The truth of the matter is that, by her watchfulness and her exactitude in morals, she helped to impress upon her son the great Christian lesson of hatred for sin and habitual concern for the eternal salvation of his soul.

"Madame used to say of me," Louis was constantly repeating, "that if I were sick unto death, and could not be cured save by acting in such wise that I should sin mortally, she would let me die rather than that I should anger my Creator to my damnation." [Illustration: ST.

LOUIS ADMINISTERING JUSTICE----46] In the first years of his government, when he had reached his majority, there was nothing to show that the idea of the crusade occupied Louis IX.'s mind; and it was only in 1239, when he was now four and twenty, that it showed itself vividly in him.

Some of his principal vassals, the Counts of Champagne, Brittany, and Macon, had raised an army of crusaders, and were getting ready to start for Palestine; and the king was not contented with giving them encouragement, but "he desired that Amaury de Montfort, his constable, should, in his name, serve Jesus Christ in this war; and for that reason he gave him arms and assigned to him per day a sum of money, for which Amaury thanked him on his knees, that is, did him homage, according to the usage of those times.

And the crusaders were mighty pleased to have this lord with them." Five years afterwards, at the close of 1244, Louis fell seriously ill at Pontoise; the alarm and sorrow in the kingdom were extreme; the king himself believed that his last hour was come; and he had all his household summoned, thanked them for their kind attentions, recommended them to be good servants of God, "and did all that a good Christian ought to do.