gerous, perhaps even ruinous, for France. This is one
case in which we know Saint Louis rejected his mother's guidance, and
what came of it is matter of history; might there not be many another
act of his, more successful in its issue, for which the credit should go
to Blanche?

As a queen, Blanche de Castille was more than capable; it is only the
absence of great battles, great social, religious, and economic
movements, during her ascendency, that hinders our calling her, without
reservation, a great queen. When we look at Blanche the woman, we are
confronted with a like difficulty. Shall we say she was a saint? Her
son, the son whom she bore, whom she reared with unexampled care, whom
she watched over all her life, has been called a saint, and there is no
one to say him nay. Shall we say that the mother of a saint is, _ex
officio_, or even by courtesy, also a saint? We cannot claim sanctity
for Queen Blanche: there was in her a touch of the temper of her
grand-mother, Eleanor of Guienne of wicked memory, or mayhap a trace of
the Plantagenet. It is interesting to note that the best qualities of
the vigorous Henry II. tempered the woman's nature of this daughter of
Spain and gave her the stamina, the unconquerable spirit, which alone
could save her. This Plantagenet temper is under excellent control in
Queen Blanche; so excellent, indeed, that under some circumstances she
seems cold. She is not cold, she is cool, a very different thing; no
danger, no excitement, no sudden gust of resentment at an insult, can
make her lose her head and act rashly. She is a thorough politician,
making her feelings, her emotions, subservient to her will, and even, as
we have hinted, playing the lover for the sake of controlling an amorous
and uncertain vassal. Danger nerves her to action, and she acts with
promptitude and firmness. At the defects in her character we have
already hinted in part; the fundamental one, when we consider Blanche
the woman, was her love of power. Ambitious she was; and yet, when we
say this, we must not forget that she sought power not for herself, but
for her son. How quietly she relinquishes her authority, and how ready
she is, even when that authority is at its height, to tell Thibaud de
Champagne that he owes his preservation to "the great goodness of my
son, the King, who came to your aid"! But it was her jealousy of
Marguerite de Provence that was the great blemish on Blanche's
character. It was a meanness