n
enjoyed passed in course of time to the _prevot des marchands_, who
acquired, successively, the administration of the _rentes_ or funds
drawn from the Hotel de Ville, the regulation of public ceremonies, the
care and construction of the public monuments, the opening of new
streets, etc. The ancient privileges of the Hanse had previously been
confirmed at various times, amongst others, by Louis VII.

Saint-Louis was but a boy of eleven when he succeeded to the throne on
the death of his father, and a coalition of the great nobles was
immediately formed to take advantage of his minority; but the wisdom,
prudence, and piety of his mother, Blanche of Castile, not only
preserved the crown for him until he came of age, but also stood him in
great service during the years of his reign, especially in those in
which he was absent from the kingdom on his ill-starred crusades. One of
her most beneficent deeds has been immortalized by the modern painter,
Luc-Olivier-Merson, in a noble mural painting,--the delivery of the
prisoners held in bondage by the chapitre de Paris (Notre-Dame), several
inhabitants of Chatenay who had incurred the displeasure of the
ecclesiastical authorities, and who were so maltreated in their dungeons
that the lives of several of them were despaired of. The queen at first
sent a civil request to the chapter to release the captives under bonds,
but the churchmen returned an uncivil refusal and redoubled their
severities; whereupon she proceeded in person to the prison with her
son, struck the doors with her baton, her guards immediately broke them
down, and the liberated serfs, men, women, and children, flocked out
tumultuously to thank their deliverers on their knees. The canons
protested furiously, but the discreet regent, knowing their sensitive
point, allowed them to rage openly and contented herself with seizing
their temporal revenues. This immediately brought them to terms; in the
smoothest of phrases they besought an accommodation, and speedily agreed
to set at liberty, in consideration of a certain sum, all those whom
they had unjustly incarcerated.

It would scarcely have been thought that this gracious sovereign lady,
one of the noblest figures among the women of France, could have been
made the object of malicious slander; but one of her latest biographers,
M. Elie Berger, thinks it worth while to defend her seriously against
the "legend born of jealousy and impotence" of having been the mist