: Faure, vol. ii. p. 559.]
I have already spoken of his relation to the two queens, his
mother and his wife. His position was often one of great
difficulty, but his conduct was never short of exemplary. Louis
was a model both of conjugal fidelity and filial piety. He had
eleven children by Queen Margaret, six boys and five girls. He
loved his wife very tenderly and was scarcely ever apart from
her, and the noble courage which she displayed during the first
crusade certainly made her dearer to him than ever. But he was
not blind to her ambition and her want of political capacity.
When he was preparing for his second crusade, he did not confide
the regency of France to Queen Margaret in his absence; nay more,
before he left the kingdom he took care to regulate her expenses
and to restrain her power; he forbade her to receive any presents
for herself or her children, to interfere with the administration
of justice, or to choose any attendant for herself or her family
without the consent of the Council of Regency. He had good
reasons for acting in this manner, for about this time Queen
Margaret, eager to hold the same position in the state that Queen
Blanche had done, was making provision for herself in case of her
husband's death.
{121}
She had induced her son Philip, heir to the throne and at that
time only sixteen years old, to take oath that he would remain
under her tutelage until he was thirty, that he would have no
advisers of whom she did not approve, reveal to her all the
designs which were formed against her, enter into no alliance
with his uncle, Charles of Anjou, and keep this oath which she
administered to him a secret. Louis was probably informed of this
strange transaction by his young son himself, and Philip took
care to ask Pope Urban IV. to absolve him from his oath. But the
King foresaw the tendencies of Queen Margaret, and therefore
adopted measures to protect the crown and the kingdom.
The education of his children, their future position and
well-being, engrossed the attention of the King as entirely, and
were subjects of as keen an interest, as if he had been a father
with no other task than the care of his children. 'After supper
they followed him to his apartment, where he made them sit around
him for a time whilst he instructed them in their duty; he then
sent them to bed. He would direct their attention particularly to
the good and bad actions of princes. He used to visit them in
their own apartment when he had any leisure, inquire as to their
progress, and, like a second Tobias, give them excellent
instruction. ... On Maunday Thursday, he and his children used to
wash the feet of thirteen poor persons, give them large alms, and
afterwards wait upon them whilst they dined. The King, together
with his son-in-law King Thibault, whom he loved and looked upon
as his own son, carried the first poor man to the hospital of
Compiègne, and his two eldest sons, Louis and Philippe, carried
the second.
{122}
They were accustomed to act with him in all things, showing him
great reverence, and he desired that they and Thibault also
should obey him implicitly in everything that he commanded.'
He was very anxious that his three children born in the East
during the Crusade--Jean Tristan, Pierre, and Blanche--and even
his eldest daughter Isabella, should enter the monastic life,
which he looked upon as the most likely to insure their
salvation; he frequently exhorted them to take this step, writing
letters of the greatest tenderness and piety, especially to his
daughter Isabella; but, as they did not show any taste for it, he
did not attempt to force their inclinations. Thenceforward, he
busied himself in making suitable marriages for them, and
establishing them according to their rank; at the same time he
gave them the most judicious advice as to their conduct and
actions in the world upon which they were entering. When he was
before Tunis and found that he was sick unto death, he gave the
instructions which he had written out in French with his own hand
to his eldest son, Philip. They are models of virtue, wisdom, and
paternal tenderness, worthy of a king and a Christian. [Footnote
51]
[Footnote 51: There are several versions of these
instructions, differing in form but identical in spirit. They
are contained in Bouquet's 'Recueil des Historiens des Gaules
et de la France,' vol. xx. pp. 84, 300, and 459; Tillemont,
vol. v. pp. 166 and 180-383; Faure, vol. ii. pp. 582-593.]
{123}
I proceed now from the family of St. Louis to the royal
household, and pass on from his children to his servants. In the
relation between master and servant we miss the strongest
tie--that of blood, and lose that intensely personal and yet
disinterested feeling which parents feel when they live again in
their children: kindly feeling and custom, much weaker motives,
form the bond between master and servant, and give a moral tone
to the relation. Now, in St. Louis, the kindliness of his nature
was so great that it resembled affection, and called out
affection in the hearts of those to whom it was shown.
He could not pardon any breach of morality in his servants, but
he passed over in silence all the small faults of which they were
guilty, and in such cases treated them not only with gentleness
but with that consideration which calls out self-respect, and
raises a man in his own eyes, let his position in life be what it
may. 'Louis visited his servants when they were sick, and he
never failed to pray for them himself and to entreat the prayers
of others also, when they were dead. A mass for the dead was
chanted for them daily, at which he was always present.'
He took into his household an old servant of his grandfather's,
Philip Augustus, dismissed by that king because one day his fire
crackled and Jean, who had charge of it, had not been able to
make it burn quietly. Now from time to time Louis used to suffer
from an inflammation of the right leg. That part between the calf
and the ankle would swell, grow very red and cause him great
pain. One day when he had an attack of this kind and was lying
down, he wished to examine the part affected. Jean held a lighted
candle close to the King, and so awkwardly that a drop of boiling
grease fell on the bad leg.
{124}
The King started up from his bed and cried out, 'Oh, Jean, Jean,
my grandfather sent you away for a much less thing!' and this
exclamation was the only reproof which Jean received for his
clumsiness.
