France Guided by St. Louis

By Louis de Montarlot

Louis de Montarlot, the author, spent most of his professional life as an international marketing consultant on all the continents. But his real passion was history and tourism, in fact history through tourism. France, his country of origin, gave him the opportunity to show how a country can be visited today with renewed excitement through the e

• Language: English
• Publisher: TOPLINK PUBLISHING, LLC
• Release date: Oct 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781949804898

Louis de Montarlot

Louis de Montarlot, the author, spent most of his professional life as an international marketing consultant on all the continents. But his real passion was history and tourism, in fact history through tourism. France, his country of origin, gave him the opportunity to show how a country can be visited today with renewed excitement through the eyes of a historical person.

Book preview

cover.jpg

FRANCE

guided by

Saint Louis

Louis De Montarlot

Copyright © 2018 by Louis De Montarlot.

Cover photo taken by author

Paperback: 978-1-949804-88-1

eBook: 978-1-949804-89-8

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Who Was Saint Louis Of France

Ten Cities In Five Regions Guided By Saint Louis

Poissy

The Childhood Of A Prince

Soissons

The Eve Of A Coronation

Sens

The Wedding For A Life Time

Paris

The Worship Of A Relic

Compiegne

The Compassion For The Sick

Royaumont

The Attraction For A Monks Life

Brioude

The Pilgrimage To The Saints

Le Puy En Velay

The Tribute To Mary

Aigues Mortes

The Departure To The Crusades

Saint Denis

The Capetian Burial

Possible Itineraries

Foreword

French chefs keep a marmite simmering on their stove during the day, and like that cooking pot, I have long kept on the back burner of mind the idea of a biography of Saint Louis IX. So when Louis de Montarlot told me that he was writing a book about that great soul of France, I was relieved to know that he was devoting his distinguished talent to a project quite different. The concept of a travel guide to the places most closely associated with the king is rather unique, and especially fitting for that ruler of France who was so often on the move. It is fascinating how peripatetic the great ones were in the Middle Age: entire courts traveling according to seasons and occasions even with their furniture and tapestries. For Saint Louis, these were not diversions or mere custom, for he was constantly on the road assembling the basic form of modern France.

The majestic journey of the humble king fittingly starts in Soissons in Picardy where the saint prayed before his coronation in Reims. That area will remind the tourist of that benefaction of a Benedictine monk, Dom Perignon, but champagne also comes from that area soaked in the blood of the First World War. To travel from place to place is also to travel through time, if one has a guide like this book, and the time of Saint Louis was one of the golden ages of all time, yet not burnished brightly without much hardship and sacrifice. To think of the Sainte Chapelle and the foundations of the Sorbonne, to picture the king with a peacock feather in his cap listening under the oak of Vincennes as a high judge to the grievances of the poor, or to watch him process under banners on crusade, might trap us in romantic reverie were not our feet planted in real places as reminders that all this was not an illusion but a real biography of a real man who did things more splendid than any child’s fairy tale.

Visiting these places, either in fact or on the pages of this book, is to encounter some of the great personalities of the human drama. It is stunning to think of Saint Louis at table with Thomas Aquinas, holding banquets for dukes and paupers, and making treaties with kings not half as radiant as he. There always will be debate about the political successes of his reign, and some have argued that the Hundred Years War might have been averted had he pursued a more warlike policy contrary to his nature and spiritual vision. Yet the fact remains that when he ceded to the English king Henry III his claims to much of Limoges, Cahors and Perigueux, he also gained fiefs in Normandy, Poitou, Anjou, Maine and Touraine, along with most of Languedoc and all of Provence which he got from the king of Aragon. The inquisitive tourist and devout pilgrim alike will find the places inseparable from the ghost of the Capetian king whose name is synonymous with royal benevolence.

As this is a guide to places in France, it cannot take the reader to Tunis where the king died, but that dying left a legacy that transcends geography and time. Saint Louis left his children instructions, his Enseignements, on how to live as he had lived, and anyone who walks his path through ten cities of France absorbs that moral inheritance. Saint Louis was only fifty-six years old, and so were other great public prophets like Thomas More and Abraham Lincoln. The shining King of France reminds us, in every place where he left his mark, that the human soul is endowed with a free will, and that there are moral consequences to the way that free will is used. It is said, although the account is disputed, that when Louis XVI was about to ascend the guillotine, his chaplain, the Abbé Edgeworth de Firmont, whispered to him: Son of Saint Louis, ascend to Heaven." As long as there is a France, the image of Saint Louis will be in the national memory, to inspire or haunt according the clarity or confusion of the people’s character, and this extends to all people in all places who are drawn to the places where saints have walked.

Reverend George William Rutler

S.T.D., M. St. (Oxon), LL.D.

New York City

Preface

Saints show us that we can escape from our deplorable human condition and save our soul.

This is why, since the beginning of the church, they were worshipped, not only in their messages, and way of living, but also in their relics, their tombs, what they have worn, used, or lived in. That explains the high number of pilgrimages of the middle age. The faithful always needed to see, if possible to touch, everything belonging to these supermen or superwomen, between God and mankind.

Reading about them and praying to them can be done anytime. But how much more intense would these prayers and readings be when the opportunity to visit the places that they particularly knew and loved is offered!

Some Saints knew only one place: Lisieux in Normandy for St Therese, Ars, near Lyons, for St John Vianney, rue du bac in Paris for St Catherine Laboure. But for others, a city is not enough! They lived in and loved many places, different cities, in different regions, sometimes in different countries. St Louis was one of those. Following such Saints will, not only deepen our understanding of their lives, but make us discover fascinating monuments, beautiful towns, lovely villages, exciting regions, which would never been visited otherwise. How many foreign tourists in France know and even heard about the typical small town of Brioude, in Auvergne?

Touring a Country this way strengthens the personal relationship with a preferred Saint. But it also allows, at the same time, the discovery of the soul, and the real beauty of this country. It is like if the Saint himself or herself guides the visitor throughout the geography and the history of that country. The author, who has extensively traveled in the world for