Towards the conclusion of this monarch’s reign, fortune came to reward and crown his efforts for the extension of the royal authority. William, count of Poitiers, about to undertake a pilgrimage, from which he had the presentiment that he never should return, offered his daughter Eleanor in marriage to Louis the Young, son of Louis the Fat. She was the heiress of her father’s possessions, which surpassed in extent and importance those of the king of France himself, comprising Guienne and Poitou--all the country, in fact, betwixt the Loire and the Adour. The marriage was celebrated at Bordeaux; and soon after it arrived tidings of the deaths both of the king and of the count of Poitiers. Thus Louis VII, or the Young, succeeded to dominions and authority infinitely more ample than those which his father had inherited. But the want of talent in the son did away with all these advantages. Nevertheless he commenced his reign with spirit. He chastised several refractory nobles, and resolved to support the queen’s rights to the county of Toulouse. Louis besieged that town. He failed in taking it, indeed; but the king of France, at the head of an army, made his name and power known for the first time to the inhabitants of the south. During a war carried on about the same time against Thibaut, count of Champagne, an accident occurred which had a marked effect upon the future conduct and character of Louis the Young. He had taken by storm the castle of Vitry, and set fire to it. The flames chanced to catch the neighbouring church, into which the population had crowded, to preserve themselves from the fury of the soldiery. It appears that they had no means of escape. Thirteen hundred men, women, and children perished in the conflagration. Louis was horror-struck on beholding the mass of half consumed bodies, and the weight of the remorse hung ever after upon him, and weighed down his spirit. It was the chief cause that induced him to receive the cross, and to lead that expedition to Jerusalem which is known in history as the Second Crusade.