Chapter III: The Development of the Absolute Monarchy (2)

In his lifetime the contemporaries of St. Louis suspected in their simplicity that he was already a saint, and more saintly than the priests. Says the king’s confessor, Geoffrey de Beaulieu:[l] “Whilst he lived a word might be said of him which is said of St. Hilary, ‘O most perfect layman whose life priests even desire to imitate.’ For many priests and laymen desired to be like the blessed king in his virtues and his morals; for it is even thought that he was a saint in his lifetime.”[d]

The French during this reign accomplished a great achievement without the help of royalty. Charles of Anjou, count of Provence, summoned by the pope against King Manfred, son of the emperor Frederick II, conquered the kingdom of Naples in 1266. But the Latins had five years before lost Constantinople which the Greeks had taken possession of. It was to the interested advice of Charles of Anjou that was due the direction taken by the last crusade, since the submission of the king of Tunis would free Sicily from the constant attempts of the Saracens upon that island.[f]

_Hallam’s Estimate of St. Louis_

[Sidenote: [1226-1270 A.D.]]

Louis IX had methods of preserving his ascendency very different from military prowess. That excellent prince was perhaps the most eminent pattern of unswerving probity and Christian strictness of conscience that ever held the sceptre in any country. There is a peculiar beauty in the reign of St. Louis, because it shows the inestimable benefit which a virtuous king may confer on his people, without possessing any distinguished genius. For nearly half a century that he governed France, there is not the smallest want of moderation or disinterestedness in his actions; and yet he raised the influence of the monarchy to a much higher point than the most ambitious of his predecessors.

To the surprise of his own and later times, he restored great part of his conquests to Henry III, whom he might naturally hope to have expelled from France. It would indeed have been a tedious work to conquer Guienne, which was full of strong places, and the subjugation of such a province might have alarmed the other vassals of his crown. But it is the privilege only of virtuous minds to perceive that wisdom resides in moderate counsels; no sagacity ever taught a selfish and ambitious sovereign to forego the sweetness of immediate power. An ordinary king, in the circumstances of the French monarchy, would have fomented, or at least have rejoiced in the dissensions which broke out among the principal vassals; Louis constantly employed himself to reconcile them. In this, too, his benevolence had all the effects of far-sighted policy. It had been the practice of his last three predecessors to interpose their mediation in behalf of the less powerful classes--the clergy, the inferior nobility, and the inhabitants of chartered towns. Thus the supremacy of the crown became a familiar idea; but the perfect integrity of St. Louis wore away all distrust, and accustomed even the most jealous feudatories to look upon him as their judge and legislator. And as the royal authority was hitherto shown only in its most amiable prerogatives, the dispensation of favour, and the redress of wrong, few were watchful enough to remark the transition of the French constitution from a feudal league to an absolute monarchy.

It was perhaps fortunate for the display of St. Louis’ virtues that the throne had already been strengthened by the less innocent exertions of Philip Augustus and Louis VIII. A century earlier, his mild and scrupulous character, unsustained by great actual power, might not have inspired sufficient awe. But the crown was now grown so formidable, and Louis was so eminent for his firmness and bravery, qualities without which every other virtue would have been ineffectual, that no one thought it safe to run wantonly into rebellion, while his disinterested administration gave no one a pretext for it. Not satisfied with the justice of his own conduct, Louis aimed at that act of virtue which is rarely practised by private men, and had perhaps no example among kings--restitution. Commissaries were appointed to inquire what possessions had been unjustly annexed to the royal domain during the last two reigns. These were restored to the proprietors, or, where length of time had made it difficult to ascertain the claimant, their value was distributed among the poor.

It has been hinted already that all this excellence of heart in Louis IX was not attended with that strength of understanding which is necessary, we must allow, to complete the usefulness of a sovereign. During his minority, Blanche of Castile, his mother, had filled the office of regent with great courage and firmness. But after he grew up to manhood, her influence seems to have passed the limit which gratitude and piety would have assigned to it; and, as her temper was not very meek or popular, it exposed the king to some degree of contempt. He submitted even to be restrained from the society of his wife Marguerite, daughter of Raymond, count of Provence, a princess of great virtue and conjugal affection.

