one counsellor exalted above the others, as a greater favorite or
as more relied on by the queen; she has her ministers, but so little
part do they seem to play that France is really ruled by the queen, not
by the ministers. We comment upon this because it is remarkable,
especially when we remember that, even with great kings, the names of
the ministers are not often utterly obscured.

The most interesting of the queen's activities at this time are those
connected with the Church; there are numberless little quarrels in which
she had to intervene and hold out for the rights of the crown, but the
two examples that follow will suffice to show the sort of thing with
which she had to contend. The clergy of France had accorded to Saint
Louis a tax of one-tenth on their property, in view' of his crusade.
Though this tax had been long due, the Abbey of Cluni, one of the
richest and one of the most favored by the royal family, allowed month
after month to elapse without making any move to pay. At length, in the
early part of 1252, while the abbot was away in England, the royal
bailli of Ma'am seized the chateau of Lourdon, belonging to the Abbey of
Cluni. There was a tremendous uproar in the clerical camp; the Pope
himself wrote to protest against this outrage upon the servants of God,
and demanded of Blanche the restitution of the sequestered chateau. At
the same time he instructed the Archbishop of Bourges to launch an
interdict against all those who continued to hold, to guard, or to
inhabit the chateau of Lourdon, with special exception of the queen and
her family. Blanche had not, it appears, given the bailli any orders
with regard to the collection of the tax, but, since he had acted, she
sustained him; there was no persuading her to return the property of the
abbey until the abbot had satisfied her just claims. The Pope and the
abbot were compelled to accept defeat for the present; but after Blanche
was dead a claim was made for indemnity, which we can only hope Saint
Louis did not grant.

Another instance in which Blanche intervened is even more to her credit,
since it was pure humanity, not the jealous safeguarding of the rights
of the crown, that moved her. The inhabitants of the villages of Orly,
Chatenay, and some others were serfs of the canons of Notre Dame. Being
unable to pay some tax imposed by their masters, the men of the
villages--we mean not a few, but _all_ the able-bodied men--were seized
and imprisoned