 Chapter 17, Part 6, of Volume 2 of a Popular History of Friends, by François Gizot, translated by Robert Black. Chapter 17, The Crusades, Their Decline and End, Part 6 At length, on the 20th of November 1249, after more than five months in activity at Damietta, the crusaders put themselves, once more in motion, with the determination of marching up in Babylon, that outskirt of Cairo, now called Old Cairo, which the greater part of them, in their ignorance, mistook for the real Babylon, and where they flattered themselves, they would find immense riches, and avenge the old and sufferings of the Hebrew captives. The Muslims had found time to recover from their first fright, and to organize, at all points, a vigorous resistance. On the 8th of February 1250, a battle took place, twenty leagues from Damietta, at Mansura, the city of victory, on the right bank of the Nile. The king's brother, Robert, count of Artois, marched with the one guard, and obtained an early success. But William de Sonac, grand master of the Templars, and William Longsword Earl of Salisbury, leader of the English crusaders, but lately arrived at Damietta, insisted upon his waiting for the king, before pushing the victory to the uttermost. Robert taxed them ironically with caution. Count Robert, said William Longsword, we shall be presently where, though not dare to come, nigh the tale of my horse. There came a message from the king, ordering his brother to wait for him. But Robert made no account of it. I have already put the serocins to flight, said he, and I will wait for none to complete their defeat. And he rushed forward into Mansura. All those who had dissuaded him followed after. They found the Muslims' numbers, and perfectly relied. In a few moments the count of Artois fell, pierced with wounds, and more than three hundred nights of his train. The same number of English, together with their leader William Longsword, and two hundred and eighty Templars, paid with their lives for the senseless ardor of the French Prince. The king hurried up in all haste to the aid of his brother, but he had scarcely arrived, and as yet knew nothing of his brother's fate, when he himself engaged so impetuously in the battle, that he was on the point of being taken prisoner by six serocins who had already seized the reins of his horse. He was defending himself vigorously with his sword, when several of his knights came up with him and set him free. He asked one of them if he had any news of his brother, and the other answered. Certainly I have knew so him, for I am sure that he is now in paradise. Praised be God, answered the king with a tear or two, and went on with his fighting. The battlefield was left that day to the crusaders, but they were not allowed to occupy it as conquerors. For three days afterwards, on the 11th of February, 1250, the camp of St. Louis was assailed by clouds of serocins, horse and food, mameluks and bedouins. All surprise had vanished. The musclemen measured at a glance the numbers of the Christians, and attacked them in full assurance of success, whatever heroism they might display, and the crusaders themselves indulged in no more self-illusion, and sought only of defending themselves. Lack of provisions and sickness soon rendered defense almost as impossible as attack. Every day saw the Christian camp more and more encumbered with the famine stricken, the dying and the dead, and the necessity for retreating became evident. Louis made to the Sultan Malek Maud Dam an offer to evacuate Egypt and give up Damietta, provided that the Kingdom of Jerusalem were restored to the Christians, and the army permitted to accomplish its retreat without obstruction. The Sultan, without accepting or rejecting the proposition, asked what guarantees would be given him for the surrender of Damietta. Louis offered as hostage one of his brothers, the Count of Anjou, or the Count of Poitiers. We must have the King himself, said the musclemen. A unanimous cry of indignation arose amongst the crusaders. We would rather, said Joffrey the Sargeens, that we had been all slain or taken prisoners by the Sargeens, than be reproached with having left our King in porn. All negotiation was broken off, and on the 5th of April 1250 the crusaders decided upon retreating. This was the most deplorable scene of a deplorable drama, and at the same time it was for the King, an occasion for displaying in their most sublime and most attractive traits all the virtues of the Christian. Most sickness and famine were devastating the camp. Louis made himself visitor, physician, and comforter, and his presence and his words exercised upon the worst cases, as searching influence. He had one day sent his chaplain, William Deschards, to visit one of his household servants, a modest man of some means, named Kozhelm, who was at the point of death. When the chaplain was retiring, I am waiting for my Lord, our saintly King, to come, said the dying man. I will not depart this life until I have seen him and spoken to him, and then I will die. The King came and addressed to him the most affectionate words of consolation, and when he had left him, and before he had re-entered his tent, he was told that Kozhelm had expired. When the fifth of April, the day fixed for the retreat, had come, Louis himself was ill and much enfeebled. He was urged to go aboard one of the vessels, which were to descend the Nile, carrying the wounded and the most suffering. But he refused absolutely, saying, I don't separate from my people in the hour of danger. He remained on land, and when he had to move forward he fainted twice. When he came to himself, he was amongst the last to leave the camp, got himself helped on the back of a little Arab horse, covered with silken housings, and marched at a slow pace with the rear guard, having beside him Joffrey the Sargeens, who watched over him, and protected me against the Saracens, said Louis himself to join Will. As a good servant protects his Lord, tankered against the flies. Neither the king's courage nor his servant's devotion was enough to ensure success, even to the retreat. At four leagues' distance from the camp it had just left, the rear guard of the crusaders, harassed by clouds of Saracens, was obliged to halt. Louis could no longer keep on his horse. He was put up at a house, says Joine Will, and laid almost dead upon the lap of a tradeswoman from Paris. And it was believed that he would not last till evening. With his consent one of his lieges entered into parley with one of the musselman chiefs, a truce was about to be concluded, and the musselman was taking off his ring from his finger as a pledge that he would observe it. By during this, says Joine Will, there took place a great mishap. A traitor of the surgeon, whose name was Marcel, began calling to our people, Sir's knights surrender, for such is the king's command, cause not the king's death. All thought that it was the king's command, and they gave up their swords to the Saracens. Being forced with declared prisoners, the king and all the rear guard were removed to Mansoura, the king by boat, and his two brothers, the counts of Anjou and Poitiers, and all the other crusaders, drawn up in a body and shackled, followed on foot on the riverbank. The advance guard, and all the rest of the army, soon met the same fate. Ten thousand prisoners, this was all that remained of the crusade, that had started eighteen months before from Oyesh's mortise. Nevertheless the lofty bearing and the piety of the king still inspired the musselmans with great respect. A negotiation was open between him and the Sultan Malek Mo'addam, who having previously freed him from his chains, had him treated with a certain magnificence. As the price of the truth and of his liberty, Louis received a demand for the immediate surrender of Damietta, a heavy ransom and the restitution of several places which the Christians still held in Palestine. I cannot dispose of those places, said Louis, for they do not belong to me. The princes and the Christian orders, in whose hands they are, can alone keep or surrender them. The Sultan in anger threatened to have the king put to the torture, or sent to the Grand Khalif of Baghdad, who would detain him in prison for the rest of his days. I am your prisoner, said Louis, you can do with me what you will. You call yourself a prisoner, said the musselman negotiators, and so we believe you are, but you treat us as if you had us in prison. The Sultan perceived that he had to do with an indomitable spirit, and he did not insist any longer upon more than the surrender of Damietta and on a ransom of five hundred thousand livers, that is, about ten million one hundred and thirty-two thousand francs, or four hundred and five thousand two hundred and eighty pounds, of modern money, according to Monsieur de Vile, supposing, as is probable, that livers of tours are meant. I will pay willingly five hundred thousand livers for the deliverance of my people, said Louis, and I will give up Damietta for the deliverance of my own person, for I am not a man who ought to be bought and sold for money. By my face, said the Sultan, the Frank is liberal not to have heckled about so large a sum. Girl tell him that I will give him one hundred thousand livers to help towards paying the ransom. The negotiation was concluded on the spaces, and victors and vanquished quitted Mansura, and arrived, partly by land and partly by the Nile, within a few leagues of Damietta, the surrender of which was fixed for the seventh of May. But five days previously a tragic event took place. Several embers of the Mamaluk suddenly entered Louis's tent. They had just slain the Sultan Malak Moadam, against whom they had for some time been conspiring. Fear not, sir, said they to the king. This was to be. Do what concerns you, in the respect of the stipulated conditions, and you shall be free. Of those embers one, who had slain the Sultan with his own hand, asked the king brusquely, What will thou give me? I have slain thine enemy, who would have put thee to death, had he lived. And he asked to be made night. Louis answered not a word. Some of the crusaders present urged him to satisfy the desire of the emir, who had in his power the decision of their fate. I will never confer knighthood on an infidel, said Louis. Let the emir turn Christian. I will take him away to France, enrich him, and make him knight. It is said that, in their admiration for this beauty and this indomitable firmness, the emirs had at one time a notion of taking Louis himself for Sultan in the place of him, whom they just had slain. And this report was probably not altogether devoid of foundation. For some time afterwards, in the intimacy of the conversations between them, Louis one day said to Joinville, Thank you that I would have taken the kingdom of Babylon if they had offered it to me. Whereupon I told him, as Joinville, that he would have done a mad act, seeing that they had slain their lord, and he said to me that of a truth he would not have refused. However that may be, the conditions agreed upon with the late Sultan, Malek Maudam, were carried out. On the 7th of May, 1250, Geoffrey de Sargines gave up to the emirs the keys of Damietta, and the massalmen entered it to mulchusly. The king was waiting aboard his ship for the payment which his people were to make for the release of his brother, the Count of Poitiers, and when he saw approaching a bark on which he recognized his brother, light up, light up, he cried instantly to his sailors, which was the signal agreed upon for setting out. And leaving forthwith the coast of Egypt, the fleet which bore the remains of the Christian army, made sail for the shores of Palestine. The king, having arrived at St. Jean d'Acarre on the 14th of May, 1250, accepted without shrinking the trial imposed upon him by his unfortunate situation. He saw his forces considerably reduced, and the majority of the crusaders left to him, even his brothers themselves, did not hide their ardent desire to return to France. He had that virtue, so rare amongst kings, of taking into consideration the wishes of his comrades, and of desiring their free ascent to the burden he asked them to bear with him. He assembled the chief of them, and put the question plainly before them. The queen, my mother, he said, bideth me and prayeth me to go me hands to France, for that my kingdom has neither peace nor truth with the king of England. The folk here tell me that, if I get me hands, this land is lost, for none of those that be there will dare to abide in it. I pray you, therefore, to