LOUIS IX., called St. Louis, succeeded his father, Louis when he was twelve years of age, under the regency of his mother, Blanche of Castile. During the minority of the king there was a constant struggle between the crown and the great feudatories, at the head of whom were Thibaut, count of Champagne, and the Count of Brittany. During this troubled period, Queen Blanche displayed much character and coneiderablo abilities. • Her son, se seou as he was old enough, putting himself at the head of his faithful vassals, reduced the most refractory lords, and among others the Count of Brittany, who came with a rope round his neck to ask pardon of the king, which was granted. Henry III. of England, who supported the rebels, was defeated by Louis near Saintes, upon which a truce of five years was signed between the two kings. During an illness Louis made a vow to visit the Holy Land, and in June 1248 ho set out for the East. He landed in Egypt, and took Damiat, but befog defeated at the battle of Maneoura, he was taken prisoner, compelled to pay a heavy ransom, and to restore Damiat to the Mussulmans. From Egypt he sailed to Acre, and carried on the war in Palestine, but with no success, till the year 1254, when he returned to France. The best account of this expedition is by Joinville, who was present, Histoire de St. Louie,' edited by Ducange, with notes, folio, 1668. Louis on his return found ample occupation in checking the violence and oppressions of the nobles, whom he treated with wholesome rigour.
He published several useful statutes, known by the title of Etablisse mens de St. Louis ;' he established a police at Paris, at the head of which he put a magistrate called 'prev6t;' he classed the various trades into companies called confrairies; ho established the college of theology, called La Sorbonne from the name of his confessor; he created a French navy, and made an advantageous treaty with the king of Aragon, by which the respective limits and jurisdictions of the two states were defined. The chief and almost the only fault of Louis, which was that of his age, was his religious intolerance; he issued oppressive ordounauces against the Jews, had a horror of heretics, and used to tell his friend Joinville "that a layman ought not to dispute with the unbelievers, but strike them with a good sword across the body." By an ordonuance he remitted to his Christian subjects the third of the debts which they owed to Jews, and this "for the good of his soul." (Martennes, Thesaurus Anecdotorum,' vol. L, p. 980.) This same feeling of fanaticism led him to another crusade, against the advice of his best friends, in which be met his death. Ile sailed for Africa, laid siege to Tunis, and died in his camp of the plague in August 1270. Pope Bouiface VIII. canonised him as a saint in 1297. Louis's brother Charles, count of Anjou and Provence, took the kingdom of Naples from Manfred of Suabia, and established there the dynasty of Anjou.