'Every one tried to find out, but no one could guess this honour: his words seemed to point rather to the town of Rheims, where he had been crowned, than to Poissy. At last he said, with a smile, "I was baptized here." He always retained a feeling of affection and gratitude for Poissy, as if it had been his native land. In the letters which he wrote as friend to friend when he wished to discard even the shadow of royal dignity, he was in the habit of styling himself "Louis of Poissy," or "Louis, lord of Poissy."' [Footnote 50] [Footnote 50: Faure, vol. ii. p. 559.] I have already spoken of his relation to the two queens, his mother and his wife. His position was often one of great difficulty, but his conduct was never short of exemplary. Louis was a model both of conjugal fidelity and filial piety. He had eleven children by Queen Margaret, six boys and five girls. He loved his wife very tenderly and was scarcely ever apart from her, and the noble courage which she displayed during the first crusade certainly made her dearer to him than ever. But he was not blind to her ambition and her want of political capacity. When he was preparing for his second crusade, he did not confide the regency of France to Queen Margaret in his absence; nay more, before he left the kingdom he took care to regulate her expenses and to restrain her power; he forbade her to receive any presents for herself or her children, to interfere with the administration of justice, or to choose any attendant for herself or her family without the consent of the Council of Regency. He had good reasons for acting in this manner, for about this time Queen Margaret, eager to hold the same position in the state that Queen Blanche had done, was making provision for herself in case of her husband's death. {121} She had induced her son Philip, heir to the throne and at that time only sixteen years old, to take oath that he would remain under her tutelage until he was thirty, that he would have no advisers of whom she did not approve, reveal to her all the designs which were formed against her, enter into no alliance with his uncle, Charles of Anjou, and keep this oath which she administered to him a secret. Louis was probably informed of this strange transaction by his young son himself, and Philip took care to ask Pope Urban IV. to absolve him from his oath. But the King foresaw the tendencies of Queen Margaret, and therefore adopted measures to protect the crown and the kingdom.