THE son of Philip Augustus, Louis VIII, whose accession was celebrated in Paris with high festivity, reigned for three dismal, unprofitable years. His wife, Blanche of Castile, reared to a manhood of conscientious rectitude their son, Louis IX, whose virtues were recognized by canonization less than thirty years after his death.

It has happened, oddly enough, that although women are forbidden by the fourteenth century construction of the Salic Law to sit on the throne of France as sovereigns, no country has been more frequently ruled by women. Sometimes the queen-mother has acted as regent during the minority of her son, sometimes the queen has steered the ship of state while her husband was out of the country on war intent. Isabella of Hainault, Philip Augustus’s first wife, was regent when her lord went to the third crusade in 1189; Blanche of Castile governed her son’s kingdom for ten years (1226-1236); Anne de Beaujeu, daughter of Louis XI, guided the realm of her brother, Charles VIII, from 1483-1490; Louise de Savoie ruled (1515) until her son, Francis I came of age, and was again entrusted with the power when he went upon one of his many military expeditions; Catherine de Medicis, the mother of three kings—Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III—began her career as a ruler when her husband, Henry II, was warring with Germany (1552), continued it unofficially during the short reign of Francis II, was legal regent (1560) during the minority of Charles IX, and enjoyed a long continuance of influence because of his and his brother Henry III’s weakness of character which she herself had fostered; Marie de Medicis (1610) played havoc with Henry IV’s reorganized France during the long minority of her son, Louis XIII; Maria Theresa controlled the kingdom of Louis XIV while the “Sun King” was carrying war into Holland; Marie Louise was declared regent when Napoleon left France (1812-1814) to meet the allied forces of Austria, England, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden; and EugÉnie took her husband’s place when Napoleon III fought against Austria (1859) and again (1870) when he left his country, never to return to it, during the ill-advised contest with Prussia.

Blanche of Castile was a person of extraordinary political intelligence, tact and administrative ability. The years of her son’s minority were made turbulent by unruly vassals who thought to take advantage of the inexperience of a woman, yet the queen-regent proved herself able to cope with every situation that arose. She endeared herself and the young king to the burgesses by appealing to them for support against the lords, and the lords realized the worth of the citizens’ friendship. On one occasion, when the bourgeois of Paris set forth to meet and protect their young master who was surrounded by foes at some distance from the city, the nobles, hearing the news, gave up their iniquitous intentions and went to their homes. Indeed, it was their lack of coÖperation among themselves that enabled Louis all through his reign to strengthen the royal power at the expense of that of his subjects.

In her treatment of these troublesome lords Blanche was not always obliged to use such stern measures as force of arms. Her armory was full of woman’s weapons, for she was handsome and gracious, and her manner and charm often brought about conclusions which she might not have reached by argument. In spite of the constant uprisings and conspiracies with which she had to contend the kingdom as a whole did not degenerate, and Philip Augustus’s strong foundation was not undermined. More and more power became centralized in the throne, Louis pursuing from a single-hearted belief that such a concentration was best for his people, the policy which his grandfather undertook for ambition’s sake.

Had Louis followed his personal inclinations he would have entered the religious life. It has been suggested that Blanche encouraged this spirit in him, not because it would have been possible for him to have given up his throne, but because, if his interests were involved elsewhere he would not interfere with his mother’s rule of his kingdom. Blanche’s failing was jealousy. Jealous even of her own child, she continued to force her influence upon Louis after he was of age. Jealousy moved her to interfere between him and his wife, Margaret of Provence, so that they had to meet by stealth. She even took him from his wife’s bedside when she was thought to be dying. Naturally such an attitude did not endear her to her daughter-in-law, and Margaret, envious perhaps, in her turn became ambitious for power which she was not competent to wield. Who shall say that Louis had an easy life between an ambitious mother to whom his dignity did not permit him to give way, and a wife, finely courageous, but without talents of the larger sort! Only the fact that he loved both women tenderly could have given him the wisdom to steer his course straight.

The English king, Henry III, became involved in a quarrel between Louis and one of his vassals, and invaded France. Louis took the oriflamme from Saint Denis and went against his foes, gaining victory after victory but using his gain with a moderation and kindness very different from the custom of the time. After the first hurt to his pride had worn away Henry was of a mind to be glad to accept Louis’ offer to give back to him such of his holdings in France as had been captured in the recent war, provided that Henry renounced others for all time, and admitted himself the vassal of France for those he still retained.

The ceremony of swearing the oath to Louis took place in the square (now the Place Dauphine) at the western end of the palace. Amid a great gathering of nobles and priests both French and English, Henry, dressed with no sign of his royal state, not even wearing sword, spurs, cape or head covering, knelt before Louis, laid his hands in his, and made oath, “Sir, I become your liegeman with mouth and hands, and I swear and promise you faith and loyalty, and to guard your right according to my power, and to do fair justice at your summons or the summons of your bailiff, to the best of my wit.”

