ow that he spoke of it even to his most intimate confidants.
But, in spite of apparent tranquillity, he lived, so far, in a ferment of
imagination and a continual fever, resembling in that respect, though the
end aimed at was different, those great men, ambitious warriors or
politicians, of natures forever at boiling point, for whom nothing is
sufficient, and who are constantly fostering, beyond the ordinary course
of events, some vast and strange desire, the accomplishment of which
becomes for them a fixed idea and an insatiable passion. As Alexander
and Napoleon were incessantly forming some new design, or, to speak more
correctly, some new dream of conquest and dominion, in the same way St.
Louis, in his pious ardor, never ceased to aspire to a re-entry of
Jerusalem, to the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre, and to the victory
of Christianity over Mohammedanism in the East, always flattering himself
that some favorable circumstance would recall him to his interrupted
work. It has already been told, at the termination, in the preceding
chapter, of the crusaders' history, how he had reason to suppose, in
1261, that circumstances were responding to his desire; how he first of
all prepared, noiselessly and patiently, for his second crusade; how,
after seven years' labor, less and less concealed as days went on, he
proclaimed his purpose, and swore to accomplish it in the following year;
and how at last, in the month of March, 1270, against the will of France,
of the pope, and even of the majority of his comrades, he actually set
out--to go and die, on the 25th of the following August, before Tunis,
without having dealt the Mussulmans of the East even the shadow of an
effectual blow, having no strength to do more than utter, from time to
time, as he raised himself on his bed, the cry of Jerusalem! Jerusalem!
and, at the last moment, as he lay in sackcloth and ashes, pronouncing
merely these parting words: "Father, after the example of our Divine
Master, into Thy hands I commend my spirit!" Even the crusader was
extinct in St. Louis; and only the Christian remained.

The world has seen upon the throne greater captains, more profound
politicians, vaster and more brilliant intellects, princes who have
exercised, beyond their own lifetime, a more powerful and a more lasting
influence than St. Louis; but it has never seen a rarer king, never seen
a man who could possess, as he did, sovereign power without contracting
the pa