Far from the King's household, not engaged in his service, and
without any personal claim upon him, there was a large class of
persons who nevertheless held an important place in his thoughts
and whom he was always ready to help. They were the poor, the
infirm, the sick, and all who were destitute and in misery. All
the chronicles of the time and the historians of his reign praise
his charity as much as his piety, and the philosophers of the
eighteenth century almost overlooked his love of relics in
consideration of his benevolence. The benevolence of St. Louis
was not of that vicarious kind which contents itself with making
laws and instituting charities; he was not satisfied merely to
build and endow hospitals, infirmaries, and asylums, such as the
Hôtel Dieu (or hospital) at Pontoise, those of Vernon and
Compiègne, and the Maison des Quinze-Vingt for the blind; it was
benevolence shown in his own person, by his own actions, and it
taught him that no deed of mercy was beneath the dignity of a
king.
Wherever the King might be, a hundred and twenty poor persons
received daily two loaves each, a quart of wine, meat or fish
enough for a good meal, and a silver penny. Mothers had an extra
loaf for each child. Besides these hundred and twenty who
received outdoor relief, thirteen others were daily admitted to
the palace, and had their meals with the officers of the royal
household. Three of them dined at the same time as the King, in
the same apartment, and quite near to him.
{125}
'Many a time,' says Joinville, 'I have seen him cut their bread
for them, and pour out their drink. One day he asked me if I
washed the feet of the poor on Maunday Thursday. "Sire," I
answered, "what, the feet of those dirty wretches! No, indeed, I
shall never wash them." "Truly," replied the King, "you have
spoken ill; for you ought not to despise that which God intended
for our instruction. I pray you, therefore, first of all for the
love of God, and then by your love towards me, that you make a
habit of washing their feet."
Sometimes, when the King had a little spare time, he would say,
'Let us go and visit the poor of such a place, and give them a
feast to their liking.'
Once when he went to Château Neuf on the Loire, a poor old woman,
who was standing at the palace door with a loaf in her hand,
said, 'Good King, it is this bread, thy charity, upon which my
poor husband lives, who is lying at home very ill.' The King took
the loaf, saying, 'The bread is hard enough,' and went with her
to the house to see the sick man.
One Maunday Thursday, at Compiègne, he was going to all the
churches, walking barefooted from one to the other, as he was
wont to do, and distributing alms to all the poor whom he met
when he saw a leper on the other side of a muddy pool in the
street. The leper did not dare to approach the King, but he was
trying to attract his attention; Louis immediately crossed over
to him, gave him some money, and then took his hand and kissed
it.
{126}
'All present,' says the chronicle, 'were astonished, and made the
sign of the cross when they witnessed the pious temerity of the
King, who was not afraid to press his lips to a hand which no
other person would have dared to touch.'
In acts like these there is infinitely more than the kindness and
generosity of a noble nature; they show that fervour of Christian
sympathy which at the sight of human suffering, either of body or
mind, knows no fear, shuns no anxiety, feels no repugnance, and
has no thought beyond alleviating pain and administering comfort.
And the man who felt and acted thus was no monk, no monarch
absorbed by his religious duties, and exclusively addicted to
charitable works and devout observances; he was a knight, a
warrior, a politician, a true king, as earnest in the performance
of the duties of his position as in doing deeds of charity. He
obtained the reverence and admiration of his intimate friends as
well as of strangers, sometimes by the fervour of his mystic
piety and his monkish austerities, sometimes by his
administrative ability, his freedom from intolerance and
prejudice, and the noble independence of his attitude even
towards those representatives of Christian faith and the
Christian Church with whom he was in full sympathy.
'The King himself was considered the wisest member of his whole
council: when grave difficulties arose or great questions had to
be discussed, no one showed more insight or was able to estimate
them more justly; and in addition to a clear and vigorous
intellect he possessed the power of expressing his thoughts with
such a measured grace that he was a most perfect an agreeable
speaker.
{127}
'He was very cheerful,' says Joinville; 'and when we were in
private with him, after dinner, he used to sit at the foot of his
bed, and if the Franciscans and Dominicans told him of a book
which they thought he would like to hear, he would answer, "No,
you shan't read to me now, for there is no book so good after
eating as a talk _ad libitum;_ that is, let each one say
what he likes." But, for all this, he was very fond of books and
learning.
'He sometimes listened to the sermons and discussions in the
University, but he took care also to seek the truth himself in
the Word of God and the traditions of the Church. When he was in
the East he heard that a Saracen sultan had collected a great
number of books for the use of the philosophers of his sect; he
was ashamed to think that the Christians were less zealous to
learn the truth than the infidels were to teach themselves lies.
Therefore, on his return to France, he commanded that search
should be made in the abbeys for all the genuine works of St.
Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Gregory, and other
orthodox teachers, and, having caused them all to be copied, he
had them laid up in the treasure-house of the Sainte-Chapelle. He
read them whenever he had any spare time, and gladly lent them to
those who could make any use of them either for themselves or
others. Sometimes towards the close of the afternoon he would
send for persons of well-known piety, and converse with them of
God, and also of the Bible stories and the lives of the saints or
fathers of the Church.'
