the throne. He made the first attempt at curbing the nobles, assisted by
Suger, the Abbot of St. Denys. The only possibility of doing this was to
obtain the aid of one party of nobles against another; and when any
unusually flagrant offence had been committed, Louis called together the
nobles, bishops, and abbots of his domain, and obtained their consent
and assistance in making war on the guilty man, and overthrowing his
castle, thus, in some degree, lessening the sense of utter impunity
which had caused so many violences and such savage recklessness. He also
permitted a few of the cities to purchase the right of self-government,
and freedom from the ill usage of the counts, who, from their guardians,
had become their tyrants; but in this he seems not to have been so much
guided by any fixed principle, as by his private interests and feelings
towards the individual city or lord in question. However, the royal
authority had begun to be respected by 1137, when Louis VI. died, having
just effected the marriage of his son, _Louis VII._, with Eleanor, the
heiress of the Dukes of Aquitaine--thus hoping to make the crown really
more powerful than the great princes who owed it homage. At this time
lived the great St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, who had a wonderful
influence over men's minds. It was a time of much thought and
speculation, and Peter Abailard, an able student of the Paris
University, held a controversy with Bernard, in which we see the first
struggle between intellect and authority. Bernard roused the young king,
Louis VII., to go on the second crusade, which was undertaken by the
Emperor and the other princes of Europe to relieve the distress of the
kingdom of Palestine. France had no navy, so the war was by land,
through the rugged hills of Asia Minor, where the army was almost
destroyed by the Saracens. Though Louis did reach Palestine, it was with
weakened forces; he could effect nothing by his campaign, and Eleanor,
who had accompanied him, seems to have been entirely corrupted by the
evil habits of the Franks settled in the East. Soon after his return,