Education > Elements of universal history on a new and systematic plan

294
MIDDLE AGES.
Robert, and, by her ungracious behaviour, drove Henry, as she
had before compelled his brother, to revolt. But the youthful
prince was far from seconding his mother’s projects, and in
fact united with his brother against her tyranny. They re¬
turned to their duty a short time before the death of their
father, which took place at Melun, in the sixty-first year of
his age and the thirty-fifth of his reign, 1031.
Daring this reign the Church began to take measures against the heretics,
who appeared in great numbers : some of them pretended to change the
doctrines, others to reform the manners, but all were persecuted alike. In
a council assembled at Orleans, a multitude of these unfortunate persons were
condemned to the flames. King Robert and his queen were present at their
execution; when Constance remarking among the victims an ecclesiastic who
had been her own confessor, thrust out one of his eyes with an iron rod.
Robert’s devotion and goodness, the chief qualities that can
be praised in him, were not very elevated. His principal oc¬
cupation was founding churches, chanting with the priests, and
correcting the liturgies. Yet this piety, however erroneously
directed, was accompanied by an ardent charity that should
ever consecrate the memory of this king. The poor were his
friends; every day he fed three hundred, sometimes a thousand;
on Holy Thursday, kneeling and in sackcloth, he washed their
feet, and served them.
Henry I., 1031, was scarcely seated on the throne before
Robert, his brother, was urged to assert his claims to the crown;
but the king being triumphant, the other was contented to
accept the duchy of Burgundy, which his descendants possessed
until 1361. Another but far less successful war occupied the
remainder of his reign. The Duke of Normandy, Robert the
Devil, by whose aid Henry had been maintained on the throne,
having died in 1035, while returning from a pilgrimage to Je¬
rusalem, left William the Bastard, afterwards the conqueror of
England, to succeed him. The French king took advantage of
the minority of the young prince to weaken his power ; but no
sooner had William reached man’s estate, than he attacked his
enemy and defeated him in three battles, 1054.
Philip I. succeeded his father in 1060, and commenced the
longest reign which occurs in the French annals. His personal
acts must be carefully separated from those which so highly
characterized the chivalry of France during this period. He
distinguished himself in several wars, but in his private life
indulged in vices that drew upon him the censures of the
church and the contempt of his subjects. He trafficked in
holy matters, selling to the highest bidder the vacant benefices