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, sometime the noble king of France, had to his father a king right christian, named Louis. This Louis father battled and fought against the heretics and Albigenses of the country of Toulouse, and extirpated their heresy, and as he returned into France he passed unto our Lord. Then the child, of holy childhood fatherless, abode and dwelled under the keeping of the queen Blanche his mother, som.etime daughter to the king of Castile, and as she that loved him tenderly betook him for to be learned and taught under the cure and governance of a special master in conditions and in letters, and he also, as the young Solomon child, wise and disposed to have a good soul, profited right greatly in all things, more than any child of his age. Of which good life and childhood his debonair mother enjoying herself, said ofttimes to him in this manner: 'Right dear son, rather I would see the death coming on thee than to see thee fall into a deadly sin against thy creator.' The which word the devout child took and shut it so within his courage, that, by the grace of God which defended and kept him, it is not found that ever he felt any atouchment, tache or spot of mortal crime. In the end, by the purveyance of his mother, and of the barons of the land, to the end that so noble a realm should not fail of 205