THE WORLD’S FAIR

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1681, 18 May 1904, Page 40 (Supplement)

THE WORLD’S FAIR

NAMED AFTER LOUIS IX. Louis IX. (Saint Louis) was born in 1215, audi died in 1270. In 1226, when but twelve years old, be succeeded bis father, Louis VIII., as king of France. His mother, the celebrated Blanche of Castile, a vigorous, ambitious and able woman, ruled him and his kingdom most successfully during his minority and the years of his first crusade, and was his political adviser and coach jutor to the end of her life. He became not only a great king, bjut the noblest character in the whole history of the French monarchy. Singularly virtuous, generous and heroic, his piety and zeal in behalf of Christianity led him into Ins first crusade in 1248. His campaign against the headquarters of

HOLLA WELLS, Mayor City of St. Louis.

Mohammedan power an Egypt ended in disalster, hut his generous efforts for the release of his captured and other enslaved Christians, illustrated his noble character. The death of his mother in 1253 brought him home to his kingdom a beaten and sorrowful man. For the next sixteen years he gave France a better government than any other European nation had at that time. He was an earnest promoter of learning, and of government by wise laws. He loved justice, and was sinoarely devot ed to the welfare of all his people. In 1270, his piety engaged him in another unfortunate cruteade. As soon as his army landed at Tunis, an epidemic broke out in his camp, and he fell one of its first vicHis death, on August 24 (St. Bartholomew's' Day), ended the crusading era.