who might wish to make use of them.”  Nor were churches and hospitals a whit less than the material interests of the people an object of solicitude to him.  His reign saw the completion, and, it might almost be said, the construction of Notre-Dame de Paris, the frontage of which, in particular, was the work of this epoch.  At the same time the king had the palace of the Louvre repaired and enlarged; and he added to it that strong tower in which he kept in captivity for more than twelve years Ferrand, Count of Flanders, taken prisoner at the battle of Bouvines.  It would be a failure of justice and truth not to add to these proofs of manifold and indefatigable activity on the part of Philip Augustus the constant interest he testified in letters, science, study, the University of Paris, and its masters and pupils.  It was to him that in 1200, after a violent riot, in which they considered they had reason to complain of the provost of Paris, the students owed a decree, which, by regarding them as clerics, exempted them from the ordinary criminal jurisdiction, so as to render them subject only to ecclesiastical authority.  At that time there was no idea how to efficiently protect freedom save by granting some privilege.

A death which seems premature for a man as sound and strong in constitution as in judgment struck down Philip Augustus at the age of only fifty-eight, as he was on his way from Pacy-sur-Eure to Paris to be present at the council which was to meet there and once more take up the affair of the Albigensians.  He had for several months been battling with an incessant fever; he was obliged to halt at Mantes, and there he died on the 14th of January, 1223, leaving the kingdom of France far more extensive and more compact, and the kingship in France far stronger and more respected than he had found them.  It was the natural and well-deserved result of his life.  At a time of violence and irregular adventure, he had shown to Europe the spectacle of an earnest, far-sighted, moderate, and able government, and one which in the end, under many hard trials, had nearly always succeeded in its designs, during a reign of forty-three years.

He disposed, by will, of a considerable amount amassed without parsimony, and even, historians say, in spite of a royal magnificence.  We will take from that will but two paragraphs, the first two:—­

“We will and prescribe first of all that, without any gainsaying, our testamentary executors do levy and set aside, out of our possessions, fifty thousand livres of Paris, in order to restore, as God shall inspire them with wisdom, whatsoever may be due to those from whom they shall recognize that we have unjustly taken or extorted or kept back aught; and we do ordain this most strictly.”

“We do give to our dear spouse Isamber (evidently Inyeburya), Queen of the French, ten thousand livres of Paris.  We might have given more to the said queen, but we have confined ourselves to this sum in order that we might make more complete restitution and reparation of what we have unjustly levied.”