LOUIS VII., called 'Le Jeune,' son of Louis le Gros, succeeded his father in 1137. He married Eleanor, daughter and heiress of William, duke of Aquitania, a lady who was handsome and inclined to gallantry. Thibaut, count of Champagne, having revolted against the king, Louis took and burnt his town of Vitry. St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, advised Louis, in order to atone for this cruelty, to go on a crusade ; but the Abbe Suger, who was minister of Louis, and had also served the king's father, opposed this project. The zeal of St. Bernard however prevailed, and the king set off with his wife and a large army in 1147. Suger and Raoul, count of Vermandois, Louis's brother-in law, were left regents of the kingdom. The crusade proved unsuc cessful : the Christians were defeated near Damascus, and Louis, after several narrow escapes, returned to France In 1149. His first act after his arrival was to repudiate Eleanor, whose conduct during her residence in the East had been improper; but the bishops, to avoid scandal, dissolved the marriage on the plea that it was not valid because the king and queen were cousins. Suger, who was now dead,
had strongly opposed on political grounds the dissolution of the marriage, and the event proved the justness of his foresight, for Elea nor married Henry of England and Normandy, afterwards Henry IL, who by this marriage became possessed of Aquitania, Poitou, Maine, and in fact of one-third of France, comprising the whole maritime territory from Dieppe to Bayoune. Louis married Constance of Castile for his second wife. A war now broke out between him and Henry II. of England, which lasted several years, and ended by a peace in 1176, after which henry as duke of Normandy and peer of France attended the coronation of Louie's son, Philip IL, called 'Auguste,' in 1179. Lonis died in September, 1180, at Paris, being sixty years of age.