But, of course, a king could not go off to the wars at once as if he was a common knight, and it took Louis nearly two years to make his preparations. He had to see that his kingdom would be properly governed during his absence, and once more Queen Blanche was appointed regent, with a council to help her. Then money had to be collected, which was a very difficult matter, and the well-being of the army to be provided for, as, like Hannibal, Louis was very careful for the comfort of his men. But at length everything was ready, and on June 12, 1248, the king, accompanied by his brothers, rode to the Abbey of Saint-Denis, where the pope's legate, or envoy, delivered to him the staff and wallet of a pilgrim, and the standard of France.

Queen Margaret had refused to be left behind, and the king's two brothers—Robert, Count of Artois, and Charles, Count of Anjou, both unlucky, violent and reckless—had taken the cross with the king. Near Corbeil he bade farewell to his mother, who knew full well she would see him no more, and started on the road south.

Two months later he entered the little town of Aigues-Mortes, hardly bigger to-day than when the army of seven thousand men marched through its narrow streets and down the narrow spit of land jutting out into the sea, known as the Grau Louis, where the fleet awaited them. They sailed first to Cyprus, where they were forced to spend nine months, for, as always happened in the crusades, quarrels broke out between the different princes, and it required all Louis' tact and firmness to reconcile them. They were also disagreed as to the best point of attack on the enemy, but at length Louis decided that as the assault on Jerusalem had been made by the Turcoman tribes, under the orders of the Sultan of Egypt, and that he was the real master of the city, it would be wiser to begin by subduing Egypt, and with this purpose the army crossed the sea and landed at Damietta.

After one victory, everything seemed to go against the Crusaders. They had forgotten that Egypt was a country quite unlike every other, and that the rise of the Nile would interfere with the movement of troops. When they understood this, they determined to pass the summer in Damietta, a resolve which, perhaps more than anything else, led to the failure of the expedition. The troops, overcome by the heat, grew lazy, and declined to obey orders, or submit to discipline. They robbed the peasants, extorted money from them, and, encouraged by the example of their leaders, spent their days in eating and drinking. They neglected, too, their military duties, and many a sentry was killed by the enemy as he slept at his post. Louis did all he could to stop the state of things, and at first punished the wrongdoers severely, especially his own countrymen. But very soon he saw that he was powerless to restore discipline; the offenders were too numerous, and, under the Feudal System, were only responsible each to his own leader. Then the king's brothers gave him bad advice and caused serious mischief. At the battle of Mansourah, forced on by the rashness of the Count of Artois, the young man himself was killed as well as the flower of the nobility. Louis himself was in the thickest of the mélée  and fought desperately, and by the end of the day the Crusaders had beaten back the Saracens and had the victory—a barren one—in their hands. But instead of returning at once to Damietta, where all their provisions were stored, the king, most imprudently, stayed where he was, and suffered the enemy to lie between him and the town. Their supplies were cut off and soon famine broke out, while plague followed. In every place where lay the sick and the dying, the king might be seen, tending them himself and praying with them.

I cannot die till I have beheld my holy master, said his valet, and when Louis heard of it he ran to the man's bedside, and took him in his arms.

As the weeks went on, things grew worse and food more scarce. You had to pay 30l. for a sheep, and 80l. for a cow. Crowds of soldiers, rendered desperate by hunger, went over to the Saracen camp, and those of them who were ready to give up their religion and become Mohammedans were sure for the future to lead an easy life. At last, just when the king had issued orders for a retreat to Damietta, he was himself struck down with the plague.

Leave the king as a hostage, and we will exchange Jerusalem for Damietta, so ran a message which the Saracens sent into the Christian camp. The French barons rejected the terms with horror, but there was a large part of the army who would have thankfully agreed to the proposal had they been consulted. Murmurs were heard in the tents, and the men went sullenly about their work. The generals saw that the move to Damietta must be made at once or there would be a revolt, and wished to send Louis with the rest of the sick by boat down the Nile. But the king would not listen to them.

My soldiers have risked their lives for the service of God and for me, he said, and I will lead them back to France or die a prisoner with them.