give it thought, for it is a grave matter, and I grant you nine days for to answer me whatever shall seem to you good. Eight days after they returned, and guide them always soon, speaking in their name, said to the king, Sir, your brothers and the rich men, who be here, have had regard unto your condition, and they see that you cannot remain in this country to your own and your kingdom's honor. For of all the nights who came in your train, and of whom you led into Cyprus 2800, there remain not one hundred in the city. Therefore they do counsel you, sir, to get you hands to France, and to provide troops and money for a whiz, you may return speedily to this country, to take vengeance on these enemies of God, who have kept you in prison. With, without any discussion, interrogated all present, one after another, and all, even the pope's legate, agreed with guide them always soon. I was seated just fourteenth, facing the legate, said Joinville, and when he asked me how it seemed to me, I answered him, that if the king could hold out so far as to keep the field for a year, he would do himself great honor if he remained. The two nights, William de Boimond and Sir de Châtenay had the courage to support the opinion of Joinville, which was bolder for the time being, but not less indecisive in respect for the immediate future than the contrary opinion. I have heard you outsource, said the king, and I will answer you within eight clays from this time, touching that which it shall please me to do. Last Sunday, says Joinville, we came again, all of us, before the king. Sirs, said he, I thank very much all those who have counseled me to get me gone to France, and likewise those who have counseled me to Bide. But I have bestowed me that, if I Bide, I see no danger lest my kingdom of France be lost, for the queen, my mother, has many folk to defend it. I have noted likewise, that the parents of this land do say that, if I go hence, the kingdom of Jerusalem is lost. At no price will I suffer to be lost, the kingdom of Jerusalem, which I came to guard and conquer. My resolve then is, that I Bide for the present. So I say unto you, ye rich men who are here, and to all other nights, who shall have a mind to Bide with me. Come and speak boldly unto me, and I will give ye so much, that it shall not be my fault if ye have no mind to Bide. Thus none, save Louis himself, dared go to the root of the question. The most discreet advised him to depart, only for the purpose of coming back, and recommending what had been so unsuccessful. And the boldest only urged him to remain a year longer. And took the risk of saying, even after so many mighty but vain experiments, that the enterprise was humorical, and must be given up. Louis alone was, in word and deed, perfectly true to his own absorbing idea of recovering the holy sepulchre from the Massalmans, and re-establishing the kingdom of Jerusalem. His was one of those pure and majestic souls, which are almost alien to the world in which they live. And in which this interested passion is so strong, that it puts judgment to silence, extinguishes all fear, and keeps up hope to infinity. The kings two brothers embarked with a numerous retinue. How many crusaders' knights or men and arms remained with Louis, there is nothing to show. But they were assuredly far from sufficient, for the attainment of the twofold end he had in view, and even for ensuring less grand results, such as the deliverance of the crusaders, still remaining prisoners in the hands of the Massalmans, and anything like an effectual protection for the Christians, settled in Palestine and Syria. Twice, Louis believed, he was on the point of accomplishing his desire. Towards the end of 1250, and again in 1252, the Sultan of Aleppo and Damascus and the emirs of Egypt, being engaged in a violent struggle, made offers to him by turns, of restoring the kingdom of Jerusalem, if he would form an active alliance with one or the other party against its enemies. Louis sought means of accepting either of these offers without neglecting his previous engagements, and without compromising the fate of the Christians, still prisoners in Egypt, or living in the territories of Aleppo and Damascus. But during the negotiations entered upon with a view to this end, the Massalmans of Syria and Egypt suspended their differences, and made common cause against the remnants of the Christian crusaders. And all hope of re-entering Jerusalem by these means vanished away. Another time, the Sultan of Damascus, touched by Louis's pious perseverance, had words sent to him, that he, if he wished, could go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and should find himself in perfect safety. The king, says Joinville, held a great council, and none urged him to go. It was shown unto him that if he, who was the greatest king in Christendom, performed his pilgrimage without delivering the holy city from the enemies of God, all the other kings and other pilgrims who came after him would hold themselves content, with doing just as much, and would trouble themselves no more about the deliverance of Jerusalem. He was reminded of the example set by Richard Coyote de Lyon, who sixty years before, had refused to cast even a look upon Jerusalem when he was unable to deliver her from her enemies. Louis, just as Richard had, refused the incomplete satisfaction which had been offered him, and for nearly four years, spent by him on the coast of Palestine and Syria, since his departure from Damiatah, from 1250 to 1254. He expended, in small works of piety, sympathy, protection and care, for the future of the Christian populations in Asia, his time, his strength, his pecuniary resources, and the ardour of a soul which could not remind ithely abandoned to sort a wing over great desires and satisfied. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Volume 2 of a popular history of France, from the earliest times, by François Guizot, translated by Robert Black. Chapter 17 The Crusades, Their Decline and End, Part 7 An unexpected event occurred, and brought about all at once a change in his position and his plans. At the commencement of the year 1253, at Seiden, the ramparts of which he was engaged in repairing, he heard that his mother, Queen Blanche, had died at Paris on the 27th of November, 1252. He made so great mornings there at, says Joan Well, that for two days no speech could be gotten of him. After that he sent a chamberman to for to fetch me. When I came before him, in his chamber, where he was alone, so soon as he got sight of me, he stretched forth his arms and said to me, Oh, seneschal, I have lost my mother. It was a great loss, both for the son and for the king. Imperious, exacting, jealous, and often disagreeable in private life, and in the bosom of her family, Blanche was, nevertheless, according to all contemporary authority, even the least favorable to her, the most discreet woman of her time, with a mind singularly quick and penetrating, and with a man's heart to live in her woman's sex and ideas. Personally magnanimous of indomitable energy, sovereign mistress in all the affairs of her age, guardian and protectorous of France, worthy of comparison with Samiramis, the most eminent of her sex. From the time of Louis' departure and the crusade, as well as during his minority, she had given him constant proofs of a devotion, as intelligent as it was impassioned, as useful as it was masterful. All letters from France demanded the speedy return of the king. The Christians of Syria were themselves of the same opinion. The king, they said, had done for us here all he could do. He will serve us far better by sending us strong reinforcements from France. Louis embarked at St. Jean d'Arc, on the 24th of April 1254, carrying away with him on 13 vessels, large and small, Queen Margaret, his children, his personal retinue, and his own more immediate men and arms. When leaving the Christians of Syria, for their protection in his name, a hundred nights under the orders of Geoffrey de Sargene's, that comrade of his, in whose bravery and pious fealty he had the most entire confidence. After two months and a half at sea, the king and his fleet arrived, on the 8th of July 1254, over the port of Hoires, which at that time belonged to the Empire and not to the France. For two days Louis refused to land at this point, for his heart was set upon not putting his foot upon land again, save on the soil of his own kingdom, at Hoires mortes, once he had six years before set out. At least he yielded to the entreaties of the Queen, and those who were about him, landed at Hoires, passed slowly through France, and made his solemn entry into Paris, on the 7th of September 1254. The Burgesses and Othoes, who were in the city, were there to meet him, glad and bedecked in all their best, according to their condition. If the other towns had received him with great joy, Paris invents even more than any other. For several days there were bonfires, dances, and other public rejoicings, which ended sooner than the people wished, for the king, who was pained to see the expense, the dances, and the vanities indulged in, went off to the wood of his sonnets, to put a stop to them. So soon as he had resumed the government of his kingdom, after six years absence and adventures, heroic indeed, all in vain, for the cause of Christendom. Those of his consulers and servants who lived most closely with him, and knew him best, were struck at the same time with what he had remained, and what he had become during this long and cruel trial. When the king had happily returned to France, how piously he bear himself towards God, how justly towards his subjects, how compassionately towards the afflicted, and how humbly in his own respect, and with what zeal he labored to make progress, according to his power, in every virtue, all this can be attested by persons who carefully watched his manner of life, and who knew the spotlessness of his conscience. It is the opinion of the most clear-sighted and the wisest, that in proportion as gold is more precious than silver, so the manner of living and acting, which the king brought back from his pilgrimage in the holy land, was holy and new, and superior to his former behaviour, albeit even in his youth, he had ever been good and guileless, and worthy of high esteem. These are the words written about St. Louis by his confessor Joffrey de Boilot, a chronicle, curt and simple even to dryness, but at the same time well informed. An attempt will be made presently to give a fair idea of the character of St. Louis, government, during the last fifteen years of his reign, and of the place he veils in the history of the kingship and of politics in France. But just now it is only with the part he played in the crusades, and with what became of them in his hands, that we have to occupy our attention. For seven years after his return to France, from 1254 to 1261, Louis seemed to think no more about them, and there is nothing to show that he spoke of them even to his most intimate confidence. But in spite of his apparent calmness, he was living, so far as they were concerned, in a continual ferment of imagination and internal fever, ever flattering himself that some favorable circumstance would call him back to his interrupted work. And he had reason to believe that circumstances were responsive to his wishes. The Christians of Palestine and Syria were a prey to perils and evils, which became more pressing every day. The cross was being humbled at one time before the tartars of Chinggis Khan, at another before the massalments of Egypt. Pope Urban was calling upon the king of France, and Joffrey de Sargines, the heroic representative whom Louis had left in St. Jean de Acre at the head of a small garrison, was writing to him that ruin was imminent, and speedy sucker indispensable to prevent it. In 1261 Louis held at Paris a parliament, at which, without any talk of a new crusade, measures were taken, which revealed an idea of it. There were decrees for fasts and prayers on behalf of the Christians of the East, and for frequent and earnest military drill. In 1263 the crusade was openly preached, taxes were levied, even on the clergy, for the purpose of contributing towards it, and princes and barons bound themselves to take part in it. Louis was all approval and encouragement, without declaring his own intention. In 1267 a parliament was convoked at Paris. The king at first, conversed discreetly with some of his barons about the new plan of crusade, and then, suddenly, having had the precious relics deposited