[Illustration:  St. Louis administering justice——­46]

In the first years of his government, when he had reached his majority, there was nothing to show that the idea of the crusade occupied Louis ix.’s mind; and it was only in 1239, when he was now four and twenty, that it showed itself vividly in him.  Some of his principal vassals, the Counts of Champagne, Brittany, and Macon, had raised an army of crusaders, and were getting ready to start for Palestine; and the king was not contented with giving them encouragement, but “he desired that Amaury de Montfort, his constable, should, in his name, serve Jesus Christ in this war; and for that reason he gave him arms and assigned to him per day a sum of money, for which Amaury thanked him on his knees, that is, did him homage, according to the usage of those times.  And the crusaders were mighty pleased to have this lord with them.”

Five years afterwards, at the close of 1244, Louis fell seriously ill at Pontoise; the alarm and sorrow in the kingdom were extreme; the king himself believed that his last hour was come; and he had all his household summoned, thanked them for their kind attentions, recommended them to be good servants of God, “and did all that a good Christian ought to do.  His mother, his wife, his brothers, and all who were about him kept continually praying for him; his mother, beyond all others, adding to her prayers great austerities.”  Once he appeared motionless and breathless; and he was supposed to be dead.  “One of the dames who were tending him,” says Joinville, “would have drawn the sheet over his face, saying that he was dead; but another dame, who was on the other side of the bed, would not suffer it, saying that there was still life in his body.  When the king heard the dispute between these two dames, our Lord wrought in him:  he began to sigh, stretched his arms and legs, and said, in a hollow voice, as if he had come forth from the tomb, ’He, by God’s grace, hath visited me, He who cometh from on high, and hath recalled me from amongst the dead.’  Scarcely had he recovered his senses and speech, when he sent for William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris, together with Peter de Cuisy, Bishop of Meaux, in whose diocese he happened to be, and requested them ’to place upon his shoulder the cross of the voyage over the sea.’  The two bishops tried to divert him from this idea, and the two queens, Blanche and Marguerite, conjured him on their knees to wait till he was well, and after that he might do as he pleased.  He insisted, declaring that he would take no nourishment till he had received the cross.  At last the Bishop of Paris yielded, and gave him a cross.  The king received it with transport, kissing it, and placing it right gently Upon his breast.”  “When the queen, his mother, knew that he had taken the cross,” says Joinville, “she made as great mourning as if she had seen him dead.”