But the principal weakness of this king, which almost effaced all the good effects of his virtues, was superstition. It would be idle to sneer at those habits of abstemiousness and mortification which were part to the religion of his age, and, at the worst, were only injurious to his own comfort. But he had other prejudices, which, though they may be forgiven, must never be defended. No man was ever more impressed than St. Louis with a belief in the duty of exterminating all enemies to his own faith. With these he thought no layman ought to risk himself in the perilous ways of reasoning, but to make answer with his sword as stoutly as a strong arm and a fiery zeal could carry that argument. Though, fortunately for his fame, the persecution against the Albigenses, which had been the disgrace of his father’s short reign, was at an end before he reached manhood, he suffered a hypocritical monk to establish a tribunal at Paris for the suppression of heresy, where many innocent persons suffered death.[g]

_Piety and Christianity of St. Louis_

The natural piety of St. Louis but strengthened with his growth. His Christian life, or to reduce the statement to its simplest terms, his daily Christianity, which edified his own century, might very easily fill ours with a sense of shock. But whatever it may leave of such an impression, the history would be incomplete which passed over in silence, or only vaguely indicated, that which filled so large a part in his life. Let us not, therefore, endeavour to build up for ourselves a St. Louis in accordance with our present-day tastes. Nothing is beautiful but the true, and that truth which the saintly king sought in all things is alone worthy to retrace the likeness of him which should endure.

According to those of his historians who were most intimate with him--the chaplain who accompanied him on one and another of the Crusades, the confessor whom he kept beside him for twenty years, the confessor of his wife Marguerite--he seemed to live for God alone. The offices were read in the king’s chapel; almost it might have been the chapel of a monastery or the choir of a cathedral. There he had the Hours sung to him, the Office for the Dead being added by his command. He heard two masses, sometimes three or four; and when the grandees grumbled at his wasting so much time on masses and sermons, he retorted that if he were to lose twice as much time over gaming and hunting no one would complain: a remark which scarcely silenced the murmurs; the barons made no complaint against thus wasting their time with him.

The holy Scriptures and the Fathers were his study. Marguerite’s confessor tells us that he caused a candle three feet or thereabouts in height to be lighted, and so long as it lasted read the Bible. He remained for so long a time upon his knees that sometimes his sight and his wits became confused, and, rising up quite dazed, he would ask: “Where am I?” Led back to his room, he would go to bed, but at midnight he was up again and had matins sung by his chaplains (it was no sinecure being king’s chaplain in those days!). He would, however, grant to his attendants the repose he refused for himself. So softly did he rise that on several occasions they did not hear him, or, awakened too late, ran after him barefoot.

Every Friday he made his confession, after which he made his confessor administer “the discipline” to him. This discipline was composed of five small iron chains, which he enclosed in an ivory box and carried about with him. He had similar boxes made, with similar contents, and presented them to his children and his friends, counselling them to make use of them. When his confessor struck him too lightly, he urged him to use more force. This advice was not always needed. He had one confessor so full of zeal (_solicitus sibi_) who struck the king in such a manner as to terribly lacerate his flesh, which was extremely delicate. St. Louis, however, held his peace; he never mentioned the matter so long as the confessor lived, but afterwards he spoke of it laughingly to another. His confessors, one should add, were not commonly so zealous, and they reprimanded him for austerities which threatened his delicate health, and urged him to substitute for them alms, which, as a fact, the king did not stint; and they ended by forcing him to renounce the hair-shirt which he wore during Advent and Lent and on the vigils of certain feasts. He renounced it only to wear occasionally a girdle of horse-hair next his skin.