in the holy chapel set before the eyes of the assembly, he opened the session by ardently exhorting those present, to avenge the insult which had so long been offered to the savior in the holy land, and to recover the Christian heritage possessed for our sins by the infidels. Next year, on the 9th of February 1268, at a new parliament assembled at Paris, the king took an oath to start in the months of May 1270. Great was the surprise, and the disquietude was even greater than the surprise. The kingdom was enjoying abroad apiece, and at home a tranquility and prosperity, for a long time passed without example. Foidal quarrels were becoming more rare, and terminating more quickly, and the king possessed the confidence and respect of the whole population. Why compromise such advantages by such an enterprise, so distant, so costly, and so doubtful of success? Whether from good sense or from displeasure at the burdens imposed upon them, many ecclesiastics showed symptoms of opposition, and Pope Clement IV gave the king nothing but ambiguous and very reserved counsel. When he learned that Louis was taking with him on the crusade, three of his sons aged respectively 22, 18 and 17, he could not refrain from writing to the cardinal of Saint Cecile. It does not strike us as an act of well-balanced judgment, to impose the taking of the cross upon so many of the king's sons, and especially the eldest, and albeit we have heard reasons to the contrary, either will be much mistaken, or they are utterly devoid of reason. Even the king's personal condition was matter for grave anxiety. His health was very much enfeebled, and several of his most intimate and most far-seeing advisors were openly opposed to his design. He vehemently urged John Will to take the cross again with him, but John Will refused downright. I thought that he, that they all committed a mortal sin to advise him to voyage, because the whole kingdom was in fair peace at home and with all neighbors, and so soon as he departed the state of the kingdom did not but worsen. They also committed a great sin to advise him the voyage in the great state of weakness, in which his body was, for he could not bear to go by chariot or to ride. He was so weak that he suffered me to carry him in my arms from the hotel of the Count of Augsère, the place where I took leave of him, to the Cordeliers. And nevertheless weak as he was, had he remained in France, he might have lived yet a while and wrought much good. All objections, all warnings, all anxieties came to nothing in the face of Louis' fixed idea and biased passion. He started from Paris on the 16th of March 1270, a sick man almost already, but with soul content, and probably the only one without misgiving in the midst of all his comrades. It was once more at Augsère's mortest that he went to embark. All was as yet dark and undecided as to the plan of the expedition. Was Egypt or Palestine or Constantinople or Tunis to be the first point of attack? Negotiations, patching this subject, had been opened with the Venetians and the Genoese, without arriving at any conclusion or certainty. Steps were taken at Habhazard with full trust in Providence, and utter forgetfulness that Providence does not absolve men from foresight. On arriving at Augsère's mortest, about the middle of May, Louis found nothing organized, nothing in readiness, neither crusaders nor vessels. Everything was done slowly, incompletely, and with the greatest irregularity. At last, on the 2nd of July 1270, he set sail without anyone's knowing, and without the king's telling anyone whither there were going. It was only in Sardinia, after four days' halt at Cagliari, that Louis announced to the chiefs of the crusade, assembled aboard his ship the Mount Joy, that he was making for Tunis, and that their Christian work would commence there. The king of Tunis, as he was then called Mohamed Mostant Ser, had for some time been talking of his desire to become a Christian, if he could be efficiently protected against the seditions of his subjects. Louis welcomed with transport the prospect of Muslim conversions. Ah, he cried, if I could only see myself the gossip and sponsor of so great a godson. But on the 17th of July, when the fleet arrived before Tunis, the admiral, Florence de Varens, probably without the king's orders, and with that one of reflection, which was conspicuous at each step of the enterprise, immediately took possession of the harbor and of some Tunisian vessels as a prize, and sent word to the king that he had only to support him, and that the disembarkation of the troops might be affected in perfect safety. Thus war was commenced at the very first moment against the Muslim Prince, whom there had been a promise of seeing before long a Christian. At the end of a fortnight, after some fights between the Tunisians and the crusaders, so much political and military blindness produced its natural consequences. The reinforcements promised to Louis by his brother Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily, had not arrived, provisions were falling short, and the heats of an African summer were working havoc amongst the army, which such rapidity that before long there was no time to bury the dead. But they were cast palmel into the ditch, which surrounded the camp, and the air was tainted thereby. On the third of August Louis was attacked by the epidemic fever, and obliged to keep his bed in his tent. He asked news of his son John Tristan, Count of Nevers, who had fallen ill before him, and whose recent death aboard the vessel to which he had been removed, in hopes that the sea-air might be beneficial, had been carefully concealed from him. The Count, as well as the Princess Isabel, married to Tellbald the young, king of Navarre, was a favorite child of Louis, who, on hearing of his loss, folded his hands and thought in silence and prayer, some assortment of his grief. His melody grew worse, and having sent for his successor Prince Philip, Philip the Bald, he took from his hour-book some instructions which he had written out for him, and with his own hand and in French, and delivered them to him, bidding him to observe them scrupulously. He gave likewise to his daughter Isabel, who was weeping at the foot of his bed, and to his son-in-law the king of Navarre, some writings which had been intended for them, and he further charged Isabel to deliver another to her youngest sister, Agnes, a fiancee to the Duke of Burgundy. Dearest daughter, said he, think well hereon, for many folk have fallen asleep with wild thoughts of sin, and in the mornings their place has not known them. Just after he had finished satisfying his paternal solicitude, it was announced to him, on the 24th of August, that envoys from the Emperor Mihail Palaiologus had landed at Cape Cartage, with orders to demand his intervention with his brother Charles, king of Sicily, to deter him from making war on the but lately re-established Greek empire. Louis summoned all his strength to receive them in his tent, in the presence of certain of his counselors, who were uneasy at the fatigue he was imposing upon himself. I promise you, if I live, said he to the envoys, to co-operate, so far as I may be able, in what your master demands of me. Meanwhile, I exhort you to have patience and be of good courage. This was his last political act, and his last concern was the affairs of the world. Henceforth he was occupied only with pious effusions, which had a bearing, at one time, on his hopes for his soul, and another on those Christian interests, which had been so dear to him all his life. He kept repeating his customary horizons in a low voice, and he was heard murmuring those broken boards. First, sir God, have mercy on these people that bid us here, and bring them back to their own land. Let them not fall into the hands of their enemies, and let them not be constrained to deny thy name. And at the same time that he thus expressed his sad reflections upon the situation in which he was leaving his army and his people, he cried from time to time as he raised himself on his bed. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, we will go up to Jerusalem. During the night of the 24th and 25th of August, he ceased to speak, all the time continuing to show that he was in full possession of his senses. He insisted upon receiving extreme unction out of bed, and lying upon a coarse sack-cloth covered with cinders, with the cross before him. And on Monday, the 25th of August, 1270, at 3 p.m., he departed in peace, whilst uttering these last words. Father, after an example of the Divine Master, in desired hands I commend my spirit. Chapter 18 Part 1 of Volume 2 of a popular history of France from the earliest times. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Morgan Scorpion Volume 2 of a popular history of France from the earliest times by Francois Guiseaux, translated by Robert Black. Chapter 18 The Kingship in France, Part 1 That the kingship occupied an important place and played an important part in the history of France is an evident and universally recognized fact. But to what causes this fact was due, and what particular characteristics gave the kingship in France that preponderating influence which, in real and in woe, it exercised over the fortunes of the country, is still a question which has been less closely examined, and which still remains vague and obscure. The question it is which we could now shed light upon and determine with some approach to precision. We cannot properly comprehend and justly appreciate a great historical force until we have seen it issuing from its primary source and followed it in its various developments. At the first glance, two facts strike us in the history of the kingship in France. It was in France that it adopted soonest and most persistently maintained its fundamental principle, heredity. In the other monarchical states of Europe, in England, in Germany, in Spain and in Italy, diverse principles at one time election and at another right of conquest have been mingled with or substituted for the heredity of the throne. Different dynasties have reigned, and England has had her Saxon, Danish and Norman kings, her Plantagenets, her Tudors, her Stewards, her Nassau's, her Brunswigs. In Germany and up to the 18th century, the empire the sole central dignity was elective and transferable. Spain was for a long while parceled out into several distinct kingdoms, and since she attained territorial unity the houses of Austria and Bourbon have both occupied her throne. The monarchy and the republic for many a year disputed and divided Italy. Only in France was there at any time during eight centuries but a single king and a single line of kings. Unity and heredity, those two essential principles of monarchy, have been the invariable characteristics of the kingship in France. A second fact, less apparent and less remarkable, but nevertheless not without importance or without effect upon the history of the kingship in France, is the extreme variety of character, of faculties, of intellectual and moral bent, of policy and personal conduct amongst the French kings. In the long role of thirty-three kings who reigned in France from Hugh Capay to Louis XVI, there were kings wise and kings foolish, kings able and kings incapable, kings rash and kings slothful, kings earnest and kings frivolous, kings saintly and kings licentious, kings good and sympathetic towards their people, kings egotistical and concerned solely about themselves, kings lovable and beloved, kings somber and dreaded or detested. As we go forward and encounter them on our way, all these kingly characters will be seen appearing and acting in all their diversity and all their incoherence. Absolute monarchical power in France was, almost in every successive reign, singularly modified, being at one time aggravated and at another alleviated according to the ideas, sentiments, morals and spontaneous instincts of the monarchs. Nowhere else, throughout the great European monarchies, has the difference between kingly personages exercised so much influence on government and national condition. In that country the free action of individuals has filled a prominent place and taken a prominent part in the course of events. It has been shown how insignificant and inert, as sovereigns were, the first three successors of Hugh Capay. The goodness to his people displayed by King Robert was the only king retrait which, during that period, deserved to leave a trace in history. The kingship appeared once more with the attributes of energy and