the barons to recover the power Philip
had wrung from them, and to reduce kingship to its former humble
position.

With this purpose a powerful coalition was formed, embracing the barons
north and south, chief among whom was Raymond of Toulouse. By force of
arms, and by diplomacy, Blanche of Castile met this crisis with
astonishing courage and address. The free cities sprang to her
assistance; and not only was the coalition broken, but there was formed
a bond between the crown and the people, leaving the throne stronger
than before.

Blanche showed great political wisdom in arranging for the marriage of
her son with the daughter of the Count of Provence; thus capturing and
securing the loyalty of this most powerful and disaffected state, which
was making common cause with Toulouse against the king. And it is with
mingled pity and rejoicing that we hear of Raymond VII. of Toulouse,
once champion of the Albigenses--warrior, poet, troubadour, and
heretic--scourge in hand and barefooted, at the porch of Notre Dame,
doing penance for his sins against the Church.

With Louis IX. on the throne a new day had dawned for France. Louis
was not a great soldier. His reign was not one of territorial
expansion but of wise administration, giving permanence and solidity to
what already existed. We are apt to think of Philip's heavenly minded
grandson chiefly as a saint. But his service to the state was enduring
and of the first magnitude, because it dealt with the sources of
things. When he established a King's Court, which was a court of
appeal from the rude justice, or injustice, of feudal counts, he
undermined the foundation of feudal power. In bestowing the _right of
appeal_, his protecting hand reached down to the poorest man in the
realm. And when bewildered barons heard the uncomprehended language of
the law-courts, and heard men not of their own order declaring private
wars punishable by death, they felt their power slipping from under
them, and that they were coming into a new sort of a world.

One of the greatest acts of this reign was the abolishing of the double
allegiance, which had wrought such trouble since the Duke of Normandy's
conquest of England. Feudal proprietors were forbidden to hold
territory under a foreign king; and henceforth no conquered province
could acknowledge allegiance to an English king; nor would an English
king again be vassal to a king of France.

But in so fortifying his throne, th