Wise as he was in the rearing of his children, just to his people so that even the quarrelsome lords brought their troubles to his Paris court, generous to the poor and merciful to the afflicted, Louis was cruelly harsh to those whom he considered at fault on the score of religion. Heretics, so-called, he punished with severity; blasphemers he caused to be branded on the mouth, saying that he himself would consent to be branded with a hot iron if by that means all profane oaths might be removed from his realm. “I was full twenty-two years in his company,” says de Joinville, “and never heard him swear by God nor His Mother nor His Saints. When he wished to affirm anything he would say ‘Truly that was so,’ or ‘Truly, that is so.’”

On one occasion when he had commanded the branding of a Paris burgher the decree was harshly criticised by the people. When these same folk a little later were praising the king for some good works that he had done for the city he said that he expected more favor from God for the curses that his branding order had brought down upon his head than for the honor that he received for these good works.

Queen Blanche was given to benevolence and during her regency set her son an example which he willingly followed throughout his life. It was she who excited his interest in continuing the rebuilding of the HÔtel Dieu, the hospital which had stood in one guise or another for some half dozen centuries on the south side of the CitÉ between the cathedral and the river. A later annex was built on the left bank of the Seine adjoining Saint Julien-le-Pauvre, and this section was not demolished until 1908, although the buildings on the CitÉ were torn down and the present HÔtel Dieu on the north of the cathedral was built some forty years ago.

Louis’ philanthropic leanings included an establishment for the blind, three hundred (“Quinze-Vingts,” “Fifteen-Twenties”) being sheltered in a hospice which stood near the present Palais Royal, but is now established in the eastern part of the town. His interest in learning moved him to encourage his chaplain, Robert de Sorbon, in the enlargement of the school named after him, the Sorbonne, which Robert had undertaken at first for poor students, but which, under royal patronage, became a renowned theological school. It has always been independent in attitude, now opposed to the Reformation, now to the Jesuits, now to the Jansenists. To-day it is the University of Paris, the building on the Mont Sainte GeneviÈve being given over to the faculties of arts and sciences. Here come students from all over the world to listen to the foremost lecturers of France in a huge edifice which about a quarter of a century ago replaced one built by Richelieu. With the generosity which France has always shown in educational matters all the lectures are free.

The palace on the CitÉ remained under Louis the heart of the bustling city of 130,000 people. Here he came after his wedding, and the room that he occupied was used by many succeeding monarchs on the night after their first entry into Paris. The king’s library, built as a part of the palace, was filled with the work of several thousand copyists. Louis threw the building open to young students as well as to old scholars, and loved nothing better than to walk about among the young men and explain their tasks to them. In the palace garden the king used to sit and administer justice. De Joinville says:

Other parts of the palace were built by Saint Louis, notably the vaulted guard hall in the lower part of the north side. The ancient round towers belong to the Conciergerie where, during the Revolution, Marie Antoinette and many others as brave and as innocent went from imprisonment to death by the guillotine. Queen Blanche gave her name to an existing room in one of the towers.

In early days the towers must have been an impressive feature of the building. Their foundations are sunk below the surface of the river, and where the king’s hall opened on the street at the water level these massive constructions, now half buried by the quay, rose, tall and menacing on the island’s shore.

The Tour de l’Horloge, the square tower at the corner, replaces an early Merovingian tower on the same spot. The oldest public clock in France still tells the hour from its sculptured canopy, and its bell gave the left bank signal for the massacre of Saint Bartholomew.

Unable to leave his royal duties for the monastery, as he would have liked, Louis showed his leaning by the fostering of many religious houses. Paris was filled with brethren of the various orders, later to become a doubtful blessing, but now sincere, useful, typical of the trusting nature of the thirteenth century. Louis sat at their feet in spirit as he did literally before the great, lecturers of the University. To the Louvre he added a chapel.

It was to be expected that the Crusades would find an ardent response in the king. He went twice to the East, the first time to suffer a long captivity, and the last time to lose his life.

It was through the crusades that Louis became the owner of the Crown of Thorns whose possession gave him the highest pleasure that his life knew. Because of it Paris was enriched by one of its most beautiful buildings. The Emperor Baldwin, it appears, had borrowed a large sum of money from some merchants of Venice, giving as security the sacred relic. When he failed to redeem his pledge the merchants sought to recoup themselves. Louis regarded as a direct gift from Heaven this opportunity to secure for himself and his kingdom a relic so holy. The price asked was about $270,000, an enormous sum for that time. The money was raised, however, a part of it by forced contributions from the Jews, who had begun to drift back to France because their usefulness made it expedient to disregard Philip Augustus’s edict of banishment. Messengers carefully selected for their probity and piety, brought the Crown from Italy into France. It was encased in a coffer of gold which was set into another of silver and that in turn into a box of wood.