efficiency on the accession of Louis VI, son of Philip I. He was brought up in the monastery of Saint Denis, which at that time had with Superior a man of judgment, the Albert Adam, and he then gave evidence of tendencies and received his training under influences worthy of the position which awaited him. He was handsome, tall, strong and alert, determined and yet affable. He had more taste for military exercises than for the amusements of childhood and the pleasures of youth. He was at that time called Louis the Wide-Awake. He had the good fortune to find in the monastery of Saint Denis a fellow student capable of becoming a king's counsellor. Suga, a child born at Saint Denis of obscure parentage, and three or four years younger than Prince Louis, had been brought up for charity's sake in the Abbey, and the Albert Adam, who had perceived his natural abilities, had taken pains to develop them. A bond of esteem and mutual friendship was formed between the two young people, both of whom were disposed to earnest thought and earnest living. And when, in 1108, Louis the Wide-Awake ascended the throne, the monk Suga became his advisor whilst remaining his friend. A very small kingdom was at that time the domain belonging properly and directly to the King of France. Île-de-France, properly so-called, and a part of Olionnès, Lorionnès, pretty nearly the five departments of the Seine, Seine-Eroise, Seine-Imanne, Roise and Loire, decides, through recent acquisitions, French Vexence, which bordered on the Île-de-France, and had for its chief place Pontoise, being separated by the Little River Ept from the Normand Vexence, of which Rouen was the capital. Half the Countship of Seine, and the Countship of Bourges, such was the whole of its extent. But this limited state was as liable to agitation, and often as troubleous and as tollsome to govern as the very greatest of modern states. It was full of petty lords, almost sovereigns in their own estates, and sufficiently strong to struggle against their kingly Sousarène, who had, besides all around his domains, several neighbours more powerful than himself in the extent and population of their states. But Lord and peasant, laymen and ecclesiastic, castle and country, and the churches of France, were not long discovering that, if the kingdom was small, it had verily a king. Louis did not direct to a distance from home his ambition and his efforts. It was within his own dominion to check the violence of the strong against the weak, to put a stop to the quarrels of the strong amongst themselves, to make an end, in France, at least, of unrighteousness and devastation, and to establish there some sort of order and some sort of justice, that he displayed by his energy and his perseverance. He was animated, says Sougar, by a strong sense of equity. To air his courage with his delight, he scorned in action, he opened his eyes to see the way of discretion. He broke his rest and was unwearyed in his solicitude. Sougar has recounted in detail sixteen of the numerous expeditions which Louis undertook into the interior, to accomplish his work of repression or of exemplary chastisement. Bouchard, Lord of Montmorency, Matthew de Beaumont, Drude de Moussi de Châtel, Oblée de Russie, Léon de Méon, Thomas de Mal, Hugh de Cressy, William de la Roche Grillon, Hugh de Prisée, and Amarie de Montfort learned to their cost that the king was not to be braved with impunity. Bouchard, on taking up arms one day against him, refused to accept his sword from the hands of one of his people who offered it to him and said, by way of boast to the Countess his wife, noble Countess, give thou joyously this glittering sword to the Count thy spars, he who taketh it from thee as Count will bring it back to thee as King. In this very campaign, Bouchard, by his death, says Sougar, restored peace to the kingdom and took away himself and his war to the bottomless pit of hell. Hugh de Prisée had frequently broken his oaths of peace and recommended his devastations and revolts, and Louis resumed his course of hunting him down, destroyed the castle of Prisée, threw down the walls, dug up the wells, and raised it completely to the ground as a place devoted to the curse of heaven. Thomas de Mal, lord of Cressy, had been committing cruel ravages upon the town and church of Léon, lands and inheritance, when, Louis, summoned by their complaints, repaired to Léon, and there, on the advice of the bishops and grandees, and especially of Raoul, the illustrious Count of Beaumandois, the most powerful, after the king of the lords in this part of the country, he determined to go and attack the castle of Cressy, and so went back to his own camp. The people whom he had sent to explore the spot reported that the approach the castle was very difficult and, in truth, impossible. Many urged the king to change his purpose in the matter, but he cried, Nay, what we resolved on at Léon stands. I would not hold back therefrom, though it were to save my life. The king's majesty would be vilified if I were to fly before this scoundrel. Fourth with, in spite of his corpulence and with admirable ardour, he pushed on with his troops through ravines and roads encumbered with forests. Thomas, made prisoner and mortally wounded, was brought to King Louis, and by his order removed to Léon, to the almost universal satisfaction of his own folk and ours. Next day his lands were sold for the benefit of the public treasury, his ponds were broken up, and King Louis, sparing the country because he had the lord of it at his disposal, took the road back to Léon, and afterwards returned in triumph to Paris. Sometimes, when the people and their habitual protectors, the bishops, invoked his aid, Louis would carry his arms beyond his own dominions, by sole right of justice and kingship. It is known, said Suga, that kings have long hands. In 1121 the Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand made a complaint to the king against William VI, Count of Auvergne, who had taken possession of the town, and even of the Episcopal Church, and was exercising therein unbridled tyranny. The king, who never lost a moment when there was a question of helping the church, took up with pleasure and solemnity what was, under these circumstances, the cause of God, and having been unable, either by word of mouth or by letters sealed with the seal of the king's majesty, to bring back the tyrant to his duty, he assembled his troops, and led into revolted Auvergne a numerous army of Frenchmen. He had now become exceeding fat, and could scarce support the heavy mass of his body. Anyone else, however humble, would have had neither the will nor the power to ride a horseback. But he, against the advice of all his friends, listened only to the voice of courage, draped the fiery suns of June and August, which were the dread of the youngest knights, and made a scoff of those who could not bear the heat. Although many a time, during the passage of narrow and difficult swampy places, he was constrained to get himself held on by those about him. After an obstinate struggle, and at the intervention of William VII, Duke of Aquitaine, the Count of Auvergne's Souserin, Louis fixed a special day for regulating and deciding in Parliament, at Orleans, and in the Duke's presence, between the bishop and the Count, the points to which the Auvergnon had hitherto refused to subscribe. Then triumphantly leading back his army, he returned victoriously to France. He had asserted his power, and increased his ascendancy, without any pretension to territorial aggrandizement. VOLUME II Into his relations with his two powerful neighbours, the King of England, Duke of Normandy, and the Emperor of Germany, Louis the Fat, introduced the same watchfulness, the same firmness, and at need, the same warlike energy, whilst observing the same moderation, and the same policy of holding aloof from all turbulent or indiscreet ambition, adjusting his pretensions to his power, and being more concerned to govern his kingdom efficiently than to add to it by conquest. Twice in 1109 and in 1118 he had war in Normandy, with Henry I, King of England, and he therein was guilty of certain temerities resulting in a reverse, which he hastened to repair during the vigorous prosecution of the campaign. But, when once his honour was satisfied, he showed a ready inclination for the peace which the Pope, co-lixed as the second, in Council at Rome, succeeded in establishing between the two rivals. The war with the Emperor of Germany, Henry V, in 1124, appeared, at the first blush, a more serious matter. The Emperor had raised a numerous army of Lorena's, Alemanians, Bavarians, Swabians, and Saxons, and was threatening the very city of Rem with instant attack. Louis hastened to put himself in position. He went and took solemnly, at the altar of Sanderne, the banner of that particular patron of the kingdom, and flew with a mere handful of men to confront the enemy, and parry the first blow, calling on the whole of France to follow him. France summoned the flower of her chivalry, and when the army had assembled from every quarter of the kingdom at Rem, there was seen, said Sougere, so great a host of knights and men afoot, that they might have been compared to swarms of grasshoppers covering the face of the earth, not only on the banks of the rivers, but on the mountains and over the plains. The multitude was formed in three divisions. The third division was composed of Orléans, Parisians, the people of Attam, and those of Sanderne, and at their head was the king in person. With them, said he, I shall fight bravely and with good assurance. Besides being protected by the saint, my liege-lord, I have here of my countrymen those who nurtured me with peculiar affection, and who, of assurity, will bring me back living, or carry me off dead and save my body. At news of this mighty host, and the ardour with which they were animated, the Emperor Henry V advanced no farther, and, before long, marching under some pretext towards other places, he preferred the shame of retreating like a coward to the risk of exposing his empire and himself to certain destruction. After this victory, which was more than as great as a triumph on the field of battle, the French returned every one to their homes. The three elements which contributed to the formation and character of the kingship in France, the German element, the Roman element, and the Christian element, appear in conjunction with the reign of Louis the Fat. We have still the warrior chief of a feudal society, founded by conquest, in him who, in spite of his moderation and discretion, cried many a time, says Suga. What a pitiful state is this of ours, to never have knowledge and strength both together. In my youth had knowledge, and in my old age had strength been mine, I might have conquered many kingdoms, and probably from this exclamation of a king in the twelfth century came the familiar proverb, if youth but new, and age could do. We see the maxims of the Roman empire and reminiscences of Charlemagne in Louis's habit of considering justice to emanate from the king as fountain-head, and of believing in his rights to import it everywhere. And what conclusion of a reign could be more Christian-like than his one, exhausted by the long enfeeblement of his wasted body, but disdaining to die ennobly or unpreparedly, he called about him pious men, bishops, abbots, and many priests of holy church, and then, scorning all false shame, he demanded to make his confession devoutly before them all, and to fortify himself against death by the comfortable sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. While everything is being arranged, the king on a sudden rises of himself, dresses himself, issues fully clad from his chamber to the wonderment of all, advances to meet the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and frustrates himself in reverence. Thereupon, in the presence of all, cleric and laic, he lays aside his kinship, deposes himself from the government of the state, confesses the sin of having ordered it all, hands to his son Louis the king's ring, and binds him to promise on oath to protect the church of God, the poor, and the orphan, to respect the rights of everybody, and to keep none prisoner in his court, save such a one that should have actually transgressed in the court itself. This king, so well prepared for death, in his last days found great cause for rejoicing as a father. William VII, Duke of Aquitaine, had, at his death, entrusted to him the guardianship of his daughter Eleanor, a rest of all his