Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/575

LOUI8 VI.] FRANCE 539 neighbouring lord of Montmorency, who disputed with him the mastership over the plain of St Denis; on the other gido, he had much ado to come by the castle of Moutloheri, which barred his way southwards to Orleans ; his mastery over his own barons was very slight ; his suzerainty in dis tricts farther off, over Champagne and Burgundy, over Normandy and elsewhere, was scarcely more than nominal. But Louis had force of character ; his nicknames testify thereto, for was he not styled "the EvciHe", the Wideawake," and "the Batailleur, the Bruiser "? He knew how to rouse enthusiasm among his followers ; no prince ever had a more loyal household or a stronger; the crusades relieved him of some of his most turbulent neighbours ; the upswinging of the communes, with their civic liberties, afforded a counter poise to the feudal violence of the baron s castle ; above all, the royal domains under him were well administered. First of Capetian kings, he was felt to be the fount of justice, and it was seen that, as his wise biographer Suger says, " he studied the peace and comfort of ploughmen, labourers, and poor folk, a thing long unwonted," and all the more grateful for its novelty. The most marked of these charac teristics of King Louis VI. s reign was the growth of town liberties, which began just before and after the year 1100. Franco has always been remarkable for the large number of her small towns and her deficiency in large ones ; the time we have reached gives us the beginning of this phenomenon. The little towns all through central France now became the refuge of the population against feudal lawlessness and oppression ; and in the very centre, in the district round Paris, they took up the defence of the royal power against its most dangerous feudal neighbour, the duke of Normandy. " At this period," says Ordericus Vitalis, "popular communities were established by the bishops, in such sort that parish priests accompanied the king to siege or battle, bearing the parish flag, and followed by all the youth of the township." This movement showed itself most clearly in the towns just to the north of Paris. Laon, Noyon, Beauvais, the three seats of the clerical party, Saint Quentin, and a few others, all at this time bargained for and bought their liberties. The king placed himself at their head. As each parish priest, representing some little town, marched with the banner of that saint to whom his church was dedicated, so did King Louis go forth with the flag of his own church, the oriflamme of St Denis. He is the first king of France who bore it officially ; by it he declared himself champion of the Church of France, and of the new burgher-life which was springing up around him. The peasant also was glad to be on the same side. In the king s struggle against feudal independence we see con tinually how well he was seconded by the aggrieved rustics as well as by the civic levies, or by the " damsels," the young gentlemen who formed his warlike court. It would be misleading to say that this new burgher-life was the king s doing ; he seems to have felt but little interest in it, great as was its influence on the future. He granted and withdrew charters according as it suited him, or as men offered him more or less. Even to the larger towns, the chief cities of the royal domain, Paris, Orleans, Melun, Etampes, and Compiegne, he only granted privileges, not any real constitutional rights. It is one of the misfortunes of French history that constitutional liberties never seem possible, that even in the outset they are blighted, and in the end they perish. By degrees Louis VI. secured his frontiers to the east, the north, and the south; with the west, where lay the fiercer Norman, it was a harder task. In 1119 he lost the battle of Brenneville, and had to abandon the cause of William Clito, son of Eobert duke of Normandy, who claimed the duchy against Henry I. of England. In 1124 he was once more in collision with his Norman neighbour : for Henry Beauclerc had allied himself with his son-iii law 1124-37. Henry V. of Germany, who promised to attack the French king from the east, while Henry I. should assault him in the west. Louis VI. raised all central France to the rescue ; it was seen how powerful he had become. His own men came in at once, and formed the nucleus of his army ; his body-guard and the men of Paris, Orleans, and Etampes were in the centre round the sacred oriflamme, which Louis now brought forth for the first time. Champagne and Burgundy were there ; Vermandois also with horse and foot ; Pontoise, Amiens, and Beauvais sent the men of their com munes. The greater lords farther off, though they held back, did not contest the king s right to call them out. The. emperor, struck by this show of energy, or aware of troubles behind his back in Germany, abandoned all his plans of revenge against Rheims, where the council of French clergy had excommunicated him. The king soon made peace with Henry of England, and the storm passed over. The fortunate issue of this war, and the king s interposi tion in the affairs of his neighbours, the submission of William of Aquitaine to his judgment, his attempt to find a lordship in Flanders for his friend William Clito, marked Louis VI. out as a powerful king, who had in fact triumphed over opposition at home and abroad. He followed pre cedent, and had Philip his eldest son crowned in 1129; he, however, was killed by accident in 1131, and the king then took his younger son Louis, " Louis the Young," as men called him, and crowned him as joint-king. The troubles of England, connected with the reign of Stephen, relieved him of anxiety for the rest of his days on his western borders; and the offer of William of Aquitaine to wed his daughter Eleanor to the young joint-king seemed to promise the happiest future for France. Louis VI. just lived to arrange the marriage, and then, on his way to St Denis, where he yearned to end his days, for it was the school of his youth and the home of Abbot Suger his dearest friend, he was taken ill at Paris, and there died in the year 1137. This was the first real king of France, a man of noble nature and true kingly gifts. His greatest cross was his unwieldy bulk, though it could not hinder his activity ; he was humble of heart and kindly, cheerful in health or sick ness, a true father to his people. Had his successor been a man like himself, the task of welding France into one kingdom might have been achieved centuries ere it was at last brought to pass. But Louis VII., the Young, and his queen Eleanor of Louis Aquitaine, left by her father s death at this same time VII< heiress of his great possessions in the south, were far below the level of the fat king, and retarded instead of forwarding the growth of the French monarchy. The advance of the country in mental and material prosperity during the late reign had been immense. Thanks to the crusades, and to the tranquillity which prevailed at home, town-life flourished, religion woke to new life, church-building took a fresh departure, philosophy began to feel her strength. If these are the days of St Bernard, last of fathers, they were also the days of Abelard, one of the first of intellec tual inquirers. To him is due the mental reputation of Paris, which in its turn led on at the end of the century to the establishment of the university of Paris, mother of all the learned corporations of modern Europe. Louis VII. was no sooner sole king than he began to show how far he was below his great father; he was weak, timid before the church, vexed with a scrupulous conscience, the delight of monkish chroniclers, the contempt of men. From the beginning his ventures failed. He tried to coerce the great count of Toulouse into submission, and was ignomini- ously repulsed; he carried on a quarrel with the papacy