{128}
He had a special friendship for Robert of Sorbon the founder of
the Sorbonne, and not only afforded him every facility and gave
him all the necessary help for establishing his learned college,
but also made him one of his chaplains, and often invited him to
sit near him at dinner in order that he might have the pleasure
of hearing him converse.
'One day it happened,' says Joinville, 'that Master Robert of
Sorbon was sitting by my side at dinner-time, and we were talking
together in a low voice. The King reproved us, saying, "Speak
aloud, or your companions will think that you are speaking ill of
them. If you are talking of anything at dinner-time that can give
us pleasure, speak so that we can hear you; if not, be silent."'
Another day, when they had met in the King's presence, Robert of
Sorbon reproached Joinville for being 'more magnificently attired
than the King, for,' said he, 'you dress yourself in furs and
green cloth, which the King does not do.' Joinville defended
himself very warmly, and turned the tables on Master Robert,
attacking him for the smartness of his clothes. The King took the
part of the learned doctor, but when he had left them, 'My lord
the King,' continues Joinville, 'called Monseigneur Philip, his
son, and King Thibault, and sat down at the door of his oratory;
placing his hand on the ground, he said, "Come and sit close to
me, that no one may hear us." Then he said he had called us that
he might confess to me that he had been wrong in defending Master
Robert. "But," he said, "I saw he was so taken aback that he had
need of my help. For all that, do not think too much of what I
said in defence of Master Robert; for, as the Seneschal has said,
you ought to dress well and suitably: your wives will love you
the better for it, and your people will also think more of you.
{129}
For," said this wise king, "we ought so to choose both our
apparel and our dress, that the old men of this age may not say
we do too much, nor the young ones that we do too little."'
In his own costume and manner of life nothing could be more
simple than St. Louis. 'After he returned from beyond the sea,'
says Joinville, 'he never wore furs, either miniver or squirrel,
nor scarlet cloth, neither did he use gilded spurs or stirrups;
his vestments were of camlet or of pers'--a dark blue cloth--'and
the linings of his coverlets and garments were of doeskin or
hareskin.'
He dressed and undressed himself almost without attendants, rose
in the morning and went to bed at night, dispensing altogether
with royal etiquette. 'But,' adds Joinville, 'the daily expenses
of his household were very great; he behaved with great
generosity and liberality in the "Parlements" and at the
assemblies of the barons and knights; the service of his court
also was conducted with great courtesy, liberally and without
stint; far more so than had been the case for a long time at the
court of his ancestors.'
{130}
Chapter XIV.
The Crusade The Ruling Passion Of St. Louis.
In Spite Of Strenuous Opposition,
He Decides On A Second Crusade (1270).
His Arrival And Death Before Tunis (25th August, 1270).
Unquestionably the life of St. Louis was no mere empty royal
life. Its varied interests and great labours might have employed
the most active mind, and satisfied the most exacting conscience;
but although the soul of the King was serene and calm, his
imagination was incessantly excited, and he suffered from a kind
of pious fever,--a fever very different in its aim, but also
similar in kind, to that which consumes those great potentates
whose restless nature is always discontented, who cherish some
vast project quite apart from the ordinary course of events until
its accomplishment becomes their fixed idea and ruling passion.
As Alexander and Napoleon continually formed new plans, or, to
speak more accurately, new dreams, of conquest and dominion, so
Louis, in his Christian ambition, always pictured to himself the
return to Jerusalem, the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre and
the victory of Christianity over Islamism in the East. It was all
in vain that during his first crusade he discovered the immense
difficulty, not to say the impossibility of the enterprise, and
found that his utmost efforts could not ensure success: the
crusade always remained his passion, as the one and only method
of realizing his fondest hope and fulfilling his most sacred
duty.
{131}
During the first years after his return from Syria to
France--that is, from 1254 to 1260--it does not appear that he
spoke of his scheme even to his most intimate and confidential
friends. But I am convinced that it was never out of his
thoughts, and that he always hoped favourable circumstance would
recall him to his interrupted work.
There was no lack of difficulties in the East: the Christians of
Palestine and Syria were exposed to perils and losses which
increased daily; they were losing their bravest warriors, the
Templars and Hospitallers, by incessant warfare; their strong
places were falling to ruin; the soldiers of the Cross were
defeated now by the Tartars of Tchinggis Khan, now by the
Mamelukes of Egypt; the Latin Empire of Constantinople was
disappearing; and the Greek Church had again obtained possession
of St. Sophia. The most lamentable accounts, the most urgent
entreaties daily reached the Christians of the West; and Pope
Urban IV. made a special appeal to the King of France. Geoffrey
of Sargines, the heroic and faithful representative whom Louis
had left in St. Jean d'Acre at the head of a small, garrison,
wrote to tell him that all was lost unless they received
immediate succour.
In 1261 Louis held a 'Parlement' at Paris, and although he did
not then speak of a new crusade, he took measures which revealed
his intentions and thoughts. Fasts and prayers were appointed on
behalf of the Christians of the East; all extravagant expenses,
shows, and tournaments were forbidden; and frequent and important
military exercises were appointed.
{132}
In 1263 the crusade was preached throughout France. Taxes were
levied in aid of it which even the clergy had to pay. Princes and
barons undertook to join in the expedition; some even went so far
as to set out. Louis congratulated himself, and showed his
pleasure and approval without openly declaring his own intention.
