Joinville was to survive his friend for half a century. He died in 1317. With a character ripened by six years of intimacy with the _bon saint-homme roy_, he came back from the East and set himself to work for his people's welfare, the "little people of the Lord" by whom he had stood in their hour of need. He was then but thirty. In his old age he was the accepted arbiter of good taste, admired as the last of a generation of courtesy. When over ninety, this vigorous old crusader rode into Flanders on a military expedition for the crown. He had seen the reigns of six French kings and the passing away of the crusader's spirit. He had seen his own Champagne become a part of the royal domain, when the heiress Jeanne was married to the grandson of St. Louis. And it was at the bidding of that queen of Philippe-le-Bel that Joinville wrote down his memories of Louis IX. France has high advocates to plead for her before the Throne in hours of national peril. Jeanne d'Arc said that she saw St. Louis petitioning God in the dire hour of foreign invasion. "May they never deny Thy name," prayed the saint-king at Tunis, as he rendered "his pure soul unto his captain, Christ, under whose colors he had fought so long." And in the men of 1914-18, true _prud'hommes_ after the heart of St. Louis and his dear friend Joinville, stirred the crusader blood of their ancestors. THE COLLEGIATE OF MANTES[98] The king was very well built, of easy bearing and smiling countenance, bald, high-colored, a great eater and drinker. Toward his friends he was most generous; toward those who displeased him he was very firm; in his designs he was foresighted and tenacious, very catholic in his beliefs, and he judged rapidly and with great perspicacity. Easy to arouse, he was also easy to appease. Upon the great who disobeyed him he was hard, and he enjoyed sowing discord among them, and to make use of the little people in his purposes.--Portrait of Philippe-Auguste by a canon of St. Martin, Tours. [Illustration: _Notre Dame of Mantes (1160-1200). The Contemporary of Paris Cathedral_] From Paris can best be visited the cathedral-like collegiate at Mantes on the Seine to the east, and the cathedral of Meaux on the Marne to the west. Mantes-la-Jolie, the "well-beloved" city of Philippe-Auguste, and where he died in 1223, is set picturesquely above the Seine, in whose widened course are wooded islands. From the bridge crossing the river[99] may be had the best view of the town. The collegiate church of Notre Dame stands above the houses of the pleasant little city, in the high-shouldered way of many a French church. Happily, it has never been reconstructed. It has various traits in common with Notre Dame of Paris, and some think that the same architect planned both.