What did Saint Louis, King of France, symbolize in a particular way? What does well-told and well-researched history teach us about Saint Louis? Did he shine especially for his chastity? For his recollection of spirit? For poverty? If we consider the external achievements of his life, none of this can be fully asserted.
Newsdesk (26/08/2022 20:04, Gaudium Press) Saint Louis, besides being a great saint of the Middle Ages, left behind him a legacy of his personality: a vein of truth, of rectitude and an image which remains faithful to the historical reality, despite so many revolutions, transformations and the preaching of so many doctrines of hate and error spread in France.
In what aspect did the personality of Saint Louis particularly shine?
What is revered in the person of St. Louis? What does well-told, well-researched history teach us about St. Louis? Did he shine especially for his chastity? For his recollection of spirit? For poverty? For being in favour of the Church? If we consider the external achievements of his life, none of this can be fully asserted.
That he shone for chastity, there is no doubt about it. Every saint is necessarily chaste. St. Louis preserved his virginity until his marriage; he married, he was a most faithful spouse. In fact, his vocation did not ask him to maintain a chastity in the style of St. Louis of Gonzaga.
Was it recollection that made him shine? In other saints recollection shone out much more: in the hermits who separated themselves completely from the world and lived in totally deserted places. Or in the cenobites who went to live in monasteries, far away from civilization in order to lead a life of silence, study and prayer. Saint Louis did not. He lived in the midst of the world, in charge of directing the greatest kingdom on earth at that time, which was the kingdom of France, in continuous contact with men.
Was he the fighting spirit? Saint Louis was a crusader, a great warrior, but there were in Christian Civilization more successful warriors than he. The two Crusades that he undertook did not achieve the victories that he desired. There were, therefore, warriors who performed greater feats of war, within the Catholic inspiration, than he did.
In fact, non-saintly warriors achieved greater victories than those obtained by Saint Louis. For example, Don Juan of Austria obtained a great Christian victory at Lepanto, something Saint Louis did not achieve with his Crusades.
So, what is it in St Louis that gives us a glow of his personality or that stands out more than in other saints?
The Catholic man in the plenitude of expression
Saint Louis represented, with a fullness that is seldom found in the history of the Church, the Catholic man: a layman, living entirely in the world and fulfilling, with the highest perfection, the Commandments of the Law of God.
When the Church canonizes a saint, the memory of that saint is prolonged through the centuries and sometimes remains more vivid in some than in others. It is a post-mortem historical mission, like the post-mortem historical mission of Saint Therese, which consisted in pouring a shower of roses around her. And Saint Louis?
He was a man, in the plenitude of the word, testifying that a man must be holy within daily life. That holiness is not only the badge of the priest, the friar, the monk, but of all Catholics of whom God expects the exact fulfillment of the Commandments. And from many he asks such perfect fulfilment that they are raised to the honour of the altars. This St. Louis taught us. He was a man who proved that the good Catholic may be manly to the extent he ought to be, but is, at the same time, not prevented, because of this, to have certain qualities which superficial people consider incompatible with manliness.
King who achieved the perfect feudal balance
The feudal regime gave occasion for a nobility, still very turbulent, on account of their proximity to the barbarians, to rise up in their fiefs against the king. Because of this, many kings persecuted the nobility and tried to extinguish it; and, in the end, almost all of them reduced the nobility to a mere role of appearances.
With Saint Louis, what happened? The perfect balance. He was a king who preserved the feudal regime and kept the nobility in the exercise of all its privileges. On several occasions, he inherited fiefdoms and could have reunited them to the crown, however, he did not want to do so and appointed other families to these fiefdoms, keeping them autonomous.
Saint Louis ensured peace in the kingdom of France by achieving the perfect feudal balance. However, he demonstrated that a man can maintain order with force without being a tyrant, proving that goodness, justice and respectability have a role that force can never completely fill. Furthermore, that the manifestation of virtues is, on many occasions, an indispensable factor for the maintenance of authority. The manifestation of his justice, equilibrium and goodness enchanted and attracted the confidence of all.
He was a man who was at once strong and kind; just, equitable, aware of his rights; who knew how to make himself feared and respected, as well as how to give to each what was his due; and who thus introduced around himself true peace, that is to say, the tranquility of order. Not the tranquility of the lash, but of order; to put all things in order so that they may be at peace, and then to reprimand those who are out of order. This is the real task of governance.
The Crusader
St Louis spent four years in the Holy Land, dealing with the Mohammedans. Historians acknowledge that he was so agile in playing some Mohammedans against others and embroiling them that the Mohammedan power was for a long time after entangled by quarrels. Indeed, he knew how to pull the rug from under the feet of this or that one, and the political achievements of St. Louis were greater than his military works.
The chroniclers describe the splendour of St Louis’ when he landed in Egypt, a land of infidels: he was armed with a golden breastplate, a helmet, a high golden cymatium as well; he was the tallest of the men on the boat in which he sailed. When the ship came close to land, he threw himself into the water, covered in his armour, and thrust himself towards Egypt to conquer it.
On seeing their so elegant king, the noblest of them all and one who leaps, attacks and is first on the front line, the whole army dashed after him.
The idea we have today of a king is that of a museum king: who does not speak for fear of talking nonsense, does not move for fear of being inelegant, does not assault, is perpetually seated on a throne, looking forward and posing for history.
Defeated king, but revered by his opponents
This perfect Catholic man suffered a misfortune: after huge struggles, he was arrested. The Muslim power was greater than his. Usually the prisoner was the humiliated one, dependent on everyone; however, St. Louis imposed such veneration on everyone that the Moors came to ask his verdict in their disputes among themselves; they trusted in the justice of the Christian king more than in that of anyone else. During his long imprisonment – while they were negotiating his ransom – he was treated by all with veneration, proving that a king can be great and impose himself, not only because he is on the throne and surrounded by all the royal pomp, but by his virtue.
Despite his defeat, when St. Louis returned from the Crusade, the whole people acclaimed him as a true hero and prepared for him a triumphal procession on his way through France, because they understood how great a warrior he had been, how great a man, and because they wanted to console him for the defeat he had suffered; and never was his prestige greater in France than haloed with the crown of thorns of defeat.
A simple man in all his majesty
In the Middle Ages, to avoid contagion from leprosy, lepers had to live isolated from everyone and, when walking through the streets, they had to wave a bell so that no one would come near them.
What did Saint Louis do?
When lepers passed by on his way, it was not unusual for him to stop, to get off his horse, to talk to them and once he even went so far as to kiss a leper.
Sainte Chapelle
His personality was most splendidly expressed in the Sainte Chapelle. He ordered the construction of a chapel made entirely of crystal and which was a reliquary to house the crown of thorns of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
There is the figure of the holy king. Like Saint Louis, King of France, there was no other like him!
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira – extracted, with adaptations, from a conference on 27/8/1970
