He desired anxiously that the three children born to him in the East, during his first crusade, John Tristan, Peter, and Blanche, and even Isabel, his eldest daughter, should enter upon the cloistered life, which he looked upon as the safest for their salvation.

He exhorted them thereto, especially his daughter Isabel, many and many a time, in letters equally tender and pious; but, as they testified no taste for it, he made no attempt to force their inclinations, and concerned himself only about having them well married, not forgetting to give them good appanages, and, for their life in the world, the most judicious counsels.

The instructions, written with his own hand in French, which he committed to his eldest son, Philip, as soon as he found himself so seriously ill before Tunis, are a model of virtue, wisdom, and tenderness on the part of a father, a king, and a Christian.
Pass we from the king's family to the king's household, and from the children to the servitors of St.Louis.

We have here no longer the powerful tie of blood, and of that feeling, at the same time personal and yet disinterested, which is experienced by parents on seeing themselves living over again in their children.

Far weaker motives, mere kindness and custom, unite masters to their servants, and stamp a moral character upon the relations between them; but with St.Louis, so great was his kindness, that it resembled affection, and caused affection to spring up in the hearts of those who were the objects of it.