r grief for the
loss of a well-loved husband or anxiety at finding herself obliged to
govern a kingdom whose king was yet a boy.

At first the old retainers of Louis were around her and faithful to her.
She was politic enough to win the support of the only prince of the
blood, Philippe, surnamed Hurepel, on account of the great mat of shaggy
hair he had inherited from his father, Philippe Auguste. Ferrand, Count
of Flanders, was her friend, and she could rely upon the support of most
of the clergy, and especially upon that of the papal legate, Romain
Frangipani, Cardinal of Saint Angelo. Her surest allies, however, were
the immediate servants of the crown: the chancellor, Guerin, who was
unfortunately not to live long; Archambaud de Bourbon, Count Amaury de
Montfort, the chamberlain, Barthelemy de Roye, and the noble constable,
Mathieu de Montmorency. With the aid of such friends, Blanche began her
duties as regent.

How long this regency was to last, how long it really did last, are
matters not altogether easy to determine. In the first place, there were
precedents, in the royal line as well as in feudal annals, for
considering the age of majority as fourteen years; but there seems to
have been authority equally as good for holding to the age of
twenty-one. Louis was in his twelfth year when his father died. Blanche
continued to act as regent for about ten years, and there was no protest
based on the pretext that the young king should have been considered a
major at fourteen years.

As soon as possible, Blanche had Louis crowned, a ceremony which did not
imply that he was to be considered out of her tutelage, but which did
give him a certain amount of prestige and consequent protection. The
coronation, which took place on November 29, 1226, at Rheims, was but
poorly attended by the nobles. Already there was discontent, and the
great house of Dreux, led by the crafty and unscrupulous Pierre
Mauclerc, Count of Brittany, was at the head of the disaffected. Count
Thibaud de Champagne, son of Blanche's first cousin, would have come to
the coronation, but Blanche ordered the gates of Rheims closed against
him; for it was currently rumored, though the rumor was entirely without
justification, that Louis VIII. had died very suddenly because of poison
administered by Thibaud. But, with or without the presence of the great
barons, Louis IX. was crowned, and Blanche made for herself and her son
such friends as she could.

In