good offices save to
put an end the disagreements of the English; he seconded all the measures
which could give security to both parties, and he made persistent
efforts, though without success, to moderate the fiery ambition of the
Earl of Leicester." (Hume, _History of England,_ t. ii. p. 465.)

It requires more than political wisdom, more even than virtue, to enable
a king, a man having in charge the government of men, to accomplish his
mission and to really deserve the title of Most Christian; it requires
that he should be animated by a sentiment of affection, and that he
should, in heart as well as mind, be in sympathy with those multitudes of
creatures over whose lot he exercises so much influence. St. Louis more
perhaps than any other king was possessed of this generous and humane
quality: spontaneously and by the free impulse of his nature he loved his
people, loved mankind, and took a tender and comprehensive interest in
their fortunes, their joys, or their miseries. Being seriously ill in
1259, and desiring to give his eldest son, Prince Louis, whom he lost in
the following year, his last and most heartfelt charge, "Fair son," said
he, "I pray thee make thyself beloved of the people of thy kingdom, for
verily I would rather a Scot should come from Scotland and govern our
people well and loyally than have thee govern it ill." To watch over the
position and interests of all parties in his dominions, and to secure to
all his subjects strict and prompt justice, this was what continually
occupied the mind of Louis IX. There are to be found in his biography
two very different but equally striking proofs of his solicitude in this
respect. M. Felix Faure has drawn up a table of all the journeys made by
Louis in France, from 1254 to 1270, for the better cognizance of matters
requiring his attention, and another of the parliaments which he held,
during the same period, for considering the general affairs of the
kingdom and the administration of justice. Not one of these sixteen
years passed without his visiting several of his provinces, and the year
1270 was the only one in which he did not hold a parliament. (_Histoire
de Saint Louis,_ by M. Felix Faure, t. ii. pp. 120, 339.) Side by side
with this arithmetical proof of his active benevolence we will place a
moral proof taken from Joinville's often-quoted account of St. Louis's
familiar intervention in his subjects' disputes about matters of private
interest.