Picture by Henri MOREAU
While returning from the Crusade, the ship with Saint Louis IX aboard struck shallows. As everyone feared it would sink, the king called for the shipbuilders and asked them if the ship could continue the voyage or not. They all counseled him to move to another vessel. So he gave them an order: “In the name of honor, tell me, would you abandon this ship if it belonged to you?”
“Your Majesty, we would not” they replied. “We would prefer to run the risk of shipwreck and try to save this precious ship.”
“Why then do you counsel me to move to another one?”
“The situations are not the same, Sire. No money could replace your person, that of your wife and children who are here. Thus, we do not advise that you run this risk.”
“Gentlemen, thank you for your counsel, but my decision takes into account that if I abandon this ship, some five hundred people will have to stay in Cyprus for who knows how long. I prefer to place myself in God’s hands than to cause such hardship to those who are with me.”
Marius Sepet, Saint Louis (Paris: Victor Lecoffre, 1913), p. 160 (Nobility.org translation.)
Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 25