dominions, that is to say, of Poitou, of Saint-Tongue, of Gascony, and of the Basque Country, the most beautiful provinces of the southwest of France, from the Loa Loire to the Pyrenees. A marriage between Eleanor and Louis the young, already sharing his father's throne, was soon conducted, and a brilliant embassy, composed of more than five hundred lords and noble knights, to whom the king had added his intimate advisor, Suga, set out for Aquitaine, where the ceremony was to take place. At the moment of departure, the king had them all assembled about him, and, addressing himself to his son, said, May the strong hand of God Almighty, by whom kings reign, protect thee, my dear son, both thee and thine. If, by any mischance, I were to lose thee, thee and those I send with thee, neither my life nor my kingdom would thenceforth be ought to me. The marriage took place at Bordeaux, at the end of July 1137, and on the 8th of August following, Louis the young, on his way back to Paris, was crowned Poitierre as Duke of Aquitaine. He there learned that the king, his father, had lately died on the 1st of August. Louis the fact was far from foreseeing the deplorable issues of the marriage, which he regarded as one of the blessings of his reign. In spite of its long duration of forty-three years, the reign of Louis the seventh, called the young, was a period bound of events and of persons worthy of keeping a place in history. We have already had the story of this king's unfortunate crusade from 1147 to 1149, the commencement at Antioch of his embryo with his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the fatal divorce which in 1152, at the same time that it freed the king from a faithless queen, entailed for France the loss of the beautiful provinces she had brought him in Dari, and caused them to pass into the possession of Henry II, king of England. Here was the only event under Louis the young's reign of any real importance in view of its long and bloody consequences for his country. A petty war, or a sullen strife between the kings of France and England, petty quarrels of Louis with some of the great lords of his kingdom, certain rigorous measures against certain districts interveiled of local liberties, the first boblings of that religious fermentation which resulted before long in the south of France, in the crusade against the Alvigentians. Such were the facts which went to make up with somewhat of insipidity the annals of this reign. So long as Suga lived the kingship preserved at home the wisdom which it had been accustomed to display, and abroad the respect it had acquired under Louis the fat. But at the death of Suga it went on languishing and declining, without encountering any great obstacles. It was reserved for Louis the young's son Philip Augustus to open for France, and for the kingship in France, a new era of strength and progress. Philip II, to whom history has preserved the name of Philip Augustus given him by his contemporaries, had shared the crown, been anointed, and taken to wife Isabelle of Haino, a year before the death of Louis VII, put him in possession of the kingdom. He was as yet only fifteen, and his father, by his will, had left him under the guidance of Philip of Alsace, Count of Flanders as regent, and of Robert Clermont, Marshal of France, as governor. But Philip, though he began his reign under this devil influence, soon let it be seen that he intended to reign by himself, and to reign with vigor. Whatever my vassals do, I must bear with their violence and outrageous insults and villainous misdeeds, but please, God, they will get weak and old whilst I shall grow in strength and power, and shall be, in my turn, avenged according to my desire. He was hardly twenty when, one day, one of his bounds seeing him gnawing with an air of abstraction and dreaminess, a little green twig, said to his neighbours, if any one could tell me what the king is thinking of, I would give him my best horse. Another of those present boldly asked the king, I am thinking, answered Philip, of a certain matter, and that is whether God will grant unto me or unto one of my heirs grace to exalt France to the height at which she was in the time of Charlemagne. It was not granted to Philip Augustus to resuscitate the Frankish empire of Charlemagne, a work impossible for him or anyone whatsoever in the 12th and 13th centuries, but he made the extension and territorial construction of the kingdom of France the chief aim of his life, and in that work he was successful. Out of the forty-three years of his reign, twenty-six at the least were war years devoted to that very purpose. During the first six it was with some of his great French vassals, the Count of Champagne, the Duke of Burgundy, and even the Count of Flanders, sometimes regent, that Philip had to do battle, for they all sought to prop it by his minority, so as to make themselves independent and aggrandise themselves at the expense of the crown. But once in possession of the personal power as well as the title of king, it was from 1187 to 1216 against three successive kings of England, Henry II, Richard Curdie-Leon, and John Lackland, masters of the most beautiful provinces of France that Philip directed his persistent efforts. They were, in respect of power, of political capacity and military popularity, his most formidable foes. Henry II, what with his ripeness of age, his ability, energy, and perseverance, without any mean jealousy or peril obstinacy, had over Philip every advantage of position and experience, and he availed himself thereof with discretion, habitually maintaining his feudal status of great French vassal, as well as that of foreign sovereign, seeking peace rather than strife with his youthful sozorain, and sometimes even going to his aid. He thus played off the greater part of the undeclared attempts or armed expeditions by which, from 1186 to 1189, Philip tried to cut him short in his French possessions, and so long as Henry II lived, there were but few changes in the territorial proportions of the two states. But at Henry's death Philip found himself in a very different position towards Henry's two sons, Richard Curde-Leon and John Lackland. They were of his own generation. He had been on terms with them, even in opposition to their own father, of complicity and familiarity. They had no authority over him, and he had no respect for them. Richard was the feudal prince beyond comparison the boldest, the most unreflecting, the most passionate, the most roughenly, the most heroic adventurer of the Middle Ages, hungering after movement and action, possessed of a craving spirit for displaying his strength, and doing his pleasure at all times and in all places, not only in contempt of the rights and well-being of his subjects, but at the risk of his own safety, his own power, and even of his crown. Philip was of a sedate temperament, patient, persevering, moved but little by the spirit of adventure, more ambitious than furry, capable of far-reaching designs and discreet at the same time that he was indifferent as to the employment of means. He had fine sport with Richard. We have already had the story of the relations between them and their rupture during their joint crusade in the East. On returning to the West Philip did not rest from King Richard those great and definitive conquests which were to restore to France the greater part of the marriage portion that went with Eleanor of Aquitaine, but he paved the way for them by petty victories and petty acquisitions, and making more and more certain of his superiority over his rival. When, after Richard's death, he had to do with John Lackland, cowardly and insolent, naivish and adult-pated, choleric, debauched and indolent, an intriguing subordinate on the throne on which he made pretense to be the most despotic of kings, Philip had over him even more than over his brother Richard immense advantages. He made such use of them that after six years struggling from 1199 to 1205 he deprived John of the greater part of his French possessions, Anjou, Normandy, Thorene, Maine and Frattu. Philip would have been quite willing to dispense with any legal procedure by way of sanction to his conquests, but John furnished him with an excellent pretext. For on the 3rd of April 1203 he assassinated with his own hand in the tower of Rouen, his young nephew Arthur, Duke of Brittany, and in that capacity vassal of Philip Augustus, to whom he was coming to do homage. Philip had John, also his vassal, sighted before the court of the barons of France, his peers, to plead his defence of this odious act. King John, says the contemporary English historian Matthew Parris, sent Eustace, Bishop of Ely, to tell King Philip that he would willingly go to his court to answer before his judges, and to show entire obedience in the matter, but that he must have a safe conduct. But King Philip replied, but with neither heart nor visage unmoved, willingly let him come in peace and safety. And return so too, my lord? said the bishop? Yes, rejoined the king, if the decision of his peers allow him. And when the envoys from England entreated him to grant to the King of England to go and return in safety, the King of France was wroth and answered with his usual oath. No, by all the saints of France, unless the decision tally therewith. My lord king rejoined the bishop. The Duke of Normandy cannot come unless there come also the King of England, since the Duke and the King are one and the same person. The baronage of England would never allow it in any way, and if the King were willing, he would run, as you know, risk of imprisonment or death. King Philip answered him, how now, my lord bishop, it is well known that my Legeman, the Duke of Normandy, by violence got possession of England, and so, prithee, if a vassal increase in honour and power, shall his lord suzerain lose his rights? Never! King John was not willing to trust a chance and the decision of the French, who liked him not, and he feared above everything to be reproached for the shameful murder of Arthur. The grandees of France nevertheless proceeded to a decision which they could not do lawfully, since he whom they had to try was absent, and would have gone had he been able. The condemnation not the wit the less took full effect, and Philip Augustus thus recovered possession of nearly all the territories which his father, Louis VII, had kept but for a moment. He added in succession other provinces to his dominions, in such wise that the Kingdom of France, which was limited, as we have seen, under Louis the Fat, to the Île de France, and certain portions of Pippides and Orléans, comprised, besides, at the end of the reign of Philip Augustus, Vermandrois, Artois, the two Vexons, French and Normand, Berri, Normandy, Men, Anjou, Prattu, Touraine, and Au Rhone. Chapter 18, Part 3 of Volume 2 of A Popular History of France from the earliest times This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Recording by Morgan Scorpion Volume 2 of A Popular History of France from the earliest times by François Griseau, translated by Robert Black. Chapter 18, The Kingship in France, Part 3 In 1206 the territorial work of Philip Augustus was well-nigh completed, but his wars were not over. John Lackland, when worsted, kicked against the pricks and was incessantly hankering in his antagonism to the King of France, after hostile alliances and local conspiracies easy to hatch amongst certain feudal lords discontented with their suzerain. John was on intimate terms with his nephew, Arthur IV, Emperor of Germany, and the foe of Philip Augustus, who had supported against him Frederick II, his rival for the Empire. They prepared in concert for a grand attack upon the King of France, and they had won over to their coalition some of his most important vassals. Amongst others, Renault de Dampierre, Count of Boulogne. Philip determined to divert their attack, whilst anticipating it, by an unexpected enterprise, the invasion of England itself. Circumstances seemed favourable. King John, by his oppression and his perfidy, had drawn upon him the hatred and contempt of his people, and the barons of England, supported and guided by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, had commenced against him the struggle which was to be endured some years afterwards by the forced concession of Magnus Charter, that foundation stone of English liberties. John, having been embroiled for five years past with the Court of Rome, affected to defy the excommunication which the Pope had hurled at him, and of which the King of France had