That night the army, hardly more than skin and bone, began the retreat—the king, as weak as any of them, riding in the rear, in the most dangerous place of all. At daybreak the Saracens fell on them, and feeble as they were, the Crusaders were instantly put to the rout. The Royal Standard of France, the Oriflamme, and many other famous banners, were taken, and Louis and his brothers, the Counts of Poitiers and Anjou, obliged to surrender.

Whether from pity, or from dread lest death should deprive him of the king's ransom, the Sultan gave orders that the skilful Saracen doctors should nurse him carefully, and slowly he began to mend. He bore the harsh treatment that he suffered without one complaint, and devoted his thoughts to arranging a truce which should include the ransoming of the entire army. The poor should be set free, as well as the rich, he said, and I will never leave my prison till the money needed is obtained.

Thanks to Queen Margaret at Damietta, brave and energetic as Louis himself, the ransom was found. The news of her husband's captivity was a terrible blow to her and to his mother in France. But Margaret kept her sorrows to herself, and went about the streets of Damietta with a calm face, seeing that the fortifications were in good order, and managing to enlist for the defence a number of Genoese and Pisan soldiers, who were excellent fighters.

If the Saracens should take the town, I command you to kill me. I will never fall into their hands, she said to the knight eighty years old, who was her only bodyguard. However, Damietta was not taken, but surrendered, and Queen Margaret set sail for Acre, carrying with her the little son who had been born a few days before, and was called Tristan or sorrow.

There are many stories which show that Louis' truth and justice, and still more his patience, made a deep impression on his captors; and gradually led them to treat him with more kindness than in the beginning. He was careless whether he lived or died himself; it was entirely, as they saw, of his people that he was thinking.

The Frankish  king, they said to each other, discusses the terms of peace as if we were in his power and not he in ours; and they looked on him as a creature they could not understand, when he refused to take advantage of a mistake of the Saracens in counting out the ransom, and paid the ten thousand pounds needed to complete the sum agreed upon. Surely a man must be mad to act thus!

Nor was he less indifferent when an ignoble death at the hands of a common soldier threatened him.

Dub me a knight or I will kill you, a Mameluke or Turkish guard, said to him one day.

Become a Christian, and I will knight you, but not till then, answered Louis, and the man held his peace and let him go.

The king and his army did not go back to France after the truce was made, but set sail for the Holy Land, accompanied very reluctantly by the nobles who broke out into open rebellion when they reached Acre. Only Joinville, the Seneschal and chronicler, who was one of Louis' closest friends for twenty-two years, urged him not to leave Palestine, for the various Mohammedan States both in Egypt and Syria, were divided among themselves, and there was a chance that Jerusalem might yet fall into the hands of the Crusaders. At any rate, the presence of an army would be a help to their own people. This was the king's opinion also, but he could not prevail on the barons to stay, and in August they departed to France, the king's brothers sailing with them.

During four years Louis maintained his position in the Holy Land, in spite of a lack both of men and money, for all the European sovereigns and powerful cities, such as Venice and Genoa, were too busy with their own affairs to give him help. His mother alone was faithful, and sent him all the supplies she could raise. Patiently he went from place to place, building walls and towers for defence, many of which may still be seen. As in the days of his boyhood at Royaumont he mixed mortar and fixed stones. He also encouraged other workers by his example, tended those who fell ill, visiting them constantly, and ransoming as far as he could the Christian slaves in Egypt and Syria. He even succeeded, so strong was the force of his goodness, in converting some of the Saracens whom he had taken captive, and he always protected the women and children. More surprising still, he never suffered the Mohammedans who later returned to their own faith, to be mocked at or ill-treated.

In the midst of these labours, a new sorrow fell upon him in the death of his mother, and there was no one to take her place in France or to keep down the turbulent nobles. Louis felt that his country needed him and the Christians in Palestine did not, for he had done the work he had set himself, and for the present they were in safety.

So amidst the tears and blessings of the people he started from Acre at Easter 1254, and made straight for Cyprus.

