After Louis VIII.'s brief reign of three years, there rises to the throne of France one of the gentlest and noblest of the sons of men, a prince indeed, who, amid all the temptations of absolute power maintained a spotless life, and at death laid down an earthly crown to assume a fairer and an imperishable diadem among the saints in heaven. All that was best in mediævalism--its desire for peace and order and justice; its fervent piety, its passion to effect unity among Christ's people and to wrest the Holy Land from the pollution of the infidel; its enthusiasm for learning and for the things of the mind; its love of beauty--all are personified in the life of St. Louis. The young prince was eleven years of age when his father died. During his minority he was nurtured in learning and piety[51] by his mother, Blanche of Castile, whose devotion to her son, and firm and wise regency were a fitting prelude to the reign of a saintly king. Even after he attained his majority, Louis always sought his mother's counsel and was ever respectful and submissive to her will. When the news of her death reached him in the Holy Land, he went to his oratory, fell on his knees before the altar, submissive to the will of God, and cried out with tears in his eyes, that he had loved the queen, "his most dear lady and mother, beyond all mortal creatures." The king's conception of his office was summed up in two words--_Gouverner bien_. "Fair son," said he one day to Prince Louis, his heir, "I pray thee win the affection of thy people. Verily, I would rather that a Scotchman came from Scotland and ruled the kingdom well and loyally than that thou shouldst govern it ill." Joinville tells with charming simplicity how the king after hearing mass in the chapel at Vincennes was wont to walk in the woods for refreshment and then, sitting at the foot of an old oak tree, would listen to the plaints of his poorer people without let of usher or other official and administer justice to them. At other times, clothed in a tunic of camlet, a surcoat of wool (_tiretaine_) without sleeves, a mantle of black taffety, and a hat with a peacock's plume, he would walk with his Council in the garden of his palace in the Cité, and on the people crowding round him, would call for a carpet to be spread on the ground, on which he would sit, surrounded with his councillors, and judge the poor diligently.