On Good Friday he would visit all the churches barefoot; to keep up appearances he wore shoes from which the soles had been removed. For the adoration of the cross he removed his upper garments, retaining only his vest and coat. With bare feet and uncovered head he advanced a short distance on his knees, bowed himself in prayer, then advanced a little further, and the third time arrived at the cross, prostrated himself as though he too were crucified, and kissed it, bathed in tears. Fervently did he desire the gift of tears. When in singing the litanies the verse was reached: “Grant us a fountain of tears” (_Ut fontem lacrymarum nobis dones_), he used to say: “Lord, I dare not ask of thee a fount of tears, but only a few drops to refresh my parched and sterile heart.”

Are all these details, which have perhaps provoked the pitying smiles of more than one reader, the marks of a feeble intelligence, or do they rather bear witness to a powerful mind that has perfected self-control by keeping the senses in sternest bondage? One can only truly judge of things by their results. His singleness of speech and his aversion to coarse or equivocal language bore eloquent witness to the purity of his heart. Not only did he detest the licentiousness of contemporary poetry, he was also filled with loathing for the popular songs, and innocently recommended one of his equerries who sang them to learn instead the _Ave Maris Stella_. His modesty was excessive. The purity of his youth had never been shadowed by the slightest hint of license, and marriage only served to throw his chastity into higher relief. He demanded moral uprightness from all in his household, and banished without mercy whoso offended against a virtue so dear to his heart.

On feast days he would bid to his palace two hundred beggars, and himself serve them at table. On the Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays of Advent and Lent, and every Wednesday and Friday throughout the year, he would send for thirteen of them into his own or a neighbouring room and give them food with his own hand, without disgust at their dirtiness. If one among the number was blind the king would give the piece of bread into one of his hands, and guide the other to the bowl containing his portion. If this consisted of fish, he would remove the bones, dip it in the sauce and place the morsel in the blind man’s mouth. Before the meal he gave to each person twelve deniers or more according to his need; and if a mother was there with her child, he added more for the little one. On Saturdays he would choose three of the most decrepit, most miserable among the poor, and leading them into his dressing-room, where towels and three basins of water were in readiness, he washed their feet. With reverence he would dry and kiss those feet, whatever their deformity, however hardened by daily contact with the ground; then, kneeling, he would offer them water to wash their hands, give to each forty deniers, and kiss their hands. Nor was this all. Every day, in all weathers, he sent for thirteen other beggars and from among them chose out the three most repulsive, whom he seated at a table drawn up close beside his own.

On many of these points he would not to-day have won the same universal approbation. It is, however, difficult for us to reinvest his figure with the atmosphere by which it must be surrounded before we can form a just judgment; it is far more difficult to place ourselves at the necessary point of view from which we can see him clearly. The modern historian is ofttimes reduced to pleading extenuating circumstances for the saints; for the saints, and St. Louis among them, have this much in common with the Saviour, that in more than one case they could say with him: “Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.”[h]

St. Louis built the asylum of the Quinze Vingts for the blind, several hospitals, and the church of Vincennes. To provide a place for the crown of thorns which the Venetians had turned over to his keeping, he had built by Pierre de Montereau within the precinct of his palace, now the Palais de Justice, the Sainte Chapelle, a shrine of open-work stone. His confessor Robert de Sorbon founded a community under the title of _Congrégation des pauvres maîtres étudiants en théologie_. This congregation became the Sorbonne, the theological faculty so famous throughout the entire Christian world that Mézeray calls it “the permanent council of the Gauls.”

_Progress of the Monarchy under St. Louis_

The house of Capet had made such progress that no lord now dared say to his vassal, “Come fight under my banner against the lord, our king,” much as this anarchial privilege was still recognised in the so-called “Establishments” of St. Louis, a compilation of customs in vogue in Orleans. The counts of Flanders and of Brittany and the duke of Guienne, were about the only ones who had not degenerated to the condition of docile vassals; yet feudalism still preserved some immense prerogatives and St. Louis attacked these in the name of justice and religion.

In holding to a strict execution of the ordinances of _quarantaine-le-roi_[10] and _asseurement_ (inviolability) he suppressed nearly all private wars. As a Christian he did not approve of these wars which sent to God so many souls ill-prepared to appear before him. As a prince he wished to stop the devastation throughout the country, “the fires and the obstacles placed in the ways of tilling the fields.” He forbade in his domains the _duel judiciare_ which gave over the settlement and right to the chances of skill and strength. The king’s justice usurped the place of individual violence, and proof by witnesses and procedure by writ replaced justice by battle, for “battle is not the path of right.”

