Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/152

138 interest in the public welfare, Blanche sought to perform her duties towards each. She strove to maintain peace and abundance at home, and yet to supply her son with liberality. She suffered by these cares; and when the news arrived that the army was cut to pieces, her son, the count d’Artois, massacred by the infidels, and St. Lewis himself, with the greater part of the princes and nobility taken prisoners, her noble heart failed her, and her health received a considerable shock. From this time she was always weak and languid, but yet redoubled her cares, at least to preserve that state she would have rendered prosperous from ruin. She sent immense sums into Egypt for the ransom of the young monarch, expecting his return, and that of her other children, with great anxiety. Two of his brothers arrived in 1251; but her joy was diminished by a letter from the king, who had determined not to leave Palestine till he had put affairs into a better posture, and demanded new succours. She deplored in silence the infatuation of her son, but she followed his orders.

Disorders, of which the crusades were the origin, arose in the provinces, and a civil war commenced, in which, as usual, the talents of Blanche rendered her successful. Her humanity also was called into action by the unjust pretensions of some ecclesiastics, particularly those of Notre Dame, who pretended to have powers of life and death over the peasants of their jurisdiction. She went in person to the prisons belonging to them, and finding the soldiers hesitated to burst open the doors, struck at them first herself, which emboldened the rest, who soon burst them, and set free the miserable captives. After this, she seized the temporalities of the canons, till they returned to their duty: hut wishing to temper the most exact justice with mercy,