**LOUIS IX, King of France, Saint.** — Born 25 Apr. 1214, possibly at Poissy; died near Tunis 25 Aug. 1270.
Raised by his mother Blanche of Castile, a woman of rigid Catholic observance, St Louis was marked by a devotion to justice and respect for the rights of others.
Louis IX, King of France – Painting attributed to Colin d’Amiens.
His fairness earned him such renown that his contemporaries sought his arbitration in their disputes. The arbitration at Péronne (24 Sept. 1256) restored peace between Hainaut and Flanders. The arbitration at Amiens (24 Jan. 1264) produced the most famous verdict in the conflict between Henry III of England and his barons.
In France, during the reign of St Louis, the Parlement began to render judgments in particularly difficult cases that had come on appeal. The king, seated in the shade of a chestnut tree at Vincennes, enjoyed hearing the arguments of litigants and deciding their controversies. Trusted men of the king, chosen for their integrity, were sent throughout France to uncover and suppress abuses committed by royal officials. The treasury accounts were rigorously audited at the “Temple.” A sound coinage was introduced that soon displaced all others, those minted by various feudal lords. As for his charity and goodness, it suffices to mention the care he showed for plague victims and lepers, the founding of the Filles-Dieu for fallen women, the Quinze-Vingts for the blind, and the hospitals he established at Pontoise, Compiègne, and elsewhere. The king’s piety was further manifested in that admirable jewel, the Sainte-Chapelle, built to house the Crown of Thorns of the Saviour.
In foreign policy, Louis IX sought once and for all to remove the causes of friction between France and its neighboring countries. The Treaty of Corbeil (11 May 1258) secured the House of Aragon in possession of Catalonia, in exchange for renunciation of all rights in Provence and Languedoc. The Treaty of Paris of 28 May 1258, ratified in Dec. 1259—much criticized in its own time—ceded to the King of England the county of Guînes, the dioceses of Limoges, Cahors, and Périgueux, in exchange for the renunciation by the King of England of Normandy, Anjou, Touraine, Maine, and Poitou.
The appeal issued by Innocent IV to Christendom in favor of the Crusade was answered by the King of France. On 7 June 1249 an army entered Damietta. Instead of awaiting the arrival of the main forces, Robert of Artois attacked the enemy at al-Mansurah. St Louis hastened to aid his imperiled brother, but after a fierce engagement he was taken prisoner by the Saracens (5–6 Apr. 1250) and had to pay a considerable sum for his ransom.
On 17 July the king landed again on the African coast with the intention of joining forces with the bands of the Sultan of Tunis, said to be ready to invade Egypt. But the deadly climate decimated the Christian forces, and St Louis, stricken by plague, died there. He was canonized by Boniface VIII on 11 Aug. 1297. He is venerated as the principal patron of the Third Order of St Francis.