ncreased mural
strength, walls were buttressed, columns thickened. Massive towers of
defence, at first round, then polygonal, then square, flanked the west
fronts, veritable keeps, where the sacred vessels and relics might be
preserved and defended in case of attack. Soon spaces are clamant for
decoration and the stone soars into the beauty of Gothic vaulting and
tracery.

The growth of Paris is more intimately associated with the Capets than
with any of the earlier dynasties, and at no period in its history is
the ecclesiastical expansion more marked. Under the long reign of
Hugh's son, King Robert the Pious, no less than fourteen monasteries
and seven churches were built or rebuilt in or around the city; a new
and magnificent palace and hall of Justice, with its royal chapel
dedicated to St. Nicholas, rose on the site of the old Roman basilica
and palace in the Cite. The king was no less charitable than pious;
troops of the poor and afflicted followed him when he went abroad, and
he fed a thousand daily at his table. But notwithstanding his
munificent piety, he was early made to feel the power of the Church.
His union with Queen Bertha, a cousin of the fourth degree, whom he
had married a year before his accession, was condemned by the pope as
incestuous, and he was summoned to repudiate her. Robert, who loved
his wife dearly, resisted the papal authority, and excommunication and
interdict followed.[40] Everyone fled from him; only the servants are
said to have remained, who purged with fire all the vessels which were
contaminated by the guilty couple's touch. The misery of his people at
length subdued the king's spirit, and he cast off his faithful and
beloved queen.

[Footnote 40: A dramatic representation of the delivery of the papal
bull, painted by Jean Paul Laurens, hangs in the museum of the
Luxembourg.]

The beautiful and imperious Constance of Aquitaine, her successor,
proved a penitential infliction second only in severity to the
anathemas of the Church. Troops of vain and frivolous troubadours from
her southern home, in all kinds of foreign and fantastic costumes,
invaded the court at Paris and shocked the austere piety of the king.
He perceived the corrupting influence on the simple manners of the
Franks of their licentious songs, lascivious music and dissolute
lives, but was powerless to dismiss them. The tyrannous temper of his
new consort became the torment of his life. He was forced even to
concea