In 1267 a 'Parlement' was convoked at Paris. The King very
discreetly broached the subject of a crusade first of all to some
of his barons, in order to make sure of their approval. Then
suddenly, after the precious relics from the Sainte-Chapelle had
been exposed to the gaze of the assembly, he opened the
proceedings by an earnest exhortation to all present 'to avenge
the ancient wrongs of our Lord and Saviour in the Holy Land, and
to regain the heritage of Christendom so long--for our sins--in
the possession of the infidel.' The following year another
'Parlement' met at Paris, and there, on the 9th of February,
1268, the King made a vow to set out in May of 1270.
Great was the surprise of many of his subjects, and their anxiety
was even greater than their surprise. The country was tranquil
and prosperous to an extent that had been unparalleled for a long
period; there was peace without, and law and order within; feudal
quarrels were becoming rare, and were promptly settled; the royal
authority was felt everywhere, and was accompanied by a more
orderly administration and greater certainty of justice; the King
possessed the confidence as well as the respect of his whole
people, and he was respected and obeyed by all his agents. 'Why
should we risk,' they said, 'these advantages in a costly and
distant, enterprise where success is more than doubtful?'
{133}
Either from good sense or from displeasure at the taxes imposed
upon them, many ecclesiastics as well as laymen were unfavourable
to the crusade. Pope Clement IV., who had succeeded Urban IV.,
'hesitated for some time about urging St. Louis to this
enterprise; indeed, it seems that in a letter which he wrote
towards the close of September 1266, he rather dissuaded him from
it. He was, however, annoyed at having written this letter almost
as soon as he had dispatched it, and said just the reverse in a
letter which he wrote with his own hand, and at first thought of
sending immediately; but, hesitating still, he withheld it. ...
He ended by making up his mind to encourage the King in his pious
design; but when he learnt that Louis was taking three sons with
him to the crusade, the eldest twenty-two, and the two others
seventeen and eighteen years old, he could not resist writing to
the Cardinal of Sainte-Cécile as follows: "It does not seem to us
that it would be wise or judicious to allow so many of the King's
sons to take the cross, especially the eldest; and, although we
have heard many reasons given in favour of the opposite view, yet
either we deceive ourselves entirely, or they are devoid of any
reason whatsoever."' [Footnote 52]
[Footnote 52: Tillemont, vol. v. pp. 10 17.]
Grave anxiety was felt as to the King himself: his health was
very much shattered, and it was feared that he himself was no
better able to bear the fatigue of the expedition than his
country was likely to endure without loss the disadvantage of his
absence. Many of his wisest and most faithful advisers openly
opposed his scheme. Joinville says: 'It came to pass that the
King summoned all his barons to Paris during Lent (1267).
{134}
I sent my excuses to him on account of a quartan fever which I
then had, and begged him graciously to dispense with my
attendance. He sent word that he insisted on my going, for he had
good physicians at Paris who would soon cure a quartan fever. So
I went thither. When I had heard mass at the Madeleine I went to
the King's chapel, and found him mounted upon the platform where
the relics were, and causing the true cross to be carried down.
When the King was descending, two knights who were of his council
began to speak together, and one said, "Never believe me, if the
King does not now take the cross." And the other answered: "If
the King takes the cross, it will be one of the saddest days that
ever was in France; for if we do not also take it we shall lose
the King's love, and if we take it we shall lose the love of God,
because it will not be for His sake that we undertake this
crusade."' The King earnestly entreated Joinville to take the
cross, but he positively refused to do so. 'I thought,' he says,
'that all those who advised him to undertake that voyage
committed a great sin, because France was in such a condition
that the whole kingdom was at peace within itself, and at peace
with all its neighbours; and, from the time that he departed, its
condition has never ceased to grow worse and worse. Those who
advised this voyage in his weak state of health committed a great
sin, for he was able neither to ride in a carriage nor on
horseback; nay, his debility was so great that he allowed me to
carry him in my arms from the house of the Count of Auxerre,
where I took leave of him, to the Franciscans. And yet, feeble as
he was, if he had remained in France, he might have lived for
many years, and done much good.'
{135}
But the impulse had been given, not only to the King, but to his
family and the whole feudal world; his sons, his brothers, his
son-in-law Thibault, King of Navarre, many foreign princes, 'a
multitude of counts, barons, and knights,' took the cross; some
with eager fervour, others with resignation and after much
hesitation. The second crusade of St. Louis was a flame which
leaps up at intervals from a dying fire, and throws out bright
and fitful gleams.
But, together with tidings which aroused angry alarm, news came
from the East which inspired fresh hopes and expectations. The
Emperor Michael Palæologus had returned to Constantinople, and he
held out to the Pope and all Christendom the hope of reunion
between the Greek Church and the Church of Rome; Mohammed
Mostanser, the King of Tunis (as he called himself), spoke of
becoming a Christian, he and all his subjects, and offered to
decide on taking this step if he could be secured against their
seditions. Clement IV. was enchanted with the Greek promises.
