it a symbol of firm and just
government.

It is in Louis' reign that we have first mention of the Oriflamme
(golden flame) of St. Denis, which took the place of St. Martin's
cloak as the royal standard of France. The Emperor Henry V. with a
formidable army was menacing the land. Louis rallied all his friends
to withstand him and went to St. Denis to pray for victory. Pope
Eugene and Abbot Suger received Louis, who fell prostrate before the
relics. Suger then took from the altar the standard--famed to have
been sent by heaven, and formerly carried by the first liege man of
the abbey, the Count de Vexin, when the monastery was in danger of
attack--and handed it to the king: the pope gave him a pilgrim's
wallet. The sacred banner was fashioned of silk in the form of a
gonfalon, of the colours of fire and gold, and was suspended at the
head of a gilded lance.[46]

[Footnote 46: A modern reproduction may be seen in the church of St.
Denis, but the exact shape is doubtful, no less than three different
forms being known to antiquarians.]

The strenuous reign of Louis was marked by a great expansion of Paris,
which became more than ever the ordinary dwelling-place of the king
and the seat of his government. The market which from Roman times had
been held at the bifurcation of the northern road near the fields
(Champeaux), belonging to St. Denis of the Prison, was extended.
William of Champeaux founded the great abbey of St. Victor,[47] famed
for its sanctity and learning, where Abelard taught and St. Thomas of
Canterbury, whose hair shirt was long preserved there, and St. Bernard
lodged. At the urgent prayer of his wife Adelaide, the king built a
nunnery at Montmartre, and lavishly endowed it with lands, ovens, the
house of Guerri, a Lombard money-changer, some shops and a
slaughter-house in Paris, and a small _bourg_, still known as Bourg la
Reine, about five miles south of the city. Certain rights of fishing
at Paris, to which Louis VII. added five thousand herrings yearly from
the port of Boulogne, were also granted. The churches of Ste.
Genevieve la Petite, founded to commemorate the miraculous staying of
the plague of the burning sickness (_les ardents_); of St. Jacques de
la Boucherie; and of St. Pierre aux Boeufs, so named from the heads
of oxen carved on the portal, were also built.

[Footnote 47: The abbey was suppressed at the time of the Revolution
and the site is now occupied by the Halle aux Vins.]

CH