Once again he was pursued by misfortune, for during a fog the ship struck on a sand bank and was in danger of sinking. The sailors and passengers gave way to panic, but the king quietly went to the bridge of the vessel and knelt in prayer till the captain ordered a sounding to be taken, and found that though they could not move, yet they were in deep water, and for the present were safe. Next day divers went down, and discovered that the keel was broken, and it was very doubtful if the ship could weather a heavy sea.

You must leave the ship, sire, said they, for she will never stand the waves.

And suppose that the ship belonged to you and was full of cargo, would you abandon her? asked the king.

No, indeed, they all cried at once. We should stick by her.

Then why do you advise me to go.

Ah, sire, it is very different for you! And besides, there are the queen and your three children to think of.

But Louis shook his head. If I go, said he, every man that is on board—and there are five hundred of them—will land in Cyprus, and, perhaps, be afraid to enter a ship again, and so be lost to France. I would rather put myself and the queen and my children in peril than have that upon my conscience.

In this way it was decided: the ship was patched up and spread its sails once more, only to encounter a heavy gale, which, as the divers had foretold, nearly wrecked them. And when that subsided, they came face to face with a yet more terrible death, for one of the queen's maids left her mistress' veil hanging in the cabin near a taper, and it caught fire, fragments of it being blown on to the sheets. Margaret, who was asleep at the time, was awakened by the smell of burning, and awoke. With the presence of mind that never failed her, she leapt out of bed and flung the veil into the sea, crushing the sheets in her hands.

For the rest of the voyage the king went round himself every night to see that all the fires were put out.

Altogether it took them between two and three months to reach French soil, and from the town of Hyères they travelled slowly to Paris. But, however joyful was the welcome given to him, Louis himself was very sad. Not only had he failed in the work he had undertaken, but he had lost many men, and brought pain and suffering upon more. As to all he had suffered himself, and his patience and courage in trying to repair his mistakes, he never gave that a thought. Happily, there was much business waiting for him in Paris, and not having any time to brood upon his troubles he soon became as sensible and cheerful as usual.

Louis' first act was to put an end to the war with Flanders, and then he turned his attention to the struggle with England for the possession of the southern part of France which had come into the hands of Henry II, as the inheritance of his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Now, Eleanor's grandson, Henry III, was on the throne, and he had married another Eleanor, daughter of the Count of Provence, and sister of Queen Margaret. In this year (1254) Henry had been obliged to visit his French dominions to quell a revolt, and he took the queen with him. When all was quiet again he wrote to his brother-in-law, King Louis, saying that he greatly wished to see Paris and the wonders of the Sainte-Chapelle, of whose beauty he had heard from travellers, and he entreated permission to pass a short time at the Court. He would bring with him, he added, Queen Eleanor, her mother, the old Countess of Provence, and her two sisters Sanchia, wife of his brother Richard of Cornwall, and Beatrice, Countess of Anjou. This proposal pleased everybody.

It was rare, indeed, in those times for a whole family to meet when once they had married and left their early home, and Queen Margaret was rejoiced to see them all again, and to show them her children. The citizens of Paris, who had so long lived in gloom and anxiety, were delighted at the chance of being gay once more, and gave the visitors a splendid welcome. Garlands of flowers wreathed the houses, and multitudes of torches lit up the streets at night—not the long wide streets that we know, of course, but narrow, crooked ones, with towers and pointed roofs and arched doorways. And while the princesses were sitting in their bower, chattering fast over all that had happened since one by one they had left the castle in Provence, the two kings were riding through Paris, and Henry saw, as he wished, the Sainte-Chapelle and the glorious windows which we also may see, and beheld the Crown of Thorns that many years before the king had carried barefoot from the town of Sens, to lay it for awhile in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame.

Then they all, ladies as well as gentlemen, dined at a banquet in the Temple, and the King of England made presents to the French nobles, and everyone was merry and happy. Yet, if they could have looked forward down the centuries, they would have seen a sight to bring tears to the eyes of the most hardened. From the prison, built on the very spot where they were then sitting, the King of France, Louis XVI, was led to his execution. At the foot of the guillotine, mingling with the hooting mob, stood the Abbé Edgworth, and his eyes met the king's.