The lords still dispensed justice throughout their domains. The villein could not escape this judgment, but the vassal had the rights of appeal to the sovereign from the judgment of his lord “in default of right,” when the lord refused to render justice; for “false judgments” when the condemned believed himself to have been injured by an unjust sentence. Now the king favoured the custom of direct appeal to his court, which subordinated the lord’s justice to that of his own which was final; “for,” says Beaumanoir,[j] “since he is sovereign, his court is sovereign”; and the “Establishments” explain why there could be no appeal from the royal decision: “There is no one who can have this right, since the king gets his power from no one but God and himself.” The duke of Brittany also retained the final appeal. When a case brought to the justice of the lords interested the king, in whatever way it may be, the bailiff raised the “conflict” as we would say nowadays and laid claim to the judgment, the king not being under the jurisdiction of a lord. These cases were the “royal cases.” Legists were most careful to define them so as not to deprive the king’s officials of any pretexts for interfering in trials before the feudal courts. It was easy to multiply these at that time and the officials did not fail to do so--taking as much as possible from the province of the lord’s justice and adding it to the king’s.

At the same time the king’s _bourgeoisie_ was established. An inhabitant of a piece of seigniorial land might under certain conditions of establishment and residence in a royal city acquire the condition of “king’s bourgeois.” “I am a king’s bourgeois” was equivalent to “I am a Roman citizen.” The Roman citizen could only be judged at Rome. The king’s bourgeois could not be tried except by the king’s officials.

The king’s court was on this account much more occupied than formerly. It continued to accumulate every possible prerogative. It was a court of exchequer, and, if it pleased the king, a political council; but it was above all things, in the days of St. Louis, a court of justice. The royal finances were always of a very simple nature; in case of crusades, captivity of the king, knighthood conferred upon the king’s eldest son or his marriage, feudal aid was demanded. The revenues of the domain, if well administered, were quite sufficient for royalty to live upon. When it had greater needs and it was necessary to increase revenues of all sorts, the financial prerogatives of the court became more important. The office of the exchequer was detached from it; but in the time of St. Louis justice was the court’s business.

But even in this court considerable changes were taking place. The rôle of the great vassals and the crown officials was diminishing, that of the legists was beginning. Now, since judgment was pronounced on written procedures, it was not the knights who had sufficient knowledge and application of mind to deal with the stability of proof and the obscurities of the black-book. The lawyer was necessary to them. At first the barons disdainfully made these plebeian personages sit at their feet, on stools. But in the meeting of ignorance and knowledge the latter quickly asserted its sovereignty. The baron, who had nothing but nonsense to talk, kept quiet before the learned counsellors, and upon these latter soon devolved the direction of judgment; and the fate of the guilty, even of the noblest station, lay in their hands. The king’s court, which was always held at Paris, had regular sessions, usually four times a year; and it kept a record of its deliberations which under the name of “Olim” was the beginning of royal jurisprudence.

In the administration of the provinces, St. Louis protected his own power and that of his subjects against any abuses his officials might practice. He forbade bailiffs and seneschals to make presents to the members of the council or receive money from those dependent on them or to loan such any, or to take part in sales, markets, or leases held in the king’s name. They were forbidden to purchase any property within their jurisdiction or to marry their sons and daughters without the king’s permission. If they disobeyed they were punished both in their property and their persons. When going out of office they were obliged to live forty days within their territory, in order to reply to their successors or to royal inquiries in any charge of misconduct that might be brought against them.

St. Louis sent into the provinces commissioners or royal inquirers, a custom adopted from Charlemagne. These inquirers defended the king’s rights and those of his subjects as well. The care which they took to protect the latter against exaction, won them the name of _enquesteurs aux restitutions_. In all these measures can be recognised the influence of the legists and echoes of Roman administration.

