Ill health and anxiety wore out the health and spirits of Louis. His last days were full of trouble. He desired to retire to the home of his youth clad in the Benedictine garb, but he was too ill to be able to realise his wish. He died at Paris almost in the odour of sanctity, lamenting with his last breath that it was not the lot of man to combine the energy of youth with the experience of age. Louis VII., surnamed the Young, the eldest of the five sons that Adelaide of Maurienne bore to her husband, had already, when a child nine years old, been crowned at Reims by Innocent II. He was still in his new Aquitanian domains when his father’s death gave him the exclusive rule over France. [Sidenote: Character of Louis VII.] Suger and the other ministers of the old king did their best to carry on still further the policy which had so much improved the position of the French monarchy. But Louis VII. was very unworthy to continue the work of his strong and vigorous father. He is praised by the chroniclers for his honesty, simplicity, and benevolence. He was a fair soldier, but his love of peace made him reluctant to assume the sword, and his weakness and indecision of character often led him into deceit and double-dealing. The chief positive trait in his disposition was a rigid and monastic piety, which kept his private life pure, but led to scruples of conscience and hesitation in conduct that not a little unfitted him for the rude tasks of kingship. The feudal party soon realised his weakness, and Suger found that the work of Louis the Fat had to be done over again. If the petty lords of the Isle de France were still kept in check, the independent great vassals soon began to enlarge their pretensions. It was a time of feudal reaction all over Europe. The weak Stephen had succeeded Henry I., ‘the lion of righteousness,’ in England. Conrad III., the slave of the Church, had replaced the capable but limited Lothair of Supplinburg. Under Louis VII. the same tendencies manifested themselves in France. It speaks well for Louis VI. and Suger that it was a period of stagnation rather than of positive reaction in the fortunes of the French monarchy. [Sidenote: The first ten years of Louis VII., 1137–1147.]