been asked by several prelates of the English Church to ensure the efficient working. On the 8th of April, 1213, Philip convoked, at Swasson, his principal vassals or allies, explained to them the grounds of his design against the King of England, and, by a sort of special confederation, they bound themselves, all of them, to support him. One of the most considerable vassals, however, the sometime regent of France during the minority of Philip, Ferrand, Count of Flanders, did not attend the meeting to which he had been summoned, and declared his intention of taking no part in the war against England. By all the saints of France, cried Philip, either France shall become Flanders or Flanders France, and, all the while pressing forward the equipment of a large fleet collected at Calais for the invasion of England, he entered Flanders, besieged, and took several of the richest cities in the country, Castle, Ypres, Bruges, and Courtray, and pitched his camp before the walls of Gunt. To lower, as he said, the pride of the men of Gunt and make them bend their necks beneath the yoke of Kings. But he heard that John Lackland, after making his peace with the Court of Rome, through acceptance of all the conditions and all the humiliations it had thought proper to impose upon him, had just landed at Rochelle, and was exciting a serious insurrection amongst the lords of Santong and Poitou. At the same time, Philip's fleet, having been attacked in Calais roads by that of John, had been half destroyed or captured, and the other half had been forced to take shelter in the harbour of Dam, where it was strictly blockaded. Philip, forthwith adopting a twofold and energetic resolution, ordered his son Philip to go and put down the insurrection of the Poitavine on the banks of the Loire, and himself took in hand the war in Flanders, which was of the most consequence, considering the quality of the foe and the designs they proclaimed. They had at their head the Emperor Arthur IV, who had already won the reputation of a brave and able soldier, and they numbered in their ranks several of the greatest lords, German, Flemish, and Dutch, and Hugh de Boeuf, the most dreaded of those adventurers in the pay of the wealthy princes who were known at that time by the name of roadsters, routiers, mercenaries. They proposed, it was said, to dismember France, and a promise to that effect, had been made by the Emperor Arthur to his principal chieftains assembled in secret conference. It is against Philip himself and him alone, he had said to them, that we must direct all our efforts. It is he who must be slain, first of all, for it is he alone who opposes us, and makes himself our foe in everything. When he is dead, you will be able to subdue and divide the kingdom according to our pleasure. As for thee, Renault, thou shalt take Peron and all Vermendrois. Hugh shall be master of Beauvais, Salisbury of Dreur, Conrad of Mant, together with Vexon, and as for thee, Ferranti, thou shalt have Paris. The two armies marched over the Low Countries and Flanders, seeking out both of them the most favourable position for commencing the attack. On Sunday the 27th of August, 1214, Philip had halted near the bridge of Beauvais, not far from Lille, and was resting under an ash beside a small chapel dedicated to Saint Peter. There came running to him a messenger, sent by Guérin, Bishop of Songly, his confidant in war as well as government, and brought him word that his rearguard, attacked by the Emperor Otho, was not sufficient to resist him. Philip went into the chapel, said a short prayer, and cried as he came out. Hastely forward to the rescue of our comrades. Then he put on his armour, mounted his horse, and made swiftly for the point of attack, amidst the shouts of all those who were about him. Two arms! Two arms! Both armies numbered in their ranks not only all the feudal chivalry on the two sides, but burger forces, those from the majority of the great cities of Flanders being for Otho, and those from sixteen towns or communes of France for Philip Augustus. It was not, as we have seen, the first time that the forces from the French rural districts had taken part in the King's wars. Louis the Fat had often received their aid against the tyrannical and turbulent lords of his small kingdoms. But since the reign of Louis the Fat, the organisation and importance of the communes had made great progress in France, and it was not only rural communes, but considerable cities such as Amiens, Ara, Beauvais, Compiègne, and Soissons, which sent to the army of Philip Augustus bodies of men in large numbers and ready trained to arms. Contemporary historians put the army of Otho at 100,000, and that of Philip Augustus at from 50 to 60,000 men. But amongst modern historians, one of the most eminent, Monsieur Cismondi, reduces them both to some 15 or 20,000. One would say that the reduction is as excessive as the original estimate. However they may be, the communal forces evidently filled an important place in the King's army at Wolverine, and maintained it brilliantly. So soon as Philip had placed himself at the head of the first line of his troops, the men of Soissons, says William the Breton, who was present at the battle, being impatient and inflamed by the words of Bishop Guérin, let out their horses at the full speed of their legs, and attacked the enemy. But the flourished knights prick not forward to the encounter, indignant that the first charge against them was not made by knights, as would have been seemingly, and remain motionless at their post. The men of Soissons meanwhile see no need of dealing softly with them and humoring them, so thrust them roughly, upset them from their horses, slay a many of them, and force them to leave their place or defend themselves, willy-nilly. At last the Chevalier Eustace, scorning the burgers and proud of his illustrious ancestors, moves out into the middle of the plain, and with haughty voice roars, death to the French. The battle soon became general and obstinate. It was a multitude of hand-to-hand fights in the midst of a confused melee. In this melee, the knights of the Emperor author did not forget the instructions he had given them before the engagement. They sought out the King of France himself to aim their blows at him, and ere long they knew him by the presence of the royal standard, and made their way almost up to him. The communes, and chiefly those of Corbai, Amiens, Beauvais, Compiègne, and Arra, thereupon pierced through the battalions of the knights and placed themselves in front of the King, when some German infantry came up round Philip, and with hooks and light lances threw him down from his horse, but a small body of knights who had remained by him over through dispersed and slew these infantry, and the King, recovering himself more quickly than had been expected, leapt upon another horse and dashed again into the melee. Then danger threatened the Emperor author in his turn. The French drove back those about him, and came right up to him. A sword thrust, delivered with vigor, entered the brain of Otto's horse. The horse, mortally wounded, reared up and turned his head in the direction whence he had come, and the Emperor, thus carried away, showed his back to the French, and was off in full flight. He will see his face no more to-day, said Philip to his followers, and he said truly, In vain did William de Barre, the first knight of his day in strength and valor and renown, dash off in pursuit of the Emperor. Twice he was on the point of seizing him, but Otto escaped, thanks to the swiftness of his horse and the great number of his German knights, who, whilst their Emperor was flying, were fighting to a miracle, but their bravery saved only their master. The battle of Bouvine was lost for the Anglo-Germanos Flemish coalition. It was still prolonged for several hours, but in the evening it was over, and the prisoners of note were conducted to Philip Augustus. There were five counts, Peron of Flanders, Renault of Boulogne, William of Salisbury, a natural brother of King John, Arthur of Tecklenburg, and Conrad of Dartmouth, and twenty-five barons bearing their own standard to battle. Philip Augustus spared all their lives, sent away the Earl of Salisbury to his brother, confined the count of Boulogne at Peron, where he was subjected to very rigorous imprisonment, with chains so short that he could scarce move one step. And as for the count of Flanders, his some-time regent, Philip dragged him in chains in his train. It is difficult to determine from the evidence of contemporaries, which was the more rejoiced at and proud of this victory, King or people. The same day, when evening approached, says William the Breton, the army returned laden with spoils to the camp, and the King, with a heartful of joy and gratitude, offered a thousand thanks-giving to the Supreme King, who had much saved to him a triumph over so many enemies. And in order that posterity might preserve forever a memorial of so great a success, the Bishop of Songley founded, outside the walls of that town, a chapel, which he named Victory, and which, endowed with great possessions and having a government according to canonical rule, enjoyed the honour of possessing an abut and a holy convent. Who can recount, imagine, or set down with a pen, or parchment, or tablets, the cheers of joy, the hymns of triumph, and the numberless dances of the people, the sweet chants of the clergy, the harmonious sounds of warlike instruments, the solemn decorations of the churches, inside and out, the streets, the houses, the roads of all the castles and towns, hung with curtains and tapestry of silk and covered with flowers, shrubs and green branches, All the inhabitants of every sort, sex and age, running from every quarter to see so grand a triumph, peasants and harvesters breaking off their work, hanging round their necks their sickles and hoes, for it was the season of harvest, and throwing themselves in the throng upon the roads to see in irons that counter-flanders, that fornong whose arms they had formally dreaded. It was no groundless joy on the part of the people, and a spontaneous instinct gave them a forecast of the importance of that triumph which elicited their cheers. The battle of Boulvinge was not the victory of Philippe Augustus alone, over a coalition of foreign princes. The victory was the work of king and people, barons, knights, burgers and peasants of Île de France, of Orléans, of Piccadilly, of Normali, of Champagne, and of Burgundy, and this union of different classes and different populations in a sentiment, a contest, and a triumph shared in common was a decisive step in the organisation and unity of France. The victory of Boulvinge marked the commencement of the time at which men might speak, and indeed did speak, by one single name, of the French. The nation in France and the kingship in France on that day rose out of and above the feudal system. Philippe Augustus was about the same time apprised of his son Louis's success on the banks of Loire. The incapacity and swaggering insolence of King John had made all his portavine allies disgusted with him. He had been obliged to abandon his attack upon the King of France in the provinces, and the insurrection, growing daily more serious, of the English bounds and clergy for the purpose of obtaining Magna Charter was preparing for him other reverses. He had ceased to be a dangerous rival to Philip. No period has had better reason than our own to know how successes and conquests can intoxicate warlike kings. But Philip, whose valour on occasion was second to none, had no actual inclination towards war or towards conquest for the sole pleasure of extending his dominion. Liking better, according to his custom, says William the Breton, to conquer by peace than by war, he hasted to put an end by treaties, truces or contracts to his quarrels with King John, the Count of Flanders, and the principal lords made prisoner at Boulvinge. Discretion in his case was proof against the temptations of circumstances or the promptings of passion, and he took care not to overtly compromise his power, his responsibility, and the honour of his name by enterprises which did not naturally come in his way, or which he considered without chances of success. Whilst still a youth, he had given, in 1191, a sure proof of that self-command, which is so rare amongst ambitious princes, by withdrawing from the crusade in which he had been engaged with Richard Coeur de Lyon, and it was still more apparent in two great events at the latter end of his reign. The