We have noted the organisation of provostships. That of Paris demanded large funds. Therefore several officials joined together to farm it out, and these provosts, according to Joinville, trampled upon the people, sustained their families by the “outrages” they committed, let themselves be corrupted by the rich, and took no notice whatever of the robbers and malefactors who infested Paris and its vicinity.

The king resolved to give in the future “great and high wages to those who should look after his provostship,” and sought for someone “who would give good and stiff justice.” He chose Étienne Boileau who maintained so well the provostship that no malefactor, robber, or cut-throat dared come to Paris but he was at once hanged and exterminated; and neither lineage, gold, nor silver could save him. Justice and policing were the principal functions of the provost of Paris, who commanded the watch and presided at the tribunal of the Châtelet.

St. Louis struck hard blows at feudalism by the suppression of judiciary duels, the interdiction of private wars, and the establishment of appeal; but he was not for all this a revolutionary king in the sense of Philip the Fair. He repeated constantly that none must “take away any one’s rights; but it is,” so he said at the head of an ordinance, “the duty of royal power to assure peace and happiness to our subjects.” Besides he had that same spirit of justice that is found in Roman law, and which united so well with the principles of Christianity. When he condemns, for example, the duel, he does it because “battle is not the way to determine right”--here is the Roman spirit; and because it “criminally tempts God”--here is the spirit of Christ.

He expected that all would submit to what it seemed to him he was charged by God to establish. His brother the count of Anjou, had, on trial, condemned a knight; and the latter, on appealing to the king’s court, was imprisoned by the count. The king let his brother know that there was but one king in France and although Charles was his brother, he would not be treated in any different ways as regarded justice. The count of Anjou had to release his prisoner and came in person to oppose the appeal at the king’s court, which, however, was decided in favour of the knight.

One of the most powerful lords of the realm, the lord of Coucy, caused three young men to be hanged for offence against the hunting laws, and although all the barons pleaded for him he was ordered a heavy fine. A lord cried with irony, “If I were king I would hang all the barons; for the first step taken, the second costs nothing.” The king heard and called him back. “How, Jean, you say that I should hang all my barons. Certainly I shall not do it, but I will punish them if they do wrong.” We have seen how the reputation for equity of the good king was so well established that the English barons in revolt against their king chose Louis as arbitrator, an example followed by the counts of Bar and Luxemburg.

The right of coinage belonged to more than eighty lords who sometimes made bad money. St. Louis decided that his own should have circulation throughout the entire kingdom and alone should be legal tender in the royal domain and those whose lords had not the right of coinage; that the seigniorial coinage should only be legal in the province of the lord who issued it and that this lord could only strike off the _tournois_, and _parisis_,[11] and other coins whose legal value was fixed by relation to the _tournois_ in the ordinance. Thus the king ruled, in absolute power, in his own domain. He recognised elsewhere seigniorial rights, but limited them in the interest of the subjects whose protector he was. His money circulated everywhere.

It only remained for the king to coin better _parisis_ and better _tournois_ than those of the lords; which he did. His money, like his justice, was worth more than his vassal’s. Another measure was extremely useful to commerce. It made the lords responsible for the policing of the roads through their domains. In Paris he established the royal watch and had drawn up by the provost, Étienne Boileau, the ancient rules concerning the hundred trades which existed in the town, in order to infuse peace and order into industry as he had done in the country. These trades grouped themselves into great corporations; in the fifteenth century all the Parisian merchants formed six bodies of “arts and trades.”

St. Louis showed a respectful firmness towards papal authority; we have seen that he did not recognise the pope’s right to dispose of crowns. There has even been attributed to him a pragmatic sanction, the foundation of the liberties of the Gallican church, which would have confirmed the liberty of canonical elections, restrained to the most urgent necessities the impositions which the court of Rome could levy upon the French churches and contained the king’s vow that they should be established. This ordinance is not authentic, but its principles are those of the government. When the bishops demanded that the king force the excommunicated to submit, he declared that he could not do so without knowing the reasons for excommunication, which made him a judge of the bishops.

