xtensive and more compact, and the kingship in France far stronger and
more respected than he had found them. It was the natural and
well-deserved result of his life. At a time of violence and irregular
adventure, he had shown to Europe the spectacle of an earnest,
far-sighted, moderate, and able government, and one which in the end,
under many hard trials, had nearly always succeeded in its designs,
during a reign of forty-three years.

He disposed, by will, of a considerable amount amassed without parsimony,
and even, historians say, in spite of a royal magnificence. We will take
from that will but two paragraphs, the first two:--

"We will and prescribe first of all that, without any gainsaying, our
testamentary executors do levy and set aside, out of our possessions,
fifty thousand livres of Paris, in order to restore, as God shall inspire
them with wisdom, whatsoever may be due to those from whom they shall
recognize that we have unjustly taken or extorted or kept back aught; and
we do ordain this most strictly."

"We do give to our dear spouse _Isamber_ (evidently _Inyeburya_), Queen
of the French, ten thousand livres of Paris. We might have given more to
the said queen, but we have confined ourselves to this sum in order that
we might make more complete restitution and reparation of what we have
unjustly levied."

There is in these two cases of testamentary reparation, to persons
unknown on the one hand and to a lady long maltreated on the other, a
touch of probity and honorable regret for wrong-doing which arouses for
this great king, in his dying hour, more moral esteem than one would
otherwise be tempted to feel for him.

His son, Louis VIII., inherited a great kingdom, an undisputed crown, and
a power that was respected. It was matter of general remark, moreover,
that, by his mother, Isabel of Hainault, he was descended in the direct
line from Hermengarde, Countess of Namur, daughter of Charles of
Lorraine, the last of the Carlovingians. Thus the claims of the two
dynasties of Charlemagne and of Hugh Capet were united in his person;
and, although the authority of the Capetians was no longer disputed,
contemporaries were glad to see in Louis VIII. this two-fold heirship,
which gave him the perfect stamp of a legitimate monarch. He was,
besides, the first Capetian whom the king his father had not considered
it necessary to have consecrated during his own life so as to impress
upon him in good time t