The formation of the collection of manuscripts known as the _Trésor des Chartes_ is due to Saint-Louis. These archives he gathered together and placed in the Sainte-Chapelle,--founded to receive the true Crown of Thorns which he had received from Baldwin II, Emperor of Constantinople. He restored and protected the great hospital of the Hôtel-Dieu; and when his chaplain, Robert de Sorbon, in 1253, being at that time canon of Paris, conceived the design of erecting a building devoted to the instruction, by a certain number of secular ecclesiastics, doctors in theology, of poor students, who, at that period, were frequently obliged to live in the utmost poverty in order to pursue their studies, the king purchased for the purpose a building situated in the Rue Coupe-Gueule before the Palais des Thermes. The canonization of the monarch was celebrated with great pomp in the spring of 1297, under Philippe IV; all the nobles of the kingdom, clerical and laic, were invited to the capital, the body was placed in a silver casket and carried in a procession from Saint-Denis to Paris, where it was transferred to the church of Saint-Denis. Some time afterward, one of the ribs was placed in Notre-Dame and a part of the head in the Sainte-Chapelle. It was under very different circumstances that these earthly remains were first carried from Paris to Saint-Denis. The king had died in his second Crusade, under the walls of Tunis; his son and successor, Philippe III, re-entered Paris in 1271, bringing with him five coffins,--that of his father, of his brother, of his brother-in-law, of his wife, and of his son. He insisted upon carrying, unaided, upon his shoulders, the body of his father from Paris to Saint-Denis, and at the localities upon the road where he was obliged to stop and rest, crosses of stone were erected, and remained for several centuries. Fortunately, this was the last of the Crusades.