The king, dressed as a penitent and barefooted, met the messengers at the town of Sens, about sixty miles from Paris. There he took the casket into his own hands and walked with it all the way to the city. So eager were the crowds to see the procession that it could move but at the slowest pace. The multitude thickened as the city folk came out from the walls to join in reverencing the treasure. In order that every one might rest his eyes upon it Louis caused a lofty stand to be erected in an open spot and there the foremost of the clergy of France took turns in elevating the Crown for the crowds to see.

At Vincennes, east of Paris, the monks from the Abbey of Saint Denis joined the escort. When the advance was renewed Louis again bore the sacred casket which he carried to a spot of safety in the cathedral of Notre Dame which was at that time just about approaching completion.

From the cathedral Louis removed the relic to the chapel of Saint Nicholas, attached to the palace, so that it might be under his close supervision, and then, in an ecstasy of reverence he planned for its shelter a building which should be “in no wise like the houses of men,” the Sainte Chapelle. Only royal chapels received the title “Sainte.” This exquisitely beautiful structure is indeed royal, as it is truly a chapel, small and without transepts. The lower part contains the crypt with ogival vaulting which the builder, Pierre de Montereau, the architect of

the refectory of Saint Martin-des-Champs, learned, perhaps, from the Saracens. This part of the church was used for the religious services of the servants of the palace. It has been restored recently with the vivid red and blue and gold of its original decoration. Above is the main body of the chapel, with no entrance except that into the palace whence it was Louis’s habit to come twice or thrice during each night to prostrate himself before the altar. The chapel’s solid walls reach not far above a man’s head, and above them is a glittering mass of gorgeous glass, some of it the original. At the eastern end a gilded framework supports the platform to which the king ascended by a tiny staircase on the left side to show the sacred relic to the devout. Behind him the lower part of the western window was of plain glass that the people gathered in the courtyard might have the same privilege as those inside. The gold and jeweled covering of the relic was seized during the Revolution. The Crown, cased in glass, is now in the sacristy of Notre Dame.

The chapel’s glass tells the story of the coming of the relic to France and has portraits of the king and of Queen Blanche. In the outside carving as well as in the inside decoration Louis’s fleur-de-lis and his mother’s towers of Castile are repeated. The R of the rex stands supported by angels. A wealth of loving ornament enriches the western faÇade.

At one side a tiny window cut slanting in the thickness of the wall is the only opening from the chapel into a private room built on to the outside by Louis XI who feared assassination if he should attend mass openly.

The flÈche now rising from the roof dates from 1853 and is the fourth of its kind. The second was burned, and the third destroyed in the Revolution. It is wonderful that the whole building did not meet a similar fate, for it was used as a storehouse for flour and received no gentle treatment. To-day, although still a consecrated edifice, but one service is held in it during the year. That is called the “Red Mass” and to it go the judiciaries, clad in their scarlet robes, when the courts open in the autumn, to celebrate the “Mass of the Holy Ghost.”

Louis’ conscientiousness as a sovereign extended even to the business details of the city of Paris, now so grown that its traffic required four bridges to knit the island with the right and left banks. The king established the Parliament of Paris, not a parliament in the English sense of the word, but a court of justice. A body of watchmen policed the streets. The guilds and corporations had a carefully developed organization. Municipal administration was placed under the care of the Provost of the Merchants and a body of councillors. The king was represented by the Provost of Paris. This office had so fallen into disrepute that it was with difficulty that Louis could secure any one to undertake the responsibility. How he reformed the office so that the holder became so eager to serve his fellow-citizens that he slept, all dressed, in the ChÂtelet, that he might be ready to do his duty at any hour, DeJoinville describes.

“The provostship of Paris was at that time sold to the citizens of Paris, or indeed to any one; and those who bought the office upheld their children and nephews in wrongdoing; and the young folk relied in their misdoings on those who occupied the provostship. For which reason the mean people were greatly downtrodden.

“And because of the great injustice that was done, and the great robberies perpetuated in the provostship, the mean people did not dare to sojourn in the king’s land, but went and sojourned in other provostships and other lordships. And the king’s land was so deserted that when the provost held his court, no more than ten or twelve people came thereto.

“With all this there were so many malefactors and thieves in Paris and the country adjoining that all the land was full of them. The king, who was very diligent to enquire how the mean people were governed and protected, soon knew the truth of this matter. So he forbade that the office of provost in Paris should be sold; and he gave great and good wages to those who henceforth should hold the said office. And he abolished all the evil customs harmful to the people; and he caused enquiry to be made throughout the kingdom to find men who would execute good and strict justice, and not spare the rich any more than the poor.

“Then was brought to his notice Stephen Boileau, who so maintained and upheld the office of provost that no malefactor, nor thief, nor murderer dared to remain in Paris, seeing that if he did, he was soon hung or exterminated; neither parentage, nor lineage, nor gold, nor silver could save him. So the king’s land began to amend, and people resorted thither for the good justice that prevailed.”