e
the familiar proverb, "If youth but knew, and age could do! "We see the
maxims of the Roman empire and reminiscences of Charlemagne in Louis's
habit of considering justice to emanate from the king as fountain head,
and of believing in his right to import it everywhere. And what
conclusion of a reign could be more Christian-like than his when,
"exhausted by the long enfeeblement of his wasted body, but disdaining to
die ignobly or unpreparedly, he called about him pious men, bishops,
abbots, and many priests of holy Church; and then, scorning all false
shame, he demanded to make his confession devoutly before them all, and
to fortify himself against death by the comfortable sacrament of the body
and blood of Christ! Whilst everything is being arranged, the king on a
sudden rises, of himself, dresses himself, issues, fully clad, from his
chamber, to the wonderment of all, advances to meet the body of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and prostrates himself in reverence. Thereupon, in the
presence of all, cleric and laic, he lays aside his kingship, deposes
himself from the government of the state, confesses the sin of having
ordered it ill, hands to his son Louis the king's ring, and binds him to
promise, on oath, to protect the Church of God, the poor, and the orphan,
to respect the rights of everybody, and to keep none prisoner in his
court, save such a one as should have actually transgressed in the court
itself."

This king, so well prepared for death, in his last days found great cause
for rejoicing as a father. William VII., Duke of Aquitaine, had, at his
death, intrusted to him the guardianship of his daughter Eleanor, heiress
of all his dominions, that is to say, of Poitou, of Saintonge, of
Gascony, and of the Basque country, the most beautiful provinces of the
south-west of France, from the lower Loire to the Pyrenees. A marriage
between Eleanor and Louis the Young, already sharing his father's throne,
was soon concluded; and a brilliant embassy, composed of more than five
hundred lords and noble knights, to whom the king had added his intimate
adviser, Suger, set out for Aquitaine, where the ceremony was to take
place. At the moment of departure the king had them all assembled about
him, and, addressing himself to his son, said, "May the strong hand of
God Almighty, by whom kings reign, protect thee, my dear son, both thee
and thine! If, by any mischance, I were to lose thee, thee and those I
send with thee, neit