Louis heard of the prospect of the Moslem conversions with
rapture; he was in the state of mind of a man who has taken a
final resolve which is very dear to him, and who listens with the
most astounding credulity to any reasons and hopes which seem to
justify his course. 'Ah,' he wrote, 'if I might only hope to be
the godfather and the compeer of so great a godson!' At the fête
of St. Denis, the 9th of October, 1269, Louis was present in the
abbey church, at the baptism of a recently-converted Jew. The
Tunis envoys were also there: he called them to him, and said
with great emotion, 'Tell the King your master, from me, that I
desire the salvation of his soul so ardently that I would consent
to be in prison among the Saracens all the days of my life and
never see the light of day again, if only your king and his
nation might become true Christians.' From henceforward Louis was
absorbed by Christian zeal and faith, and was more saint than
king.
{136}
He set out from Paris on the 16th of March, 1270, having left
Queen Margaret, whom he would not allow to accompany him further,
in the tower of the Castle at Vincennes. He was weak in health
and almost ill, but quite content; and probably out of all those
who accompanied him he alone had no anxious forebodings. Again he
was to embark from Aiguesmortes. No definite plan for the
expedition had yet been decided upon. Should they go first to
Egypt, to Palestine, to Constantinople, or to Tunis? Were there
any means of transport on which they could rely? There had been
negotiations on the subject with the Venetians and the Genoese,
but nothing was definitely settled. It was a haphazard
expedition, in which men put their trust in Providence, and
forgot that Divine Providence does not dispense with human
foresight. Louis arrived at Aiguesmortes in the middle of May,
and found neither Crusaders nor vessels; all the preparations
were made slowly, imperfectly, and without order; every one
relied too much upon the King, who relied too much upon everyone.
At length, on the 2d of July, 1270, the expedition set sail, and
actually left Aiguesmortes before any person knew, or the King
had told any one, where it was going. Not until he reached
Sardinia, after four days' delay at Cagliari, did Louis declare
to the leaders of the crusade, who had assembled on board his
vessel the _Montjoie_, that he was on his way to Tunis,
where their Christian work was to begin.
{137}
On the 17th of July, the fleet arrived before Tunis; and the
admiral, Florent de Varennes, without orders from the King,
probably even in opposition to instructions which showed less
impatience, took immediate possession of the port and of some
Tunisian vessels, which offered no resistance. He sent word to
the King 'that it was only necessary to support him, and that the
disembarkation of the army could take place in perfect safety.'
War was thus commenced against the Mussulman prince who had so
recently been expected very shortly to become a Christian.
Fifteen days later, after several combats devoid of result
between the Crusaders and the army of Tunis, all this
improvidence, delay, and, to call things by their right name,
political and military incapacity, had rapidly brought its
inevitable consequences. The reinforcements which his brother
Charles, King of Sicily, had promised to Louis, had not arrived;
there was a lack of provisions; the intense heat of an African
summer caused a pestilence which spread so rapidly that before
long there was no time to bury the dead, they were thrown one on
the other into the trench which surrounded the camp, and before
long the whole camp was infected.
On the 3d of August Louis was attacked by the prevailing fever,
and was obliged to keep his bed within his tent. He asked news of
his son, Jean Tristan, Count of Nevers, who had fallen ill before
him, for he had not been told of the death of the young prince,
who had expired on board the vessel to which he had been carried
in the hope that the sea-air might be beneficial to him. Jean
Tristan and the Princess Isabella were the dearest of all his
children; Louis joined his hands when he heard of his death, and
sought some relief for his sorrow in silence and prayer.
{138}
He became rapidly worse, and sent for his son and successor,
Prince Philip, took from his Breviary the 'Instructions' which he
had written for him in French with his own hand, gave them to
him, and exhorted him to observe them scrupulously. He also asked
for his daughter Isabella. 'She had been adorned by the most
saintly demeanour from her very infancy, and in this the King had
taken great delight,' although she had refused to become a nun,
which he had wished. She fell weeping at the foot of his bed, and
he gave to her husband, Thibault, King of Navarre, some written
counsel which he had prepared for her; then he called her to his
side and gave into her own hands a paper, which he charged her to
deliver to her youngest sister, the Princess Agnes, wife of the
Duke of Burgundy. 'Most dear daughter,' he said, 'lay this to
heart; many persons go to bed full of vain and sinful thought,
and in the morning are found dead. The true way of loving God is
to love Him with our whole heart, and He well deserves our love,
for He first loved us.' He was too weak to say more.
On the 24th of August, after he had thus taken leave of his
children, he was informed that envoys from the Emperor Michael
Palseologus had landed at the Cape of Carthage; they were
commissioned by their master to beg for the intervention of the
King with his brother Charles, King of Sicily, to induce him to
refrain from making war on the recently reestablished empire of
Greece. Louis made a last effort to receive them in his tent in
the presence of some of the members of his council, who were most
uneasy at the fatigue he was undergoing.
{139}
'I promise you, if I live,' he said to the envoys, 'to do that
which the Emperor requires of me; meanwhile I exhort you to have
patience, and to be of good courage.'