crusade against the Albertentians and his son Louis' expedition in England, the crown of which had, in 1215, been offered to him by the barons at war with King John in defence of Magna Charta. The organisation of the kingdom, the nation, and the kingship of France was not the only great event and the only great achievement of that epoch. At the same time that this political movement was going on in the state, a religious and intellectual ferment was making head in the church and in men's minds. After the conquest of the Gauls by the Franks, the Christian clergy, sole depositories of all lights to lighten their age, and sole possesses of any idea of opposing the conquerors with arguments other than those of brute force, or of employing towards the vanquished any instrument of subjection other than violence, became the connecting link between the nation of the conquerors and the nation of the conquered, and, in the name of one and the same divine law, enjoined obedience on the subjects, and in the case of the masters, moderated the transports of power. But in the course of this active and salutary participation in the affairs of the world, the Christian clergy lost somewhat of their primitive and proper character. Religion, in their hands, was a means of power as well as of civilisation, and its principal members became rich and frequently substituted material weapons for the spiritual authority which had originally been their only reliance. When they were in a condition to hold their own against powerful laymen, they frequently adopted the powerful laymen's morals and shared their ignorance, and in the seventh and eighth centuries the barbarism which held the world in its clutches had made inroads upon the church. Charlemagne essayed to resuscitate dying civilisation, and sought amongst his clergy his chief means of success. He founded schools, filled them with students to whom promises of ecclesiastical performance were held out as rewards of their merit, and, in fine, exerted himself with all his might to restore to the Christian church her dignity and her influence. When Charlemagne was dead, nearly all his great achievements disappeared in the chaos which came after him. His schools alone survived and preserved certain centres of intellectual activity. When the feudal system had become established, and had introduced some rule into social relations, when the fate of mankind appeared no longer entirely left the risks of force, intellect once more found some sort of employment, and once more assumed some sort of sway. Active and educated minds once more began to watch with some sort of independence the social facts before their eyes, to stigmatise vices and to seek for remedies. The spectacle afforded by their age could not fail to strike them. Society, after having made some few strides away from physical chaos, seemed in danger of falling into moral chaos. Morals had sunk far below the laws, and religion was in deplorable contrast to morals. It was not laymen only who abandoned themselves with impunity to every excess of violence and licentiousness. Scandals were frequent amongst the clergy themselves. Bishop Bricks and other ecclesiastical benefices, publicly sold or left by will, passed down through families from father to son, and from husband to wife, and the possessions of the church served for dowry to the daughters of bishops. Absolution was at a low quotation in the market, and redemption for sins of the greatest enormity cost scarcely the price of founding a church or a monastery. Horus stricken at the sight of such corruption in the only things they at the time recognised as holy, men no longer knew where to find the rule of life or the safeguard of conscience. But it is the peculiar and glorious characteristic of Christianity that it is unable to bear for long, without making an effort to check them, the vices it has been unable to prevent, and that it always carries in its womb the vigorous germ of human regeneration. In the midst of their irregularities, the 11th and 12th centuries saw the outbreak of a grand religious, moral and intellectual fermentation, and it was the church herself that had the honour and the power of taking the initiative in the Reformation. Under the influence of Gregory VII, the rigor of the Pope's began to declare itself against the scandals of the Episcopat, traffic in ecclesiastical benefits, and the bad morals of the secular clergy. At the same time, or stear men exerted themselves to rekindle the fervour of monastic life, reestablished rigid rules in the cloister, and refilled the monasteries by their preaching and example. Saint Robert of Molem founded the Order of Citeau, Saint Norbert that of Primontre, Saint Bernard detached the Clairvaux from Moe, which he considered too worldly. Saint Bruno built Chartres, Saint Hugo, Saint Girard, and others besides gave the Abbey of Cluny, its renown, and ecclesiastical reform extended everywhere. Hereupon rich and powerful laymen filled with ardour for their faith and fear for their external welfare when seeking after solitude and devoted themselves to prayer in the monasteries they had founded or enriched with their wealth. Whole families were dispersed amongst various religious houses, and all the severities of penance hardly sufficed to quiet imaginations, scared at the perils of living in the world or at the vices of their age. And at the same time, in addition to this outburst of piety, ignorance was decried and stigmatised as the source of the prevailing evils. The function of teaching was included amongst the duties of the religious estate, and every newly founded or reformed monastery became a school in which pupils of all conditions were gratuitously instructed in the sciences known by the name of liberal arts. Bold spirits began to use the rights of individual thought in opposition to the authority of established doctrines, and others, without dreaming of opposing, strove at any rate to understand, which is the way to produce discussion. Activity and freedom of thought were receiving development at the same time that fervent faith and fervent piety were. The great moral movement of humanity in the 11th and 12th centuries arose from events very different in different parts of the beautiful country, which was not yet, but was from that time forward tending to become France. Amongst these events, which cannot be here recounted in detail, we will fix upon two, which were the most striking and the most productive of important consequences for the whole history of the Epoch. The crawl of Abelard, the Saint Bernard, and the crusade against the Albergencians. We shall there see how northern France and southern France differed one from the other before the bloody crisis, which was to unite them in one single name and one common destiny. In France, properly so-called at that time, north of the Rhône and the Loire, the church had herself accomplished the chief part of the reforms which had become necessary. It was there that the most active and most eloquent of the reforming monks had appeared, had preached, and had founded or regenerated a great number of monasteries. It was there that, at first amongst the clergy, and then, through their example, amongst the laity, Christian discipline and morals had resumed some sway. There, too, the Christian faith and church were, amongst the mass of the population, but little or not assailed. Heretics, when any appeared, obtained support neither from princes nor people, they were proceeded against, condemned, and burned without their exciting public sympathy by their presence, or public commiseration by their punishment. It was in the very midst of the clergy themselves, amongst literates and teachers, that, in northern France, the intellectual and innovating movement of the period was manifested and concentrated. The movement was vigorous and earnest, and it was a really studious host which thronged to the lessons of Abelard at Paris, on Mount St. Genevieve, at Mellon, at Courbet, and at the Paraclete. But this host contained but few of the people. The greater part of those who formed it were either already in the church, or soon, in various capacities, about to be. And the discussions raised at the meetings corresponded with the persons attending them. There was the disputation of the schools, there was no founding of sects. The lessons of Abelard and the questions he handled were scientific or religious. It was to expound and propagate what they regarded as the philosophy of Christianity that masters and pupils made bold use of the freedom of thought. They made but slight wall upon the existing practical abuses of the church. They differed from her in the interpretation and comments contained in some of her dogmas, and they considered themselves in a position to explain and confirm faith by reason. The chiefs of the church, the Saint Bernard at their head, were not slow to describe, in these interpretations and comments based upon science, danger to the simple and pure faith of the Christian. They saw the apparition of dawning rationalism confronting orthodoxy. They were, as all their contemporaries were, wholly strangers to the bare notion of freedom of thought and conscience, and they began a zealous struggle against the new teachers, but they did not push it to the last call extremities. They had many a handle against Abelard, his private life, the scandal of his connection with Eloise, the restless and haughty fickleness of his character, laid him open to severe strictures. But his stern adversaries did not take so much advantage of them as they might have taken. They had his doctrines condemned at the councils of Swastan and Song, they prohibited him from public lecturing, and they imposed upon him the seclusion of the cloister. But they did not even harbour the notion of having him burned as a heretic, and science and glory were respected in his person, even when his ideas were prescribed. Peter the Venerable, Albert of Clooney, one of the most highly considered and honoured fellots of the Church, received him amongst his own monks, and treated him with paternal kindness, taking care of his health, as well as of his eternal welfare. And he who was the adversary of San Bernard and the teacher condemned by the councils of Swastan and Song, died peacefully on the 21st of April 1142 in the Abbey of San Marcellus near Chalon-sur-San, after having received the sacraments with much piety, and in presence of all the brethren of the monastery. Thus, wrote Peter the Venerable to Eloise, a best for eleven years past of the Paraclete, the man who, by his singular authority in science, was known to nearly all the world, and was illustrious wherever he was known. Learned, in the school of him who said, Know that I am meek and lowly of heart, to remain meek and lowly, and, as it is but right to believe, he has thus returned to him. The struggle of Abelard with the Church of Northern France and the crusade against the Alborgencians in Southern France are divided by much more than diversity and contrast. There is an abyss between them. In their religious condition, and in the nature, as well as degree of their civilisation, the populations of the two regions were radically different. In the north-east, between the Rhine, the Shelte, and the Loire, Christianity had been obliged to deal with little more than the barbarism and ignorance of the German conquerors. In the south, on the two banks of the Rhine and the Garonne, along the Mediterranean and by the Pyrenees, it had encountered all manner of institutions, traditions, religions, and disbeliefs—Greek, Roman, African, Oriental, Pagan, and Musselman. The frequent invasions and long stays of the Saracens in those countries had mingled Arab blood with the Gaelic, Roman, Asiatic, and Visigothic, and this mixture of so many different races, tongues, creeds, and ideas had resulted in a civilisation more developed, more elegant, more humane, and more liberal—but far less coherent, simple, and strong, morally as well as politically, than the warlike feudal civilisation of Germanic France. In the religious order especially, the dissimilarity was profound. In Northern France, in spite of internal disorder, and through the influence of its bishops, missionaries, and monastic reformers, the Orthodox Church had obtained a decided superiority and fall dominion. But in Southern France, on the contrary, all the controversies, all the sets, and all the mystical or philosophical heresies which had disturbed Christendom from the second century to the ninth, had crept in and spread