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.'

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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."

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'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.]

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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.

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'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.

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'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.'

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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.'

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