St. Louis’ lively faith assured him against all fear of the church’s wrath; and led him besides to severe practices which seem to us of to-day barbaric. “No one,” he said, “unless he be learned clerk or perfect theologian, should dispute with the Jews, but may do so with the layman who is heard to slander the Christian faith, and defend it not only with words but with his good drawn sword, striking the miscreant across the body or even letting it cut him.” He punished blasphemers by running red-hot irons through their tongues.

He loved to recall that on one occasion during his minority, when pursued up to the very walls of Paris by rebel vassals, he had been saved by the city soldiers who came to his rescue. He always took great interest in the welfare of the large towns, but without sacrificing to them the new needs of society. He conferred a number of charters, and amended others. Communal independence never seemed to him better than feudal liberties, and he favoured the transformation of the communes into royal cities which were dependent on and watched over by the supreme power, while their internal affairs were attended to by officials chosen in free election. An ordinance of 1256 prescribes that the communes name four candidates among themselves from whom the king shall choose a mayor who shall come to Paris once a year to give account of his stewardship.

Thus little by little was established the principle that it was the king’s prerogative to deal with the communes and that all owed him allegiance above everyone else. Thus the communes gradually disappeared and with them the proud sentiments, the strong ideas of right and liberty which sustained the men who had founded and defended them. The “third estate” was beginning.

Through his undermining of feudal and communal independence, and through his strong ruling with regard to the church, St. Louis pointed the way of absolute power to French royalty. He rendered it still another service. The remembrance of his virtues did not perish with him. Venerated in his lifetime as a saint, he was canonised after death. He put the seal of sanctification, so to speak, upon French royalty, and his descendants were fond of invoking at the head of their decrees the name and example of “Monsieur St. Louis.”[f]

ASPECTS OF THIRTEENTH CENTURY CIVILISATION

[Sidenote: [1100-1270 A.D.]]

In proportion as the Middle Ages advanced, national individuality took more definite shape. Intellectual life had been during a protracted period confined almost exclusively to religious circles, and had been given expression in the universal language--Latin. Accordingly the beginning of the thirteenth century saw only three active established literatures--in Germany, in the north and in the south of France; the last having preceded the others and served them as models. This was the literature of the _langue d’oc_, also called Provençal, which overflowed the Pyrenean borders into Christian Europe, passed over the Alps into the whole of Italy, and awakened the muse that lay sleeping on the banks of the Ebro, as on those of the Po and the Arno. Brilliant, sonorous, harmonious, full of imagery and movement, it was unexcelled as the language of love and battle songs. Bernard de Ventadour, Bertram de Born, and Richard Cœur de Lion moulded it with a skill and ardour worthy of Tyrtæus. The songs of Bertram de Born, above all, were like swords, dazzling and penetrating; the passion of war flamed in them like fire. This language of the south, into which something of the Arabian accent has passed, lent itself gracefully to the requirements of the courts of love presided over by ingenious tribunals of noble dames.

But the continued development of the north of France gave the preponderance to its idiom. The Normans carried it into Italy, where it failed to establish itself; and to England, where it prevailed during three centuries. By the crusaders it was everywhere disseminated. While the intellectual fame of Paris attracted there the eminent minds of the whole Catholic world, the vulgar tongue which the doctors disdained extended its empire well beyond the frontiers. We must add also that French genius, so often accused of epic sterility, poured over into the adjacent countries a flood of great poetry. The troubadours had been mute since the Albigensian crusade had drowned in blood the civilisation of the _langue d’oc_; and no more were heard the virile accents of Bernard de Ventadour or of Bertram de Born, nor the melodious lyrics of the _jeux partis_.[12] But north of the Loire the _trouvères_ still composed heroic songs--veritable epics, which were translated or imitated in Italy, England, and Germany.

