he charters of the hundred crafts of Paris were confirmed and many
privileges granted to the great trade guilds.

In 1270 St. Louis put on a second time the crusader's badge, "the dear
remembrance of his dying Lord," and met his death in the ill-fated
expedition to Tunis. So feeble was the king when he left Paris, that
Joinville carried him from the Hotel of the Count of Auxerre to the
Cordeliers, where the old friends and fellow-warriors in the Holy Land
parted for ever. When stricken with the plague the dying monarch was
laid on a couch strewn with ashes. He called his son, the Count of
Alencon to him, gave wise and touching counsel, and, after holy
communion, recited the seven penitential psalms: having invoked
"Monseigneurs St. James and St. Denis and Madame St. Genevieve," he
crossed his hands on his heart, gazed towards heaven and rendered his
soul to his Creator. _Piteuse chouse est et digne de pleurer le
trepassement de ce saint prince_, says Joinville, to whom the story
was told by the king's son--"A piteous thing it is and worthy of tears
the passing away of this holy prince."

The bones of the dead king, from which the flesh[56] had been removed
by boiling, were sent for burial to St. Denis, which he had chosen for
the place of his sepulture. Joinville,[57] his friend and companion,
from whose priceless memoirs we have chiefly drawn, ends his story
thus:--"I make known to all readers of this little book that the
things which I say I have seen and heard of the king are true, and
steadfastly shall they believe them. And the other things of which I
testify but by hearsay, take them in a good sense if it please you,
praying God that by the prayers of Monseigneur St. Louis it may please
Him to give us those things that He knoweth to be necessary as well
for our bodies as for our souls. Amen."

[Footnote 56: It was buried in the church of Monreale at Palermo.]

[Footnote 57: Joinville was a brave and tender knight; he tells us
that before starting to join the crusaders at Marseilles he called all
his friends and household before him, and declared that if he had
wronged any one of them reparation should be made. After a severe
penance he was assoiled, and as he set forth, durst not turn back his
eyes lest his heart should be melted at leaving his fair chateau of
Joinville and his two children whom he loved so dearly.]

King Louis was tall of stature, with a spare and graceful figure; his
face was of angelic swe