aintly and kings licentious,
kings good and sympathetic towards their people, kings egotistical and
concerned solely about themselves, kings lovable and beloved, kings
sombre and dreaded or detested. As we go forward and encounter them on
our way, all these kingly characters will be seen appearing and acting in
all their diversity and all their incoherence. Absolute monarchical
power in France was, almost in every successive reign, singularly
modified, being at one time aggravated and at another alleviated
according to the ideas, sentiments, morals, and spontaneous instincts of
the monarchs. Nowhere else, throughout the great European monarchies,
has the difference between kingly personages exercised so much influence
on government and national condition. In that country the free action of
individuals has filled a prominent place and taken a prominent part in
the course of events.

It has been shown how insignificant and inert, as sovereigns, were the
first three successors of Hugh Capet. The goodness to his people
displayed by King Robert was the only kingly trait which, during that
period, deserved to leave a trace in history. The kingship appeared once
more with the attributes of energy and efficiency on the accession of
Louis VI., son of Philip I. He was brought up in the monastery of St.
Denis, which at that time had for its superior a man of judgment, the
Abbot Adam; and he then gave evidence of tendencies and received his
training under influences worthy of the position which awaited him. He
was handsome, tall, strong, and alert, determined and yet affable. He
had more taste for military exercises than for the amusements of
childhood and the pleasures of youth. He was at that time called Louis
the Wide-awake. He had the good fortune to find in the Monastery of St.
Denis a fellow-student capable of becoming a king's counsellor. Suger, a
child born at St. Denis, of obscure parentage, and three or four years
younger than Prince Louis, had been brought up for charity's sake in the
abbey, and the Abbot Adam, who had perceived his natural abilities, had
taken pains to develop them. A bond of esteem and mutual friendship was
formed between the two young people, both of whom were disposed to
earnest thought and earnest living; and when, in 1108, Louis the Wide-
awake ascended the throne, the monk Suger became his adviser whilst
remaining his friend.

A very small kingdom was at that time the domain belongin