hears
the Christian religion defamed is to defend it with his sharp sword
and thrust his weapon into the miscreant's body as far as it will go."

St. Louis, however, did not apply the moral in practice. Although
severe in exacting tribute from the Jews, he spent much money in
converting them and held many of their orphan children at the font; to
others he gave pensions, which became a heavy financial burden to
himself and his successors. He was stern with blasphemers, whose lips
he caused to be branded with a hot iron. "I have heard him say,"
writes Joinville, "with his own mouth, that he would he were marked
with a red-hot iron himself if thereby he could banish all oaths and
blasphemy from his kingdom. Full twenty-two years have I been in his
company, and never have I heard him swear or blaspheme God or His holy
Mother or any Saint, howsoever angry he may have been: and when he
would affirm anything, he would say, 'Verily it is so, or verily it is
not so,' Before going to bed he would call his children around him and
recite the fair deeds and sayings of ancient princes and kings,
praying that they would remember them for good ensample; for unjust
and wicked princes lost their kingdoms through pride and avarice and
rapine." When he was in the east he heard of a Saracen lord of Egypt
who caused all the best books of philosophy to be transcribed for the
use of young men, and he determined to do the like for the youth of
Paris. Five thousand scribes were employed to copy the Scriptures and
the writings of the Fathers and classic authors, preserved in various
abbeys in France. He had a convenient and safe place built at the
treasury of the Sainte Chapelle, where he housed the books, for a
church without a library was said to be a fortress without ammunition.
Scholars had free access to them, and he himself was wont in his
leisure time to shut himself up there for study, reading rather the
Holy Fathers than the writings of the best doctors of his own time.

St. Louis was a steadfast friend to the religious orders. On his
return from the Holy Land he brought with him six monks from Mount
Carmel and established them on the north bank of the Seine, near the
present Quai des Celestins; they were subsequently transferred to the
University quarter, on a site now occupied by the Marche aux Carmes.
The prior of the Grande Chartreuse was also prayed to spare a few
brothers to found a house in Paris; four were sent, and the king
e