Louis Ix Of France Quotes

...le Roi-Soleil, construisant Versailles et obligeant les nobles à le suivre à la Cour, les a enfermés dans une cage toujours plus stricte de cérémonies et de petits privilèges pour les priver, presque sans qu’ils s’en rendent compte, de leur liberté et même, dans la plupart des cas, de la dignité la plus élémentaire. Dans la scène finale, on voit le roi se dépouiller de tous ses ornements, ses objets de luxe : les habits somptueux n’étaient qu’artifice, des instruments pour lui permettre d’affirmer son pouvoir afin, comme il le dit à son ministre, que chacun dans le royaume dépende pour toute chose du monarque, comme la nature dépend en toute chose du soleil.

The First Crusade: 1096-1099: Jerusalem was recaptured from Muslim rulers in 1099. The Second Crusade: 1147-1149: Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany lead a campaign to capture the County of Edessa. The Third Crusade: 1189-1192: Lead by three European kings with the aim of recapturing Jerusalem, which was again under Muslim rule. The Fourth Crusade: 1202-1204: This represented another attempt at regaining the Holy City. However, it ended with the sacking of Constantinople. The Fifth Crusade:1217-1221: An attempt to succeed where the Fourth Crusade had failed, this campaign also ended in defeat. The Sixth Crusade: 1228-1229: A major success, this Crusade ended with the capture of Jerusalem, Nazareth and other cities. The Seventh Crusade: 1248-1254: Louis IX attempted to conquer Egypt and recapture parts of the Holy Land that had fallen outside of Christian rule. However, he failed as he had to return home to France when his mother died. The Eighth Crusade: 1270: This represented Louis’ second attempt. He began in Tunisia, but died shortly after arriving. His brother was left to ensure the army returned home to France. Prince Edward of England then launched his own campaign, but left to return home once he received news that his father had fallen ill.

Equally, the giver of homage could not act in concert with, or give help to, any of his lord’s enemies. By creating a peerage for Henry III, Louis IX was only emphasising further the closeness of the allegiance which bound the two men.

Their rise was accelerated by a new crusade. In 1249, Louis IX of France landed with an army that nearly conquered a chaotic Egypt, which was saved only by a blond Turkish Mamluk of Pantagruelian proportions with one blue eye, one totally white, named Baibars. A junta of Mamluk amirs murdered the young sultan and replaced the Saladin family

As the triumphant French crusaders began to march from victory to victory, in France, echoing the march of the columns in Algeria, the ‘greatness’ of the Crusades was revived in arts, expressing past French glories. Highly popular amongst artists were Louis IX’s two crusades (1248-50; 1270), which symbolised successes of French history. Exhibitions of sculptures and paintings and tapestries of scenes from his life abounded. Thus was organised in the Salles des Croisades at Versailles a festival as part of King Louis Phillipe's (King 1830-1848) programme to turn the palace into a museum ‘dedicated to the glories of France.’ The five crusade rooms displayed each a key crusade events and individuals and the coats of arms of their participants. In total, there were 120 paintings of individual crusaders and scenes of battles and sieges in which French crusaders played a leading role.761 Louis Philippe employed no less than fifty painters for such an enterprise.762 Correspondingly, in the Musée, three rooms were dedicated to the war in the colony, which were called the Salles d’Afrique. The Salles d’Afrique were built exactly above the Salles des Croisades, which symbolically linked the conquest of Algeria to the Crusades.763