But these epic cycles were exhausted: the heroic ode disappeared. Robert Wace, “clerk of Caen,” composed about 1155 the _Roman de Brut_, a legendary history of Britain. Christian de Troyes, who wrote after 1160, spun out a diluted version of the Arthurian legend in a long poem in lines of eight syllables, while the same tale was given a religious twist by another school of poets by adding the history of the Holy Grail. The aspect of the times was mirrored in the poem with its double face--chivalry and piety. The naïve inspiration of the song of Roland was lost; the new school subtilised, ran after novelties, or rummaged among the classics. The story of Ulysses and that of the Argonauts, borrowed from _The Thebaid_ of Statius, furnished tales which could not fail to please those Christian Ulysseses whom the Crusades had sent wandering in Asia. The Trojan War, the sorceress Medea, and Alexander, attracted the _trouvères_ of this period. They had already begun to imitate the style of the ancients. Thus the nature of the epic was altered and a transition took place from primitive composition to the diverse styles of advanced civilisation. The epic was divided: the elements dealing with the passions were blended into allegorical romance; the narrative elements, into prose history. Analysis and realism took the place of spontaneous and poetic inspiration.

Guillaume de Lorris, who died in 1260, began the famous _Roman de la Rose_, whose personages were abstract qualities--Reason, Good-will, Danger, Treason, Baseness, Avarice. Jean de Meun continued it later, after another transformation had given birth to satire. The fable flourished already, having derived its origin from that very romance: animals played the rôles of passions, of social conditions; and the tale of _Renard_, developed in its turn from the others, made its appearance, in 1236, as the comedy of the period. Rutebœuf offers the first example of the professional poet, ill remunerated, perishing with cold, agape with hunger; yet, in the depths of this misery, gay, daring, caustic, he wrote upon all sorts of subjects in the frank, open style which heralded Villon. Language acquires in his hands skill and power; it is more mellow and more tender than that of Guillaume de Lorris or from the lips of the famous count of Champagne or of Marie of France.

The most noteworthy event in French literature in the thirteenth century was the appearance of prose. The first prose writers were not, be it understood, professional historians, but two noblemen, both involved in the events they depicted. Geoffroy de Villehardouin, marshal of Champagne, has left us the history of the Fourth Crusade in the _Conquête de Constantinople_, in which he himself figured. He writes as a soldier, his style being firm and brief, not without a touch of military stiffness; he invents little, goes straight ahead, from one attack to the next, with a brief exclamation when encountering some object which astonishes him. The lord of Joinville, also seneschal of Champagne, exhibits in his _Mémoires_ a greater suppleness of style, a more marked refinement of mind; he observes, reflects, and talks upon all subjects, discussing his personal sentiments as freely as the events of war. He was the foreshadowing of Froissart, as only the councillor and friend of the pious and excellent Louis IX could be.[c] “In point of time,” says Villemain, “the narrative of Joinville is perhaps the first monument of genius in the French language,--a work of genius being, as I understand it, one having a high degree of originality of diction; a characteristic and expressive physiognomy; in short, a work that has been done by one man and that could not have been done by another. Such is the book of Joinville.”[o]

France was indebted to St. Louis for the multiplication of manuscripts. It is remarkable that he should first, while in the East, have resolved to establish a library at Paris. Hearing that the soldan of Egypt was indefatigably collecting from all parts, and causing to be transcribed or translated, the works of the ancient philosophers, “he was afflicted,” says a chronicler of the times, “to perceive more wisdom in the sons of darkness than in the children of light.” He began to collect manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments, and of the fathers, which he caused to be multiplied by transcription; all these he placed in the royal chapel at Paris, making them accessible to professors and students. The same liberality was shown by the Dominicans of Toulouse, by the bishops of Beauvais and Paris, by the archbishop of Narbonne, by many chapters, and by more monasteries. The professors of the University of Paris, too, were eminent enough to draw students from all parts of Europe: in fact, such names as Alexander de Hales, Albertus Magnus, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Buonaventura, would have conferred splendour on any establishment. With inferior fame, but probably with equal utility, the universities of Bourges, Toulouse, Orleans, and Angers--foundations of this century--imitated the example of the capital.[n]

