Louis IX. was pious and practical, and inconvenienced his courtiers as much by his punctuality and the assiduity with which he conducted his business, as by his religious duties. These he considered a part of his daily work, hearing all the canonical offices with the same regularity as he attended to the grievances of his subjects. Often, like our own George Herbert, was he found prostrate before the altar wrapped in prayer. Even Gibbon allowed that he united the virtues of a king, a hero, and a man--he might have added those of a just judge and a lawgiver; and Voltaire sums up his character as follows: "Il n'est guère donné à l'homme de pousser la vertu plus loin." When his more worldly friends cavilled at his austerities, he made his case good by retorting: "Si je passais deux fois autant de temps à jouer, ou à courir les bois, pour m'occuper de la chasse, personne n'en parleroit." As in the case of nearly all exceptionally good men, he probably owed everything to the extreme care that his mother had bestowed upon his education--a care which he repaid by a life-long devotion to her memory. Of good Queen Blanche's character we get a glimpse in the following touching anecdote. It is related that one day at Court, the Queen noticed a beautiful youth with long, fair hair, and asking his name, was answered, "Prince Herman, the son of the sainted Elizabeth of Hungary." On hearing this, Queen Blanche rose from her seat, and, gazing at the boy, said to him, "Fair youth, thou hadst a blessed mother; where did she kiss thee?" Whereat Herman, blushing, placed his finger on his forehead between his eyes, and the Queen, reverently pressing her lips upon the spot, looked up to Heaven and breathed the invocation: _Sancta Elisabetha, Patrona nostra dulcissima, ora pro nobis._ That a mother so imbued with admiration for the sainted Elizabeth should have a son who walked in the Hungarian queen's steps, is not very remarkable in those ages of faith. S. Louis' faith was simple, loving, and inextinguishable; and so it came about that when he heard of the Emperor Baldwin II.'s financial difficulties, he decided to purchase the relics which had been given more than once, it is said, as pledges for temporary loans. The Emperor's letter upon the subject would lead one to suppose that it was an act of generosity to _faire passer_ the relics to S. Louis; but we know that the King paid very handsomely for them. "Je désire," said the emperor, "ardemment de vous faire passer cette précieuse relique à vous, mon cousin, mon seigneur, et mon bienfaiteur, et au royaume de France ma patrie." Other purchasers seem to have been in the field; for S. Louis only obtained, at that time, the Crown of Thorns and some portion of the True Cross. One of his rivals was our Henry III., who in 1247 summoned all his nobles to London to witness the reception of some of the Holy Blood which had been brought from the East in a crystal vase, by one of the Knights Templars.