recall the excellent memory of Louis IX., called St. Louis, the worthy son of the noble Queen Blanche de Castille,[1] the King, faithful to his loyal Councillor and friend de Joinville, the good king who died before Tunis! But we might with advantage quote the words of Philip Augustus at Bouvines—we shall find that they echo the words of Clovis: "All our hope, all our trust, are in God. Sinful though we be, we are united to God. We may then rely upon the mercy of the Lord, who, in spite of our sins, will give us the victory over His enemies and ours." At these words the French army asked the King's blessing, and he, raising his hand, prayed for it.—I have no doubt I shall be forgiven for the quotation of the words of Lord Raglan's French colleague at the battle of Alma, Marshal St.-Arnaud, of whom Sainte-Beuve says, that he was a man who wielded his pen as easily as he did his sword, and who, whilst merely tracing a passing thought, is often more successful in expression than are professional authors. "In these great undertakings (war), my dear brother, you see man stands for very little, his plans and projects for still less; God must give His approval and protection to them. I will do my best, and God will do His will; I neglect nothing that may make the chances in my favour, but I know well that I am steering across a sea strewn with shoals, and that each day I see fresh ones rising out of the briny deep. God's will be done." How much more lasting is the power of such words than the red gleam of the blood of revolutionary upstarts!
There is much, we think, that shows that the ancestors of modern Frenchmen were grand and admirable in deeds as well as in words. To comment upon their conduct would be, as in the
- ↑ The Daughter of Alphonse IX., King of Castille, and Eleanor of England. Born in 1187, she married Prince Louis, afterwards Louis VIIL, and with the aid of the Connétable de Montmorency, upheld the rights of her son, Louis IX., after he had become an orphan and during his absence in Palestine. Blanche de Castille was equally remarkable for her personal charms as for the firmness and sagacity she displayed towards a troublous nobility who had risen in war against her during the minority of her son. She died in 1252, deeply deplored by her people, to whom she had been a distinguished ruler and charitable Queen, and between whom and herself the most loyal attachment existed, doubtless that same loyal feeling with which Her Majesty Queen Victoria is regarded by her subjects throughout the length and breadth of the British Empire.
