Louis IX was one of the most remarkable of French kings and the only one to be considered a saint. His medieval reputation was enormous, spreading even to the New World with French explorers who named a settlement on the banks of the Mississippi after him.
While his domestic policies were successful, Louis’ involvement in crusading was disastrous. The holdings in the Holy Land that had been won by the knights of the First Crusade were greatly reduced by Islamic counter-attacks. Jerusalem and Damascus had fallen to the Egyptian Ayyubid dynasty, and by the mid-1240s Christian territory in the Levant consisted largely of a few cities in a narrow strip of the Mediterranean coast.
Negotiations with his captors were long and tense. Louis insisted that the ordinary troops who could not afford to buy their freedom not be forgotten—he paid their captors to release them. After paying the enormous ransom of 400,000 dinars, promising never again to attack Egypt, and returning the city of Damietta, Louis was freed but he chose not to return immediately to France. Instead he became a pilgrim, visiting holy sites in Jerusalem, and aiding the few remaining crusader holdings along the coast of the eastern Mediterranean. Even after reaching home Louis continued to send aid to the imperilled Christian communities.
Undaunted by his failure in Egypt, Louis would again turn his thoughts to war against Islam. The decades after his return were marked by internal turmoil and civil wars in Europe that had taken the minds of popes and princes off the situation in the Holy Land. Louis worked to remedy that lack of focus. He organized the Eighth Crusade, this time targeted against Tunis in North Africa, either because of its riches or because the king believed that the local sultan was prepared to convert to Christianity.
Louis managed to convince the kings of Aragon and Sicily, and the future king of England, to accompany him. In 1270 his fleet and 15,000 crusaders landed at Carthage where his camp was soon swept by a plague of dysentery, which carried off Louis and many of his men. A hasty treaty with the sultan allowed for an honourable withdrawal. Louis’ body was boiled and the bones and heart were sent back to France where he was interred among the tombs of his ancestors at St Denis.
Louis was canonized in 1297. He is the patron saint of Quebec, St. Louis, New Orleans, and Versailles. He may be invoked by barbers, crusaders, kings, stonemasons, parents of large families, and those with difficult marriages.