to respect the rights of everybody, and to keep none prisoner in his
court, save such a one as should have actually transgressed in the court
itself."

This king, so well prepared for death, in his last days found great cause
for rejoicing as a father. William VII., Duke of Aquitaine, had, at his
death, intrusted to him the guardianship of his daughter Eleanor, heiress
of all his dominions, that is to say, of Poitou, of Saintonge, of
Gascony, and of the Basque country, the most beautiful provinces of the
south-west of France, from the lower Loire to the Pyrenees. A marriage
between Eleanor and Louis the Young, already sharing his father's throne,
was soon concluded; and a brilliant embassy, composed of more than five
hundred lords and noble knights, to whom the king had added his intimate
adviser, Suger, set out for Aquitaine, where the ceremony was to take
place. At the moment of departure the king had them all assembled about
him, and, addressing himself to his son, said, "May the strong hand of
God Almighty, by whom kings reign, protect thee, my dear son, both thee
and thine! If, by any mischance, I were to lose thee, thee and those I
send with thee, neither my life, nor my kingdom would thenceforth be
aught to me." The marriage took place at Bordeaux, at the end of July,
1137, and, on the 8th of August following, Louis the Young, on his way
back to Paris, was crowned at Poitiers as Duke of Aquitaine. He there
learned that the king, his father, had lately died, on the 1st of August.
Louis the Fat was far from foreseeing the deplorable issues of the
marriage, which he regarded as one of the blessings of his reign.

In spite of its long duration of forty-three years, the reign of Louis
VII., called the Young, was a period barren of events and of persons
worthy of keeping a place in history. We have already had the story of
this king's unfortunate crusade from 1147 to 1149, the commencement at