The world has seen more profound politicians on the throne, greater generals, men of more mighty and brilliant intellect, princes who have exercised a more powerful influence over later generations and events subsequent to their own time; but it has never seen such a king as this St. Louis, never seen a man possessing sovereign power and yet not contracting the vices and passions which attend it, displaying upon the throne in such a high degree every human virtue purified and ennobled by Christian faith. St. Louis did not give any new or permanent impulse to his age; he did not strongly influence the nature or the development of civilization in France; whilst he endeavoured to reform the gravest abuses of the feudal system by the introduction of justice and public order, he did not endeavour to abolish it either by the substitution of a pure monarchy, or by setting class against class in order to raise the royal authority high above all. He was neither an egotist nor a scheming diplomatist; he was, in all sincerity, in harmony with his age and sympathetic alike with the faith, the institutions, the customs, and the tastes of France in the thirteenth century. {141} And yet, both in the thirteenth century and in later times, St. Louis stands apart as a man of profoundly original character, an isolated figure without any peer among his contemporaries or his successors; so far as it was possible in the Middle Ages, he was an ideal man, king, and Christian. It is reported that in the seventeenth century, during the brilliant reign of Louis XIV. Montecuculli, on learning the death of his illustrious rival, Turenne, said to his officers, 'A man has died to-day who did honour to mankind.' St. Louis did honour to France, to royalty, to humanity, and to Christianity. This was the feeling of his contemporaries, and after six centuries it is still confirmed by the judgment of the historian.