he seal of religion. Louis was consecrated at
Rheims no earlier than the 6th of August, 1223, three weeks after the
death of Philip Augustus; and his consecration was celebrated, at Paris
as well as at Rheims, with rejoicings both popular and magnificent.
But in the condition in which France was during the thirteenth century,
amidst a civilization still so imperfect and without the fortifying
institutions of a free government, no accidental good fortune could make
up for a king's want of personal merit; and Louis VIII. was a man of
downright mediocrity, without foresight, volatile in his resolves and
weak and fickle in the execution of them. He, as well as Philip
Augustus, had to make war on the King of England, and negotiate with the
pope on the subject of the Albigensians; but at one time he followed,
without well understanding it, his father's policy, at another he
neglected it for some whim, or under some temporary influence. Yet he
was not unsuccessful in his wax-like enterprises; in his campaign against
Henry III., King of England, he took Niort, St. Jean d'Angely, and
Rochelle; he accomplished the subjection of Limousin and Perigord; and
had he pushed on his victories beyond the Garonne, he might perhaps have
deprived the English of Aquitaine, their last possession in France; but
at the solicitation of Pope Honorius III., he gave up this war, to resume
the crusade against the Albigensians. Philip Augustus had foreseen this
mistake. After my death," he had said, "the clergy will use all their
efforts to entangle my son Louis in the matters of the Albigensians; but
he is in weak and shattered health; he will be unable to bear the
fatigue; he will soon die, and then the kingdom will be left in the hands
of a woman and children; and so there will be no lack of dangers." The
prediction was realized. The military campaign of Louis VIII. on the
Rhone was successful; after a somewhat difficult siege, he took Avignon;
the principal towns in the neighborhood, Nimes and Arles, amongst others,
submitted; Amaury de Montfort had ceded to him all his rights over his
father's conquests in Languedoc; and the Albigensians were so completely
destroyed or dispersed or cowed that, when it seemed good to make a
further example amongst them of the severity of the Church against
heretics, it was a hard matter to rout out in the diocese of Narbonne one
of their former preachers, Peter Isarn, an old man hidden in an obscure
retreat,