to him the whole; and if you think you have a right to it, it seemeth to us that you are a loser by all you restore.”  “Sirs,” answered Louis, “I am certain that the antecessors of the King of England did quite justly lose the conquest which I hold; and as for the land I give him, I give it him not as a matter in which I am bound to him or his heirs, but to make love between my children and his, who are cousins-german.  And it seemeth to me that what I give him I turn to good purpose, inasmuch as he was not my liegeman, and he hereby cometh in amongst my liegeman.”  Henry III., in fact, went to Paris, having with him the ratification of the treaty, and prepared to accomplish the ceremony of homage.  “Louis received him as a brother, but without sparing him aught of the ceremony, in which, according to the ideas of the times, there was nothing humiliating any more than in the name of vassal, which was proudly borne by the greatest lords.  It took place on Thursday, December 4, 1259, in the royal enclosure stretching in front of the palace, on the spot where at the present day is the Place Dauphine.  There was a great concourse of prelates, barons, and other personages belonging to the two courts and the two nations.  The King of England, on his knees, bareheaded, without cloak, belt, sword, or spurs, placed his folded hands in those of the King of France his suzerain, and said to him, ’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.’  Then the king kissed him on the mouth and raised him up.”

[Illustration:  ST. LOUIS MEDIATING BETWEEN HENRY III.  AND HIS BARONS——­ 136]

Three years later Louis gave not only to the King of England, but to the whole English nation, a striking proof of his judicious and true-hearted equity.  An obstinate civil war was raging between Henry III. and his barons.  Neither party, in defending its own rights, had any notion of respecting the rights of its adversaries, and England was alternating between a kingly and an aristocratic tyranny.  Louis, chosen as arbiter by both sides, delivered solemnly, on the 23d of January, 1264, a decision which was favorable to the English kingship, but at the same, time expressly upheld the Great Charter and the traditional liberties of England.  He concluded his decision with the following suggestions of amnesty:  “We will also that the King of England and his barons do forgive one another mutually, that they do forget all the resentments that may exist between them; by consequence of the matters submitted to our arbitration, and that henceforth they do refrain reciprocally from an offence and injury on account of the same matters.”  But when men have had their ideas, passions, and interests profoundly agitated and made to clash, the wisest decisions and the most honest counsels in the