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Rh made one more attempt to recover his heritage at the head of an army of mercenaries aided by the fickle baronage of Poitou. John landed at La Rochelle on the 16th of February 1214, and was at first successful. On the 19th of June he laid siege to La Roche-aux-Moines, the fortress which defended Angers and commanded the Loire valley; but on the approach of a royal army under Prince Louis on the 2nd of July his Poitevin barons refused to risk a pitched battle, and he fled hastily to La Rochelle. The Angevin Empire in France was lost. Meanwhile Philip himself won his greatest victory at the bridge of Bouvines, among the morasses of Flanders. At first taken by surprise, he turned the abortive attack into a complete rout. Renaud and Ferdinand were taken prisoner, and Otto IV. fled from the battlefield. The army of the allies was utterly destroyed (July 27, 1214). Nothing shows the progress of the Capetian monarchy more than the enthusiasm and joy of the people of France, as described by William the Breton, over this crowning victory. The battle of Bouvines, a decisive battle for the history of Germany as well as for France and England, sealed the work of Philip Augustus. The expedition of his son Louis to conquer England can hardly be considered as an incident of his reign, though he was careful to safeguard the rights of the French Crown. More important was the Albigensian crusade, in which he allowed Louis to take part, though he himself, preoccupied with the king of England, had refused time after time to do anything. He treated Simon de Montfort as if he were a royal bailli; but it was not in virtue of any deep-laid scheme of his that in the end Amaury de Montfort, Simon's son, resigned himself to leave his lands to the Crown of France, and gave the Crown a power it had never before possessed in Languedoc.

Even more than by his conquests Philip II. marks an epoch in French history by his work as an organizer and statesman. He surrounded himself with clerks and legists of more or less humble origin, who gave him counsel and acted as his agents. His baillis, who at first rather resembled the itinerant justices of Henry II. of England, were sent into the royal domain to supervise the conduct of the prévôts and hear complaints, while in the newly acquired lands in the south local feudal magnates were given similar powers with the title of sénéchal. Feudal service was more and more compounded for by a money payment, while additional taxes were raised, all going to pay the mercenaries with whom he fought Richard I. and John. The extension of the system of sauvegarde, by which abbeys, towns or lay vassals put themselves under the special protection of the king, and that of pariage, by which the possessor surrendered half the interest in his estate to the king in return for protection or some further grant, increased the royal power. The small barons were completely reduced to submission, whilst the greater feudatories could often appoint a castellan to their own castles only after he had taken an oath to the king. Philip supported the clergy against the feudal lords, and in many cases against the burgesses of the towns, but rigidly exacted from them the performance of their secular duties, ironically promising to aid the clergy of Reims, who had failed to do so, “with his prayers only” against the violence of the lords of Rethel and Roucy. He clung to his right of regale, or enjoyment of the revenues of bishoprics during their vacancy, though it was at times commuted for a fixed payment. The attempt to raise a tithe for the crusade in 1189 failed, however, before a general resistance owing to an unfair assessment.

It has been said with some justice that Philip II. was the first king of France to take the bourgeoisie into partnership. He favoured the great merchants, granting them trade privileges and monopolies. The Jews he protected and plundered by turns, after the fashion of medieval kings. Amongst the subject towns administered by prévôts a great extension of the “custom of Lorris” took place during his reign. But it is as the ally and protector of the communes that he takes his almost unique place in French history. Before him they were resisted and often crushed; after him they were exploited, oppressed, and finally destroyed. In the case of Senlis he extended the jurisdiction of the commune to all crimes committed in the district. It is true that he suppressed some communes in the newly conquered fiefs, such as Normandy, where John had been prodigal of privileges, but he erected new communes in his own private domain, quite contrary to the custom of other kings. He seems to have regarded them as a kind of garrison against feudal unruliness, while the rents they furnished increased his financial resources. He created no new types of commune, however, except Peronne, which received a maximum of political independence, the twenty-four electors, who named the jurés and other officers, being elected by the corps de métiers.

The newly organized powers of the Crown were in evidence everywhere, interfering in the family affairs of the great feudatories and taking advantage of minorities, such as that of Theobald IV. of Champagne. The great feudatories accepted his legislation on dower in 1214 and 1219 and the établissement of 1209 making co-heirs of fiefs hold direct from the king and not from one of their number. The Tournois was substituted for the Angevin money in Normandy after 1204. The army which safeguarded this active monarchy consisted chiefly of mercenaries. The old feudal ost was but rarely convoked. The communes, though they appear as taking part in the battle of Bouvines, compounded for their service by a money payment as early as 1194.

Philip's policy of building up a strong monarchy was pursued with a steadiness of aim which excluded both enthusiasm and scruple. But he seems to have prided himself on a certain humanity, or even generosity of temper, which led him to avoid putting his enemies to death, though he did not scruple to condemn Renaud of Dammartin to the most inhuman of imprisonments. He was impulsive and could display extraordinary activity at times, but he possessed also a certain coldness and caution. He shrank from no trickery in carrying out his ends, and had no room for pity. He could not even trust his own son with any power, and was brutal in his relations with his queen, Ingeborg. He is described by Paiën Gatineau as “a well-knit, handsome man, bald (from his illness at Acre), of agreeable face and ruddy complexion, loving good cheer, wine and women. Generous to his friends, he was miserly to those who displeased him; very skilled in the art of the engineer, catholic in his faith, far-seeing, obstinate in his resolution. His judgment was sound and quick. He was also quick in his anger, but easily appeased.” As the result of his steadiness of aim and patient sagacity, at the end of his reign the Crown was victorious over the feudal nobility and the royal domain extended to the frontiers along with royal authority. Artois, the Amienois, Valois, Vermandois, the greater part of the Beauvaisis, Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, and an important part of Poitou and Saintonge, were added to the domain during his reign. The number of prévôtés was increased from thirty-eight to ninety-four, and the royal revenue increased from 19,000 livres a month to 1200 livres a day.

Philip Augustus died on the 14th of July 1223. He was thrice married. His first wife, Isabella, by whom he had one son, Louis, died in 1189 or 1190. After her death he married Ingibjorg or (q.v), daughter of Valdemar I. of Denmark. This unlucky marriage was negotiated, it is said, chiefly to acquire the old claims of Denmark over England, to be used as a weapon against Richard I. However that may be, he soon repudiated this Danish princess, for whom he seems to have conceived an unconquerable aversion on the very morrow of his marriage to her, and in 1196, in defiance of the pope, who had refused to nullify his union with Ingeborg, married Agnes, daughter of Bertold IV., duke of Meran. This led to his excommunication and brought the interdict upon France, and did more to weaken him than any other act of his. In 1200 he was forced to put away Agnes and to recognize Ingeborg as his lawful wife, but he kept her in prison until 1213. By Agnes (d. 1201) he had a son Philip, called “Hurepel,” count of Clermont, and a daughter Mary, who married Philip, count of Namur (d. 1213), and then Henry II., duke of Brabant. Ingeborg lived until 1236.

See A. Luchaire in E. Lavisse's Histoire de France, tome iii. 83-284 (Paris, 1904), and literature there indicated; L. Deslisle, Catalogue des actes de Philippe Auguste (Paris, 1856 and 1901); A. Cartellieri, ''Philip II. August'', Bd. I. Bis zum Tode Ludwigs VII.