18. Louis VIII.
CHAPTER XVIII. Louis VIII. (1223-1226)
Louis VIII., the son of Philip Augustus, was a very different kind of man from his father, but he had so short a reign that he was not able to do much either of harm or good to his country. He was weak in body and in mind, and easily persuaded by the people about him, particularly by the priests, to do whatever they wished. He had an active, ambitious wife named Blanche of Castille, and it was she who had persuaded him to go to England when he was invited by the barons to try to make himself king there(, as I told you in the last chapter). He was the first King of France since Hugh Capet who had not been crowned king while his father was still alive. This shows that people had by this time become so much accustomed to the son of a king succeeding him — that is, becoming king after him — that there was no more need for a father to see his son crowned before his death.
The people of France had great rejoicings when Louis became king, which was a sign that they were becoming loyal, or fond and proud of their kings. The citizens of Paris gave him a beautiful cup, musicians played in the streets of Paris, minstrels sang songs, and a certain number of serfs were made free men by their lords. Many prisoners, too, were let out of prison.
The minstrels who sang in the streets were the poets of that time. They could not, as a poet does in these days, make poems into a book, and sell it to any one who likes to buy it; for at that time there were no books, and very few people who could write or read. The poets wandered about from one town to another, or from one baron's castle to another, singing their songs for any one who passed to hear. Their poetry was always sung, and was often an account of the great deeds of the king or the nobles, or stories about the heroes of old days, in particular of Charlemagne, who was the favourite hero of these poems, as King Arthur of the Round Table was of the English minstrels at about the same time. The poets were called trouvère in the north, troubadours in the south. The troubadours sang songs about beautiful ladies, and brave knights who wanted to have them for their wives, while the trouvferes sang of wars and adventures.
Louis VIII. had two wars, one with the King of England, and another with Count Raymond of Toulouse. In the war with the English king he was successful. He took away some of the few French provinces which still belonged to Henry, and left him only one in the south of France. His war with the Count of Toulouse did not end so well for him. I have said how there were two Counts of Toulouse at the same time, one Raymond, the son of the old Raymond, and one the son of Simon de Montfort. De Montfort's son found that he was not strong enough to conquer the country for himself; so he gave up all that he had already conquered to King Louis, and said he might have all the rest of Raymond's land if he could conquer it. The Pope was also an enemy to Raymond, and tried to persuade Louis to fight with him. At last Louis marched with an immense army into Languedoc, and besieged a town called Avignon,
This town was very well defended, with high towers, a double wall round it, large ditches full of water; plenty of food inside, and brave men to defend it. The poor people of the country round about had been made so poor and miserable by all the wars that had gone on in their province for so many years, that they had no heart left to go on fighting. They yielded to the King of France, though they all loved Raymond in their hearts, and were rejoiced at every success that he won. Raymond had laid waste most of the country round Avignon, hoping that if Louis could find no food for his army, he would be obliged to go away; and the French soldiers fell ill in great numbers from want of food and from the unhealthiness of the country. But the men of Avignon gave way first. After a siege of three months, the town was taken.
Louis then turned towards France, hoping to come back the next year and finish the war by taking Toulouse, the chief town of Languedoc, but he had caught the fever of which so many of his soldiers had died, and a few days after he had left Avignon, he died himself, making his nobles promise that his little son should be king after him, and that his wife Blanche should take care of the country while his son was a child.
