Feast day: August 25
St. Louis of France
King Louis IX of France, a just and devout ruler who reformed the law, fed the poor at his own table, built the jewel-like Sainte-Chapelle, and died on crusade in North Africa.
Louis IX became king of France in 1226 at the age of eleven, on the death of his father, and was raised by his formidable and devout mother, Blanche of Castile, who governed for him as regent and shaped his character. 'I would rather see you dead,' she told him, 'than guilty of a mortal sin' — and the lesson took root in a king who would rule for over forty years as the very model of a Christian monarch.
He governed with a passion for justice that became legendary. He reformed the law and the courts of his kingdom, rooted out corruption among his officials, and made himself accessible to the humblest of his subjects, sitting, the famous image has it, beneath an oak tree at Vincennes to hear the petitions and complaints of ordinary people and to render judgment himself.
His faith ran through everything. He served the poor at his own table, washed the feet of beggars, founded hospitals and homes for the blind and for reformed prostitutes, and personally tended lepers whom others would not approach. To house the relics of Christ's Passion, including what was venerated as the Crown of Thorns, he built in Paris the exquisite jewel-box of the Sainte-Chapelle.
Twice he took the cross as a crusader. On the first expedition he was defeated and captured in Egypt and held for ransom; undeterred, he set out again years later, and died of plague before the walls of Tunis in 1270, with the word 'Jerusalem' on his lips. Canonized in 1297, the only French king ever declared a saint, he is the patron of France and a rare example of holiness on a throne.
He washed the feet of beggars, settled disputes under an oak in his garden, and built the Sainte-Chapelle to house relics of Christ's Passion.
Source: newadvent.org/cathen/09368a.htm
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