This was his last political act and his final anxiety in the
affairs of this world; after this he was absorbed in pious
thought and prayer, in reveries concerning his own duties and
spiritual experiences, or those interests of Christianity which
had been so dear to him all his life. He repeated his usual
prayers in a low tone; he was heard to murmur, 'Grant us, we pray
Thee, O Lord, to despise for love of Thee the prosperity of this
world, and not to fear its reverses.' And also, 'O Lord God, have
mercy upon this people who remain here, and lead them back to
their own land. Let them not fall into the hands of their
enemies, and let them never be forced to deny Thy name.'
On the night of the 24th of August he started up several times in
his bed and called out, 'Jerusalem! Jerusalem! we will go to
Jerusalem!' At last he ceased to speak, although he showed that
he was in full possession of his faculties, and in sympathy with
and conscious of the friends who surrounded him, and the priests
who brought him religious consolation; by his desire he received
extreme unction at the foot of his bed, extended upon a coarse
sack covered with ashes, and with the cross before him. On
Monday, the 25th of August, 1270, about three o'clock in the
afternoon, he expired peacefully. His last words were, 'Father,
after the example of the Divine Master, into Thy hands I commit
my spirit.'
{140}
Chapter XV.
Portrait Of St. Louis As The Ideal Man,
Christian, And King Of The Middle Ages.
His Participation In The Two Great Errors Of His Time.
The world has seen more profound politicians on the throne,
greater generals, men of more mighty and brilliant intellect,
princes who have exercised a more powerful influence over later
generations and events subsequent to their own time; but it has
never seen such a king as this St. Louis, never seen a man
possessing sovereign power and yet not contracting the vices and
passions which attend it, displaying upon the throne in such a
high degree every human virtue purified and ennobled by Christian
faith. St. Louis did not give any new or permanent impulse to his
age; he did not strongly influence the nature or the development
of civilization in France; whilst he endeavoured to reform the
gravest abuses of the feudal system by the introduction of
justice and public order, he did not endeavour to abolish it
either by the substitution of a pure monarchy, or by setting
class against class in order to raise the royal authority high
above all. He was neither an egotist nor a scheming diplomatist;
he was, in all sincerity, in harmony with his age and sympathetic
alike with the faith, the institutions, the customs, and the
tastes of France in the thirteenth century.
{141}
And yet, both in the thirteenth century and in later times, St.
Louis stands apart as a man of profoundly original character, an
isolated figure without any peer among his contemporaries or his
successors; so far as it was possible in the Middle Ages, he was
an ideal man, king, and Christian.
It is reported that in the seventeenth century, during the
brilliant reign of Louis XIV. Montecuculli, on learning the death
of his illustrious rival, Turenne, said to his officers, 'A man
has died to-day who did honour to mankind.' St. Louis did honour
to France, to royalty, to humanity, and to Christianity. This was
the feeling of his contemporaries, and after six centuries it is
still confirmed by the judgment of the historian.
I have shown his sympathy with his age, and his superiority to
it; nevertheless he was not free from its great defects. St.
Louis was a Christian, and yet he did not recognise the rights of
conscience; he was a king, and by his blind infatuation for the
Crusades he imposed useless dangers, miseries, and sacrifices
upon his people for a fruitless enterprise. It is not my
intention to discuss here the leading idea and general influence
of the Crusades; originally they were without doubt the
spontaneous and universal impulse of Christian Europe towards a
noble, disinterested, and moral aim, worthy alike of men's
enthusiasm and their devotion. The attacks of Islamism had for a
long time compelled Christianity to occupy a defensive position,
which was both humiliating and full of peril, and the crusade was
an aggressive reaction.
{142}
As to results, I think that the Crusades have had many that are
valuable; and if we take a comprehensive view of events and
centuries, we shall see that they rather aided than impeded or
changed European civilization. But in the last half of the
thirteenth century all the good that they could do had been
accomplished, and they had lost that character of spontaneous and
general impulse which had been at once their strength and their
excuse; people of all classes were beginning to be doubtful and
tired of them; not only the Sire de Joinville, but many burgesses
and country people had ceased to be attracted by the enterprise
or to believe in its success. By his blind infatuation, St. Louis
did more than any other man of that period to incur the
responsibility of prolonging a movement which was more and more
inexpedient and ill-timed, because day by day it became less
spontaneous and more impossible of success.
On another subject, of even greater importance than the Crusades,
St. Louis was quite as much in error, although his personal
responsibility was less because he obeyed the prevailing and
emphatic belief of his time with a sincere conviction of its
truth. This was the employment of compulsion in matters of
religion, and the prohibition by the State of all opinions
condemned by the Church.
The war waged against religious liberty has been for many
centuries the great crime of Christian society, and the cause not
only of most grievous wrongs, but of all the most formidable
reactions to which Christianity has been exposed. We see the
culminating point of this most dangerous theory in the thirteenth
century, when it was enforced by legislation as well as upheld by
the Church.
{143}
The confused code which bears the name of 'Etablissements' or
Statutes of St. Louis, and which contains many ordinances
belonging to periods both preceding and subsequent to his reign,
explicitly condemns to death all heretics, and commands the civil
governors to carry out the sentence of the bishops on this point.