The thirteenth century marks the triumph of the style of architecture so improperly called Gothic. Its characteristic is the arch. This form, at no other time and in no other country employed with such profusion and prominence as in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, has been attributed primarily to the Goths, whence its name; afterwards, with as little justification, to the Arabs. Undoubtedly pilgrims to the Orient, among them many ecclesiastics, brought back from their travels impressions and souvenirs which left their traces upon Christian edifices; numerous churches were built after the pattern of the Holy Sepulchre. Mosaic and colour alternation appear also to be importations from the East. As to the arch, if it is much in evidence in the Arabian style, it is also prominent in that of the Byzantines; it is of all times and all countries, from the tomb of Atreus and the gates of the Pelasgian cities in Italy to the constructions of the savages of Nubia and America. It is simply an elementary form and easy to construct in building vaulted roofs, which require more precision than science.

Vulgar and irregular at first, the arch became monumental little by little--by natural progression, by a gradual refinement of line, by a greater diversity of ornament, by the ribs and columns which began to adorn it. It lent itself marvellously, moreover, as a delineation of the celestial vault, to the mysticism of the Christians and to the passionate soaring of their souls toward heaven: thus soared the mass of Gothic columns, straight, bold, fearfully light, and appearing higher in proportion as the vaulted roof was less open. It was not in the formal Roman _Midi_, it was in the mystic North that the Gothic spread and attained perfection.

The new style, born north of the Loire, crossed the Channel, the Rhine, and the Alps; and the colonies of French artists transplanted it to Canterbury, to Utrecht, to Milan, to Cologne, to Strasburg, to Ratisbon--even into Sweden. A crude but ingenuous statuary adorned portals, galleries, and cloisters; and the art of glass-painting possessed, for the production of magic effects on glazed windows, secrets which we are only just beginning to recover. Miniature paintings adorned the missals, and the books of Hours have preserved to us some exquisite masterpieces.

Astrology was one of the fads of this period; it reached its highest development in the sixteenth century, and was not wholly extinguished till the seventeenth. The astrologers pretended to read in the stars the destiny of human lives. Another folly was the search of the alchemists for the philosopher’s stone--that is to say, the method of creating gold by the transmutation of metals. These dreams, however, led to happy results: the astrologers from much star-gazing discovered the laws that governed the movements of those bodies; the alchemists found in their crucibles--not gold, indeed, but new substances, or new properties of those already known. So were discovered the process of forming salts by distillation, powerful acids, enamels, and convex glasses leading to the making of spectacles.[c]

FOOTNOTES

[8] [This is called by many historians the Fourth Crusade.]

[9] [“St. Louis,” says Guizot,[m] “was above all a conscientious man, a man who before acting weighed the question to himself of the moral good or evil, the question as to whether what he was about to do was good or evil in itself, independently of all utility, of all consequences. Such men are rarely seen and still more rarely remain upon the throne. Truly speaking, there are hardly more than two examples in history, one in antiquity, the other in modern times: Marcus Aurelius and St. Louis. These are, perhaps, the only two princes who, on every occasion, have formed the first rule of their conduct from their moral creeds--Marcus Aurelius, a stoic, St. Louis, a Christian.”]

[10] [Custom had permitted that when anyone had murdered, wounded, or beaten another the victim or his relatives might immediately avenge themselves by killing, wounding, or beating the offender or any of his relatives, even if the latter were ignorant of what had occurred. The ordinance of _quarantaine-le-roi_, forbade the injured to attack any of the offender’s family until after the lapse of forty days (_une quarantaine_). During the interval the offender himself was alone held answerable for his action. Furthermore, if either victim or offender chose to submit his cause to his suzerain he could secure inviolability (_asseurement_), for his goods and person, until a judicial decision had been given. When this inviolability had been demanded its breach was punishable by death.]

[11] [The livres of Tours and of Paris; their values being 20 and 25 sous respectively.]

[12] The disquisitions of the _troubadours_ or the _trouvères_ on questions of gallantry were called _jeux partis_; whence grew those “courts of love” in which were tried, before tribunals of noble ladies, complicated cases and subtle questions. These “courts of love” were of course but a poetical fiction, never a serious or permanent institution.