Son of Saint-Louis ascend to heaven, said the Abbé, as the knife fell.

But that scene was five hundred and fifty years distant.

The result of the King of England's visit was a peace, granting favourable terms to France, with the cession of Normandy and some other provinces, in exchange for territories north of the river Garonne, not half so valuable. Besides which, Henry swore to do homage for the whole of his possessions, and Louis was quite satisfied though his barons were not, thinking he might have got more.

The remaining years of Louis' reign were occupied in establishing law and order throughout France, and in constantly acting as peace-maker in foreign quarrels. He, as many other kings have done, forbade duels, though not with much success, and was at all times ready to listen to his people. Anyone had liberty to come to him as he sat under an oak in the wood of Vincennes or in his own garden, and either he would judge the case or listen to his counsellors doing so, as Joinville, himself one of those chosen, describes to us. The king's dress on these occasions was very simple, consisting of a loose cloth coat without sleeves, a tunic or sort of waistcoat, and a cap with a white peacock's feather. Unlike most judges of that day he was more merciful to the poor than to the rich and noble, and with his own brother, Charles of Anjou, he was most severe of all. Charles gave him much trouble all through his life, owing to his violence and rashness. It seems strange that Queen Blanche, who brought up Louis so well, and was so strict with him, should have suffered the younger ones to grow up so unruly. But she was a great deal away from Paris, and may have been obliged to leave them to other people who, from laziness or a desire to make themselves liked, allowed them to do as they pleased.

After Louis' return from the crusade, men noticed that he was even more spare in his way of living than before. Except on great occasions he was seen no more in the scarlet gowns and furs in which, as a young man, he had taken pride, and his food was of the plainest. He fed the poor with his own hands during Lent, and often went the round of the hospitals in Paris, bathing the wounds of the patients and not shrinking even from the lepers. Yet, he could still laugh and enjoy a good story, and he encouraged his friends to talk as freely before him as when he was not present. As for swearing he never practised it himself, and, when he could, punished it severely in others. Hunting he had long given up; dicing—Charles of Anjou's favourite game—he disliked; but he watched with the deepest interest the progress of the magnificent cathedrals of Amiens, Rheims, and others, which were then rising throughout France. He collected books, and welcomed scholars to his palace. In addition, he was very particular about his children's education, and had them with him whenever it was possible. He insisted that his sons should go to mass with him, and keep the fasts and feasts of the church; and though he left his daughters chiefly to their mother's direction he wrote to them after their marriages as often as he could, begging them not to forget their duty both to God and their people.

It was a sad day for France when the king publicly took the cross, an example which was followed by his three elder sons and a few of the great nobles. The citizens and most of the barons strongly disapproved, but during the three years of preparation many were won over. At length in 1270, all was ready. Two of the king's most trusted counsellors were appointed regents, and a second time he received the Oriflamme  at Saint-Denis, and the pilgrim's wallet and staff from the legate. Now it was his wife and not his mother who was to be left behind, and bitter was the parting, for he was worn out with a life's hard work, and well she knew that she would see his face no more.

It was the middle of July when the army, which had sailed from Aigues-Mortes, landed near Tunis and at once formed camp on the ruins of Carthage. But what had occurred at Damietta was repeated here. The enemy would not give a pitched battle, but cut off their supplies till illness broke out, Prince John being one of the first victims. The grief at his son's death gave the final blow to the king, and he had no strength to resist when the disease laid hold of him also. He knew the end was at hand, and for himself he welcomed it. His affairs he had set in order before he left France, but he managed to write down a few directions for his eldest son Philip, who was to succeed him. Then he begged that the last sacraments might be given him, and said aloud the seven Penitential Psalms, after which he was laid on a bed of ashes, with his hands crossed on his breast, and remained speechless till the hour of three, when he gave up his soul. Nine months later his bones were carried to France, and buried in the Abbey of Saint-Denis.

A piteous thing and worthy of tears is the death of this holy prince, said one who loved him.