He did not stay long, less than two days before returning to Joppa, thence to Acre. Perhaps for no reason but to demonstrate authority he launched an attack upon the Templar fortress of Chastel-Pelèrin. So he roused up enemies like scorpions on every side, Templar, Hospitaler, Venetian, Genoese, baron, knight, merchants at their stalls. It was known that he would soon quit the Holy Land, yet all knew he would exercise power from a distance.
Before sunrise on the first of May he went furtively and quickly to the port of Acre. What tumult played within his soul, no chronicle relates. But the citizens had learned he would depart and stored up pails of slop, filth, sheep guts, and other garbage, which they flung at his head. Butchers shouted insults, chased him, pelted him with entrails and shit. Constable Odo de Montbéliard, hearing such a racket, came and arrested those who abused the emperor and called out to him, commending him to God. Frederick’s voice was heard across the water although he could not be understood. Thus did he embark, scorned, repudiated. Who could believe this deformation of spirit? How is it that when we see the beginning of things we do not guess their end? Yet not fortuitously but designedly does each achieve its goal, as a stone once hurled must drop to earth.
God is just. On that December day in our year of grace 1244 when King Louis took the cross, on that day was the spirit of Jesus Christ reborn.
I knew King Louis well. When his younger brother Alphonse was knighted I served at table carving meat, the first time ever I stood next to his majesty. I was seventeen. Thenceforth, excluding residence at Joinville, I attended court. Forty years afterward I testified on the matter of his canonization. And in the year of our Lord 1298, thanks to almighty providence, I was present at the exhumation of his body.
I have heard it said that King Louis, withal the excellence of his heart, lacked that strength of understanding which becomes a useful sovereign. He was no more than thirteen when his father Louis VIII gave up the ghost. Thus he knew as regent during his minority the inflexible hand of his mother, Queen Blanche of Castille, virtuous, godly, ardent, with an uncommon taste for politics. Frankish nobility liked her not much, calling her Dame Hersent after that she-wolf in the fable of Renard. I believe she nurtured Louis none too gently, as though he were destined for the Church. Perhaps such filial devotion exceeded the limit proposed by nature and exposed the king to mockery. That he passively accepted her restraint cannot be doubted. As to his weakness, I do not presume to know, unless it be called faith or trust.
His first counselors were experienced, wise and prudent, veterans from the court of his grandfather Philip Augustus. Later, as though to sound the depth of spirituality, he brought to advise him such clerics as Eude Rigaud, archbishop of Rouen, and Bishop William of Paris. I think his preoccupation with the salvation of souls conformed easily, as the glove conforms to the hand, to his concept of sovereign power. Now since what is not true cannot be beautiful, the truth that our sainted king sought in all things must be the measure of his worth. Otherwise no enduring likeness of him could be traced.
He seemed to live for God alone. Not once did I hear him address the devil by name. Countless hours day and night he devoted to prayer, oppressed by the knowledge that our Lord was neither adequately served nor loved, grieved by the existence of infidels, certain that he himself did not honor God deeply enough. Offices he had read in the king’s chapel as though it were the chapel of a monastery. There also he had the Hours sung. By his request was the Office for the Dead included. He would hear two masses, at times three. Very little would he study but Scripture and the Fathers. He would ask that a candle as high as his waist be lighted and while it burned he would read the Bible. So long did he remain on his knees at prayer that sight and wit intermingled and he would rise up dazed, murmuring, not certain where he was, unable to find his bed. At midnight he was up to hear matins sung by his chaplain, rising so quietly that equerries failed to note or got up late and chased after him barefoot. Each Friday he made confession after which his confessor must apply the discipline with five iron chains his majesty carried in an ivory box. Similar boxes he ordered, with similar little chains, giving them to his children and to friends, and counseled them to make good use of scourging. Should the confessor strike him gently he would demand harder blows. One such did strike with force enough to lacerate his majesty’s sensitive flesh, yet the king held his peace, nor afterward mentioned it save with amusement. Most were less tenacious. Indeed, they reproved him for austerities that imperiled his health, persuading him to give up a hair shirt he wore during Advent and Lent and on the vigil of numerous feasts. In its place he adopted a horsehair girdle. Good Friday he walked to church barefoot. Which is to say, he wore shoes for the sake of appearance but had the soles removed. Before approaching the cross he took off his upper garments excepting vest and coat. On his knees he would advance a short distance, stopping to pray, advancing further. Beneath the cross he would prostrate himself as though crucified, arms outflung, weeping. And if during litanies he heard that verse appealing for a fountain of tears he would respond.
O Lord, I dare not ask so much, but a few drops to water my parched and sterile heart.
I do not doubt that he hoped to achieve
