reached his majority,
there was nothing to show that the idea of the crusade occupied Louis
IX.'s mind; and it was only in 1239, when he was now four and twenty,
that it showed itself vividly in him. Some of his principal vassals, the
Counts of Champagne, Brittany, and Macon, had raised an army of
crusaders, and were getting ready to start for Palestine; and the king
was not contented with giving them encouragement, but "he desired that
Amaury de Montfort, his constable, should, in his name, serve Jesus
Christ in this war; and for that reason he gave him arms and assigned to
him per day a sum of money, for which Amaury thanked him on his knees,
that is, did him homage, according to the usage of those times. And the
crusaders were mighty pleased to have this lord with them."

Five years afterwards, at the close of 1244, Louis fell seriously ill at
Pontoise; the alarm and sorrow in the kingdom were extreme; the king
himself believed that his last hour was come; and he had all his
household summoned, thanked them for their kind attentions, recommended
them to be good servants of God, "and did all that a good Christian ought
to do. His mother, his wife, his brothers, and all who were about him
kept continually praying for him; his mother, beyond all others, adding
to her prayers great austerities." Once he appeared motionless and
breathless; and he was supposed to be dead. "One of the dames who were
tending him," says Joinville, "would have drawn the sheet over his face,
saying that he was dead; but another dame, who was on the other side of
the bed, would not suffer it, saying that there was still life in his
body. When the king heard the dispute between these two dames, our Lord
wrought in him: he began to sigh, stretched his arms and legs, and said,
in a hollow voice, as if he had come forth from the tomb, 'He, by God's
grace, hath visited me, He who cometh from on high, and hath recalled me
from amongst the dead.' Scarcely had he recovered his senses and speech,
when he sent for William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris, together with
Peter de Cuisy, Bishop of Meaux, in whose diocese he happened to be, and
requested them 'to place upon his shoulder the cross of the voyage over
the sea.' The two bishops tried to divert him from this idea, and the
two queens, Blanche and Marguerite, conjured him on their knees to wait
till he was well, and after that he might do as he pleased. He insisted,
declaring that he would take