abroad. In it there were Arians, Manicheans, Gnostics, Polysians, Cathars, the Pure, and other sets of more local or more recent origin and name—Albergencians, Vordians, Good People, and Poor of Lyon—some piously possessed with the desire of returning to the pure faith and fraternal organisation of the primitive evangelical church—others given over to the extravagances of imagination or asceticism. The princes and the great lay lords of the country—the Counts of Toulouse, Poir, and Comanche—the Viscount of Bezier, and many others had not remained unaffected by this condition of the people. The majority were accused of tolerating and even protecting the heretics, and some were suspected of allowing their ideas to penetrate within their own households. The bold sallies of the critical and jeering spirit and the abandonment of established creeds and disciplines bring about, before long, a relaxation of morals, and liberty requires long time and many trials before it learns to disavow and rise superior to licence. In many of the feudal courts and castles of Languedoc, Provence, and Aquitaine, imaginations, words and lives were licentious, and the charming poetry of the troubadours and the gallant adventures of knights caused it to be too easily forgotten that morality was but little more regarded than the faith. Dating from the latter half of the eleventh century, not only the Popes, but the whole Orthodox Church of France and its spiritual heads were seriously disquieted at the state of mind of southern France and the dangers it threatened to the whole of Christendom. In 1145, Saint Bernard, in all the lustre of his name and influence, undertook, in concert with Cardinal Albert, legate of the Pope Eugenius III, to go and preach against the heretics in the Countship of Toulouse. We see here, he wrote to Alphonse Jordan, Count of Toulouse, churches without flocks, flocks without priests, priests without the respect which is their due, and Christians without Christ. Men die in their sins without being reconciled by penance or admitted to the Holy Communion. Souls are sent pel-mel before the awful tribunal of God. The grace of baptism is refused to little children. Those to whom the Lord said, suffer little children to come unto me, do not obtain the means of coming to salvation. Is it because of a belief that these little children have no need of the Saviour, inasmuch as they are little? Is it then for naught that our Lord, from being great, became little? What say I? Is it then for naught that he was scourged and spat upon, crucified and dead? Saint Bernard preached with great success in Toulouse itself, but he was not satisfied with easy success. He had come to fight the heretics, and he went to look for them where he was told he would find them numerous and powerful. He repaired, says a contemporary chronicler, to the castle of Vertfoye, or Vertfie, in the district of Toulouse, where flourished at that time the silence of a numerous nobility and a multitude of people, thinking that if he could extinguish heretical perversity in this place where it was so very much spread, it would be easy for him to make head against it elsewhere. When he had begun preaching in the church against those who were of most consideration in the place, they went out and the people followed them. But the Holy Man, going out after them, gave utterance to the word of God in the public streets. The nobles then hid themselves on all sides in their houses, and as for him he continued to preach to the common people who came about him. Whereupon the others making uproar and knocking upon the doors, so that the crowd could not hear his voice, he then, having shaken off the dust from his feet as a testimony against them, departed from their midst, and looking on the town cursed it, saying, Vertfoye, God wither thee. Now there were at that time, in the castle, a hundred knights abiding, having arms, banners, and horses, and keeping themselves at their own expense, not at the expense of other. After the not very effectual mission of St. Bernard, who died in 1153, and for half a century, the Orthodox Church was several times occupied with the heretics of southern France, who were before long called albergensians, either because they were numerous in the dioceses of Albi, or because the Council of Lombas, one of the first at which their condemnation was expressly pronounced, in 1165, was held in that diocese. But the measures adopted at that time against them were at first feebly executed, and had but little effect. The new ideas spread more and more, and in 1167 the innovators themselves held, at Saint-Ferlis de Caraman, a petty council at which they appointed bishops for districts where they had numerous partisans. Raymond VI, who in 1195 succeeded his father, Raymond V, as Count of Toulouse, was supposedly to be favourably disposed towards them. He admitted them to intimacy with him, and, it was said, allowed himself, in respect of the Orthodox Church, great liberty of thought and speech. Meanwhile, the great days and the chief actors in the struggle commenced by St. Bernard were approaching. In 1198, Lothair Conti, a pupil of the University of Paris, was elected Pope, with the title of Innocent III, and four or five years later, Simon, Count of Montfort Romary, came back from the Fifth Crusade in the East, with a celebrity already established by his valour and his zeal against the infidels. Innocent III, no unworthy rival of Gregory VII, his late predecessor in the Holy See, had the same grandeur of ideas and the same fixity of purpose, with less headiness in his character, and more knowledge of the world, and more of the spirit of policy. He looked upon the whole of Christendom as his kingdom, and upon himself as the king whose business it was to make prevalent everywhere the law of God. Simon, as Count of Montfort Romary, was not a powerful lord, but he was descended, it was said, from a natural son of King Robert. His mother, who was English, had left him heir to the kingdom of Leicester, and he had for his wife Alice de Montmorency, his social status and his personal renown superior as they were to his worldly fortunes, authorised in his case any flight of ambition, and in the East he had learned to believe that anything was allowed to him in the service of the Christian faith. Innocent III, on receiving the Teyarra, set to work at once upon the government of Christendom. Simon de Montfort, on returning from Palestine, did not dream of the new crusade to which he was soon to be summoned, and for which he was so well-prepared. Innocent III, at first employed against the heretics of southern France only spiritual and legitimate weapons. Before prescribing, he tried to convert them. He sent to them a great number of missionaries, nearly all taken from the order of Citeau, and of proved zeal already. Many amongst them had excessively the title and power of legates, and they went preaching throughout the whole country, communicating with the princes and leic lords, whom they requested to drive away the heretics from their domains, and holding with the heretics themselves conferences which frequently drew enumerous attendants. A night full of sagacity, according to a contemporary chronicle, Ponce d'adamard of Rodel said, one day to Fouk, Bishop of Toulouse, one of the most zealous of the pope's delegates, we could not have believed that Rome had so many powerful arguments against these folk here. See you not, said the bishop, how little force there is in their objections. Certainly answered the night. Why then do you not expel them from your lands? We cannot, answered Ponce. We have been brought up with them. We have amongst them folk near and dear to us, and we see them living honestly. Some of the legates, wearied at the little effect of their preaching, showed an inclination to give up their mission. Peter de Castelnau himself, the most zealous of all, and destined before long to pay for his zeal with his life, wrote to the pope to beg for permission to return to his monastery. Two Spanish priests, Diego Arcebes, Bishop of Osma, and his sub-prior Dominic, falling in with the Roman legates at Montpellier, heard them express their disgust. Give up, they said to the legates, your retinue, your horses, and your goings in state. Proceed in all humility, a foot and bare foot, without gold or silver, living and teaching after the example of the Divine Master. We dare not take on ourselves such things, answered the pope's agents. They would seem sort of innovation, but if some person of sufficient authority consent to proceed us in such guise, we would follow him readily. The bishop of Osma sent away his retinue to Spain, and kept with him only his companion Dominic, and they, taking with them two of the monks of Sitot, Peter de Castelnau and Raul, the most fervent of the delegates from Rome, began that course of austerity and of preaching amongst the people, which was ultimately to make of the sub-prior Dominic a saint and the founder of a great religious order, to which has often, but wrongly been attributed the origin, though it certainly became the principal agent of the Inquisition. Whilst joining in humble and pious energy with the two Spanish priests, the two monks of Sitot, and Peter de Castelnau especially, did not cease to urge amongst the leg princes the extirpation of the heretics. In 1205 they repaired to Toulouse to demand of Raymond VI a formal promise, which indeed they obtained, but Raymond was one of those undecided and feeble characters who dare not refuse to promise what they dare not attempt to do. He wished to live in peace with the Orthodox Church, without behaving cruelly to a large number of his subjects. The fanatical legate Peter de Castelnau enraged at his to-give-assuration instantly excommunicated him, and the pope sent to the count a threatening letter, giving him therein to understand that in case of need stronger measures would be adopted against him. Raymond, affrighted, prevailed on the two legates to repair to Saint Gilles, and he there renewed his promises to them, but he always sought for and found on the moor some excuse for retarding the execution of them. The legates, after having reproached him vehemently, determined to leave Saint Gilles without further delay, and the day after their departure, January the 15th, 1208, as they were getting ready to cross the Rhône, two strangers, who had lodged the night before in the same hostelry with them, drew near, and one of the two gave Peter de Castelnau a lance thrust with such force that the legate, after exclaiming, God forgive thee, as I do, had only time to give his comrade his last instructions, and then expired. Great was the emotion in France and at Rhône. It was barely thirty years since in England, after an outburst of passion on the part of King Henry II, four nights of his court had murdered the archbishop Thomas Abecket in Canterbury Cathedral. Was the Count of Toulouse too guilty of having instigated the shedding of blood and the murder of a prelate? Such was, in the thirteenth century, the general cry throughout the Catholic Church, and the signal for war against Raymond the Sixth, a war undertaken on the plea of a personal crime, but in reality for the extirpation of heresy in southern France, and for the dispossession of the native princes, who would not fully obey the decrees of the papacy, in favour of foreign conquerors, who would put them into execution. The crusade against the albergensians was the most striking application of two principles equally false and fatal, which did more than as much evil to the Catholics as to the heretics, and to the papacy as to freedom. And they are, the right of the spiritual power to claim for the coercion of souls the material force of the temple powers, and its right to strip temporal sovereigns, in case they set at naught its injunctions, of their title to the obedience of their people. In other words, denial of religious liberty to conscience and of political independence to states. It was by virtue of these two principles at that time dominant, but not without some opposition in Christendom, that innocent III in 1208 summoned the King of France, the great lords and the knights, and the clergy, secular and regular, of the kingdom to assume the cross and go forth to extirpate from southern France the albergensians, worse than the Saracens, and that he promised to the chiefs of the crusaders the sovereignty of such domains as they should win by conquest from the princes who were heretics or protectors of heretics. End of chapter 18 part 4