ustrious emperor the honors due to the saints; and he
appointed the 28th of January for his feast-day, with a threat of the
penalty of death against all who should refuse conformity with the order.
Neither the command nor the threat of Louis XI. had any great effect.
It does not appear that, in the Church of France, the saintship of
Charlemagne was any the more generally admitted and kept up; but the
University of Paris faithfully maintained its traditions, and some two
centuries after Louis XI., in 1661, without expressly giving to
Charlemagne the title of saint, it loudly proclaimed him its patron, and
made his feast-day an annual and solemn institution, which, in spite of
some hesitation on the part of the parliament of Paris, and in spite of
the revolutions of our time, still exists as the grand feast-day
throughout the area of our classical studies. The University of France
repaid Charlemagne for the service she had received from him; she
protected his saintship as he had protected her schools and her scholars.

The saintship of Louis IX. was not the object of such doubt, and had no
such need of learned and determined protectors. Claimed as it was on the
very morrow of his death, not only by his son Philip III., called The
Bold, and by the barons and prelates of the kingdom, but also by the
public voice of France and of Europe, it at once became the subject of
investigations and deliberations on the part of the Holy See. For
twenty-four years, new popes, filling in rapid succession the chair of
St. Peter (Gregory X., Innocent V., John XXI., Nicholas III., Martin IV.,
Honorius IV., Nicholas IV., St. Celestine V., and Boniface VIII.),
prosecuted the customary inquiries touching the faith and life, the
virtues and miracles, of the late king; and it was Boniface VIII., the
pope destined to carry on against Philip the Handsome, grandson of St.
Louis, the most violent of struggles, who decreed, on the 11th of August,
1297, the canonization of the most Christian amongst the kings of France,
and one of the truest Christians, king or simple, in France and in
Europe.

St. Louis was succeeded by his son, Philip III., a prince, no doubt, of
some personal valor, since he has retained in history the nickname of The
Bold, but not otherwise beyond mediocrity. His reign had an unfortunate
beginning. After having passed several months before Tunis, in slack and
unsuccessful continuation of his father's crusade, he gave it up, a