in your hands.’  The king crossed himself and said, Well, tell me how that is made out!’ ‘Sir,’ said the bishop, ’it is because nowadays so little note is taken of excommunications, that folk let death overtake them excommunicate without getting absolution, and have no mind to make atonement to the Church.  These lords, therefore, do pray you, sir, for the love of God and because you ought to do so, to command your provosts and bailiffs that all those who shall remain a year and a day excommunicate be forced, by seizure of their goods, to get themselves absolved.’  Whereto the king made answer that he would willingly command this in respect of the excommunicate touching whom certain proofs should be given him that they were in the wrong.  The bishop said that the prelates would not have this at any price, and that they disputed the king’s right of jurisdiction in their causes.  And the king said that he would not do it else; for it would be contrary to God and reason if he should force folks to get absolution when the clergy had done them wrong.  As to that,’ said the king, ’I will give you the example of the Count of Brittany, who for seven years, being fully excommunicate, was at pleas with the prelates of Brittany; and he prevailed so far that the pope condemned them all.  If, then, I had forced the Count of Brittany, the first year, to get absolution, I should have sinned against God and against him.’  Then the prelates gave up; and never since that time have I heard that a single demand was made touching the matters above spoken of.” (Joinville, chap. xiii. p. 43.)

One special fact in the civil and municipal administration of St. Louis deserves to find a place in history.  After the time of Philip Augustus there was malfeasance in the police of Paris.  The provostship of Paris, which comprehended functions analogous to those of prefect, mayor, and receiver-general, became a purchasable office, filled sometimes by two provosts at a time.  The burghers no longer found justice or security in the city where the king resided.  At his return from his first crusade, Louis recognized the necessity for applying a remedy to this evil; the provostship ceased to be a purchasable office; and he made it separate from the receivership of the royal domain.  In 1258 he chose as provost Stephen Boileau, a burgher of note and esteem in Paris; and in order to give this magistrate the authority of which he had need, the king sometimes came and sat beside him when he was administering justice at the Chatelet.  Stephen Boileau justified the king’s confidence, and maintained so strict a police that he had his own godson hanged for theft.  His administrative foresight was equal to his judicial severity.  He established registers wherein were to be inscribed the rules habitually followed in respect of the organization and work of the different corporations of artisans, the tariffs of the dues charged, in the name of the king, upon the admittance of provisions and merchandise, and