St. Louis himself asked Pope Alexander IV., in 1255, to extend
the Inquisition (which was already established in the ancient
domains of the Counts of Toulouse on account of the Albigenses)
to the whole kingdom and to place the power which it gave in the
hands of the Franciscans and Dominicans. It is true that the
bishops were to be consulted before the inquisitors could condemn
a heretic to death, but this was more an act of courtesy to the
episcopacy than an effectual guarantee for the liberty of the
subject; indeed, with the feelings entertained by St. Louis on
this subject, liberty, or to speak more correctly, the merest
shadow of justice, had reason to hope for more from the church
than from the throne.
The extreme rigour of St. Louis against what he called 'that vile
oath,' blasphemy (a crime which is indefinite enough except in
name), gives perhaps the most striking indication of the state of
people's minds, and especially of the King's mind on this
subject. Every blasphemer was branded on the lips with a red hot
iron. 'One day the King caused a burgess of Paris to be branded
in this manner. Violent murmurs arose in the city, and reached
the King's ears. He answered by declaring that he would consent
to be branded on his own lips and to keep the disgrace of the
mark all his life, if only the vice of blasphemy could be
banished from his kingdom.'
{144}
Some time afterwards, when he was executing a work of great
public utility, he received numerous expressions of gratitude
from the owners of property in Paris. 'I expect a greater
recompense from the Lord,' he said, 'for the maledictions which I
received after branding that blasphemer, than for the
benedictions which I now receive on account of this act of public
utility.'
Of all human errors, the most popular are the most dangerous, for
they are the most contagious, and those from which the noblest
natures find it most difficult to keep themselves free. It is
impossible to observe without alarm the aberrations of reason and
moral rectitude into which men who were in other respects
enlightened and virtuous have been dragged by the leading ideas
of their generation. And this alarm is very greatly increased
when we discover what iniquity, what suffering, what public and
private calamity have been the result of deviations from right
which were tolerated by the noblest spirits of the age. On the
question of religious liberty, St. Louis is a striking example of
the degree to which an upright judgment and scrupulous conscience
may be led astray if it falls under the dominion of a popular
feeling or idea. In all times of great intellectual fermentation
he stands as a solemn warning to those men who prize independence
of thought as well as of action, and to whom nothing is so dear
as justice and truth.
[Footnote 53: Not marked in text; probably related to the
quotation 'I expect a greater recompense ...': Faure, vol. ii.
p. 300; Joinville, chap, cxxxviii.]
-----------------------------------------------------------
{145}
John Calvin.
Born At Noyon, _July_ 10, 1509.
Died At Geneva, _May_ 27, 1564.
Chapter I.
Final Judgment On Great Men And Great Events Must Be
Reserved For Future Generations.
Characteristics Of The Religious Reform
Of The Sixteenth Century.
Great events and great men impose a difficult and painful task
upon those who wish to understand them thoroughly, and to
appreciate their worth. They form the stage upon which all the
difficult and striking complications of good and evil, truth and
error, virtue and vice, noble and base passions, valuable results
and fatal consequences are displayed. They represent the noble
impulses and also the disastrous failures, the grandeur, but at
the same time the imperfection of human nature and human destiny;
and we cannot, therefore, contemplate them without sadness and
perplexity.
{146}
In modern times, the French Revolution as an event, and the
Emperor Napoleon I. as a man, have furnished and continue to
furnish us with the absorbing interest of watching such a drama.
I say, 'continue to furnish,' for, clearly, so far as either the
French revolution or Napoleon is concerned, the drama is not
ended, the final catastrophe of the plot is not yet known. In the
great stream of events it is the final issue which decides as to
the value of the source. There is a reckoning to be held with all
great events and all great men,--a balance to be struck between
what they have cost humanity, and that for which humanity is
indebted to them; but this final account is not closed until
late. Is there any one in the present day, who, even with a full
knowledge of events, would venture to pass a final judgment on
the French revolution and the Emperor Napoleon? Is there any one
who could apportion their due share of esteem and reprobation to
the great fact and the great man of this century, and whose
judgment would be received with general and lasting assent? Could
any one decide without hesitation to what extent their influence
has been for good or for evil?
The answer to this question is in the hands of the generations to
come. It is our successors who determine by a final analysis the
good and evil in the works of their precursors; in this they will
be guided by the impressions which they themselves receive from
these actions, as well as by the principles and examples which
have been bequeathed to them. One after the other the generations
are called upon to take up their inheritance; one after the other
they enter into their work, guided by their own light, their own
liberty, and their own responsibility. It is for them to
distinguish truth from falsehood, justice from injustice, that
which is useful from that which is injurious, the practicable
from the chimerical, and, according to right and reason, to
accept or reject or modify the decisions and actions of their
predecessors.
{147}
It is only after these prolonged investigations by the
intelligence and experience of mankind that the true worth of
great events and great men can be determined, and history can
pass sentence upon their claims to the gratitude or censure of
the human race.
I do not intend, from any considerations of prudence, to take
refuge in this obscurity of the future, or to keep back my
thoughts and observe silence as to my hopes and fears. In one of
the brightest moments of our epoch, forty years ago, when I
recommenced my course of lectures on Modern History at the
Sorbonne, I expressed my conviction that the youthful generation
to which I addressed myself might, without too much
self-confidence, use the words which Homer attributes to
Sthenelus:--'We thank Heaven that we are better than our
forefathers.'
