wing year, was taken to
Notre Dame du Lys by the abbess, Countess Alix de Macon.

Let us pause awhile by the tomb before we attempt to review the
character of Blanche de Castille; and meanwhile we may see how the news
of her death was received by Saint Louis. He was at Jaffa when, after a
long delay, the intelligence reached him. At the very first ominous
words of the papal legate who had come to break the tidings to him Saint
Louis gave way to uncontrollable emotion. Consolation was unavailing;
even the clergy seemed to realize that it would have been but an
impertinent aggravation; and for two days no one ventured to speak to
him. Then, rousing himself from the depths of his grief, he sent for
that best and sturdiest of his friends, the fearless, honest, blunt Sire
de Joinville, Seneschal of Champagne, who leaves us an account of what
followed. When Joinville came into the presence, the king rose, and,
stretching out his arms to him, cried in simple grief: "Ah! Seneschal! I
have lost my mother!" Joinville replied: "Sire, I do not marvel at it,
for she had to die; but I do marvel that you, a wise man, should mourn
so deeply; you know that in the words of Wisdom it is said that,
whatever grief a man have at his heart, none of it should be seen in his
countenance; for he who does so (_i. e._, shows his grief) rejoices the
heart of his enemies and brings sorrow to his friends." As all
consolation would have been inadequate to the magnitude of the loss, we
do not know that anyone could have spoken better than Joinville. The
Seneschal continues: "Madame Marie de Vertus, a very good and pious
woman, came to tell me that Queen Marguerite, who had rejoined the king
a little before, was in great grief, and prayed me to go to her and
comfort her. When I arrived I saw that she was weeping, and I said to
her that he spoke truth who maintained that one ought not to believe
women; for she who is dead was the person in the world whom you most
hated, and yet you display such grief for her. And she told me that it
was not for the Queen that she wept, but for the suffering and the grief
of the King, and for her little daughter, now left in the care of men."

There is no quality more to be admired in one who attempts to write a
life of some great man or woman than fearless frankness; the passages we
have given are characteristic of the _Vie de Saint Louis_, by the Sire
de Joinville, whose straightforward bluntness of speech is an amusing