30 THE BOY CRUSADERS.

to copy. His piety, and his eagerness to do what
was right and to avoid what was wrong, raised the
wonder of his contemporaries. He passed much of
his time in devotional exercises, and, when not
occupied with religious duties, ever conducted him-
self as if with a consciousness that the eye of his
Maker was upon him, and that he would one day
have to give a strict account of all his actions.
Every morning he went to hear prayers chanted, and
mass and the service of the day sung; every after-
noon he reclined on his couch, and listened while
one of his chaplains repeated prayers for the dead;
and every evening he heard complines.

Nevertheless, Louis did not, like such royal per-
sonages as our Henry VI., allow his religious exer-
cises so wholly to monopolise his time or attention
as to neglect the duties which devolved upon him as
king. The reverse was the case. After arriving at
manhood he convinced the world that he was well
qualified to lead men in war, and to govern them in
peace.

It happened that, in the year 1242, Henry King
of England, who was several years older than Louis,
became ambitious of regaining the continental ter-
ritory wrested from his father, John, by Philip
Augustus; and the Count de la Marche, growing
malecontent with the government of France, formed
a confederacy against the throne, and invited Henry
to conduct an army to the Continent. Everything
seemed so promising, and the confederacy so formid~
able, that Henry, unable to resist the temptation of »
recovering Normandy and Anjou, crossed the sea,