In recent meditations on the union of Christianity and Liberty,
and the difficulties which our recollections of the French
revolution seem to oppose to the realization of this union, I
said, 'Severity is necessary, but justice is due to different
periods and to a different state of society. We have learnt as
much morality and reason within the last century as we have
forgotten, as much and more. Society in France has attained its
actual condition by efforts more or less apparent and more or
less rapid, but efforts which have never been altogether
suspended, in spite of many interruptions and great vicissitudes.
France has freed herself in turns from the feudal system, from
the selfish ambitions and claims of the great nobles, from the
predominance of court influence, and from the despotism,
improvidence, and extravagance of absolute power.
{148}
She has desired national unity, civil equality, and political
liberty from the earliest period of her existence. All her great
politicians, and the whole nation, in its unconscious but
irresistible tendency, have aimed at and desired the same ends.
The revolution of 1789 was the most violent and serious explosion
of this unceasing national effort. Was it a fatal termination or
a fruitful crisis? France then thought that she obtained a great
victory, not only for herself, but for all humanity. Did she
deceive herself? Have we walked for so many centuries in a good
or an evil path, towards success or deception? Are we still
making progress, or has our decline already commenced? Many
eminent and honest thinkers hold very different opinions on this
subject, and some of them utter dark and alarming prophecies,
whilst others continue to chant songs of triumph.
'I have some right to say that no one has felt the crimes,
faults, errors, and follies of word and deed which blazed out in
the French revolution, more keenly than I have done. I have never
hesitated to express what I thought of them; and my frankness on
this subject may perhaps explain the heat of some of the
controversies which I have had to sustain in my political career;
my views irritated the prejudices and wounded the self-love of
very many. I retract nothing,--neither sentiments nor language,--
on that sad phase of our contemporary history.' [Footnote 54]
[Footnote 54: _Meditations sur la Religion chrétienne dans
ses Rapports avee l'État actuel des Sociétés et des
Esprits_, 1868, pp. 15-18.]
{149}
But, in spite of the many bitter recollections and painful
mistakes of that time, I still retain my confidence that this age
and my country have more to hope than to fear from the criticism
of the future, and that the beneficial results of the French
revolution, both for France and the whole world, will far exceed
the errors into which it was the means of plunging them and the
evils it has inflicted. I am not however at all astonished at the
uncertainty and doubt to which this prolonged crisis has given
rise; error and evil are still so prominent that the final issue
cannot but appear uncertain; and the perils of the good cause
--the cause of liberty, morality, and good sense--are still so
great that it is impossible to look upon the question as decided,
and to rest with confidence in the prospect of future success.
The religious reform which was the revolution of the sixteenth
century has already been submitted to the test of time, and of
great social and intellectual perils. It brought with it much
suffering to the human race, it gave rise to great errors and
great crimes, and was developed amidst cruel wars and the most
deplorable troubles and disturbances. These facts, which we learn
both from its partisans and opponents, cannot be contested, and
they form the account which history lays to the charge of the
event. But as the Roman Cornelia could point to her sons, so,
after three centuries of trial, the Reformation of the sixteenth
century can show the nations among which it has prevailed, and
which have been formed under its influence--England, Holland,
North Germany, the Scandinavian States, the United States of
America--calling attention to their moral and social condition,
their attitude with regard to reverence for right and reason, and
their position so far as success and worldly prosperity are
concerned.
{150}
These, also, are well-known and definite facts. I do not hesitate
to affirm that the revolution of the sixteenth century has
nothing to fear from the investigations of the nineteenth: the
children are an honour to their mother.
There are many different causes for the general and final success
of this movement, but I wish now to point to only one of them.
The Reformation of the sixteenth century was essentially and from
the very first a religious reform; politics occupied a secondary
position; they were necessary means, but not its chief aim. It
was begun in the name of Christianity and from an impulse given
by religion; liberty was only called in as a weapon to help
faith. The strength of the movement was derived from its
influence on the inner life of the soul, for both leaders and
followers were much more engrossed by the future and eternal
state of man than by his temporal condition. The reform of the
sixteenth century embraced the whole man and his destiny: first
his moral state in himself and before God, then his social
condition among his fellows. This is the peculiar and great
characteristic of the movement, the principal source of the good
which it has done, and we must therefore place it by the side of
the price which it has cost.
According to the decree of history and the verdict of Bossuet,
two men, Luther and Calvin, were the most mighty in their
influence and the truest representatives of that great movement
and of that period.
{151}
Luther marched at the head of German religious reform; Calvin
took the lead in France. Both these men were at the same time
successful innovators, profound theologians, clever politicians,
eloquent orators, and great writers. Both were exposed to many
attacks and much persecution; both gained great admiration and
devotion; and they both struggled greatly, suffered greatly, and
greatly triumphed. Not one of the conditions which give a man
power in his lifetime, and make his name great in history, was
wanting to either of them. They bore, during their lifetime, the
whole weight of responsibility which is attached to power and
greatness, and for three centuries history has connected it with
their names.
The time has come, I think, when we ought to understand them
aright, and appreciate them justly, and I wish to make this
possible as regards Calvin. It is no part of my design to recount
his whole history, and to follow him step by step throughout his
stormy career. It is the man himself, the moral and intellectual
being, his own thoughts and his own desires, that I wish to study
and to depict.
{152}