He was as yet only fifteen, and his father, by his will, had left him under the guidance of Philip of Alsace, Count of Flanders, as regent, and of Robert Clement, marshal of France, as governor.

But Philip, though he began his reign under this double influence, soon let it be seen that he intended to reign by himself, and to reign with vigor.

"Whatever my vassals do," said he, during his minority, "I must bear with their violence and outrageous insults and villanous misdeeds; but, please God, they will get weak and old whilst I shall grow in strength and power, and shall be, in my turn, avenged according to my desire." He was hardly twenty, when, one day, one of his barons seeing him gnawing, with an air of abstraction and dreaminess, a little green twig, said to his neighbors, "If any one could tell me what the king is thinking of, I would give him my best horse." Another of those present boldly asked the King.

"I am thinking," answered Philip, "of a certain matter, and that is, whether God will grant unto me or unto one of my heirs grace to exalt France to the height at which she was in the time of Charlemagne." It was not granted to Philip Augustus to resuscitate the Frankish empire of Charlemagne, a work impossible for him or any one whatsoever in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; but he made the extension and territorial construction of the kingdom of France the chief aim of his life, and in that work he was successful.

Out of the forty-three years of his reign, twenty-six at the least were war-years, devoted to that very purpose.