countess his wife, ’Noble countess, give thou joyously this glittering sword to the count thy spouse:  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 Suger, “restored peace to the kingdom, and took away himself and his war to the bottomless pit of hell.”  Hugh du Puiset had frequently broken his oaths of peace and recommenced his devastations and revolts; and Louis resumed his course of hunting him down, “destroyed the castle of Puiset, threw down the walls, dug up the wells, and razed it completely to the ground, as a place devoted to the curse of Heaven.”  Thomas de Marle, Lord of Couci, had been_ committing cruel ravages upon the town and church of Laon, lands and inhabitants; when “Louis, summoned by their complaints, repaired to Laon, and there, on the advice of the bishops and grandees, and especially of Raoul, the illustrious Count of Vermandois, the most powerful, after the king, of the lords in this part of the country, he determined to go and attack the castle of Couci, and so went back to his own camp.  The people whom he had sent to explore the spot reported that the approach to 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 Laon 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.’  Forthwith, in spite of his corpulence, and with admirable ardor, 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 Laon, 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 Laon, 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,” says Suger, “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