And the horror becomes still greater when a discovery is made of the iniquities, sufferings, and calamities, public and private, consequent upon the admission of such aberrations amongst the choice spirits of the period.

In the matter of religious liberty, St.Louis is a striking example of the vagaries which may be fallen into, under the sway of public feeling, by the most equitable of minds and the most scrupulous of consciences.

A solemn warning, in times of great intellectual and popular ferment, for those men whose hearts are set on independence in their thoughts as well as in their conduct, and whose only object is justice and truth.
As for the crusades, the situation of Louis was with respect to them quite different and his responsibility far more personal.

The crusades had certainly, in their origin, been the spontaneous and universal impulse of Christian Europe towards an object lofty, disinterested, and worthy of the devotion of men; and St.Louis was, without any doubt, the most lofty, disinterested, and heroic representative of this grand Christian movement.

But towards the middle of the thirteenth century the moral complexion of the crusades had already undergone great alteration; the salutary effect they were to have exercised for the advancement of European civilization still loomed obscurely in the distance; whilst their evil results were already clearly manifesting themselves, and they had no longer that beauty lent by spontaneous and general feeling which had been their strength and their apology.