MARS will hardly be visible. He sets not more than an hour after the Sun.

On

JUPITER may be seen low in the south-west, after sunset. the 1st he will set at ten minutes to nine, two hours ten minutes after the Sun; on the 15th at eight, one hour forty-five minutes after the Sun; and on the 30th, a few minutes past seven, P.M., only one hour twenty minutes after our luminary. On the evening of the 17th he will be close to the crescent Moon, 3° southward.

SATURN will rise on the 1st at nine, on the 15th at eight, and on the 30th at seven, P.M. At five o'clock, on the morning of the 4th, he may be recognised 5° eastward of the Moon. The bright reddish star, downward to the east, on the same parallel of declination, is Aldebaran, the brightest in the constellation Taurus. In a telescope the appearance of Saturn is now peculiarly interesting. The rings, seen in an oblique position, form an ellipse of which the length is three times the breadth.

URANUS, barely visible to the naked eye, under favourable circumstances, is now in Aries; and, in consequence of the slowness of his apparent motion, he must remain in that constellation throughout the whole of this year. On the 3d, at four, P.M., and

on the 30th, at nine, P.M., he will be close to the Moon, in each case 4° northward. He will be due south on the 1st, at 3h. 43m., on the 15th at 2h. 47m., and on the 30th at 1h. 46m., A.M., at an altitude, in each case, of 52°.

The still more distant planet, NEPTUNE, must have for ever remained invisible without the aid of the telescope. On the 2d of this month, at midnight, he will be due south, at an altitude of 30o. The very bright low star, Fomalhaut, may at that time be remarked right below the planet, at an altitude of only 8°.

Autumn commences on the 22d, at 9h. 41m., P.M.; at which moment the Sun will be in the Equator, on his way southward.

H. T. & J. Roche, Printers, 25, Hoxton-square, London.

YOUTH'S INSTRUCTER

AND

GUARDIAN.

OCTOBER, 1852.

ANECDOTES OF LOUIS IX.

(With an Engraving.)

LOUIS IX. of France is a great saint, in the estimation of those who canonise their heroes and worship the saints that they have made. He and Richard of England were preeminent among the Crusaders-Richard for valour, and Louis for superstition. The prominence of the French King in history entitles him to notice; but as an adequate sketch of his life would be longer than our space allows, we will merely note some of the chief incidents. These, however, give a sufficiently exact picture of the man.

His mother, Blanche, was a perfect devotee, and under her teaching he began to be a zealot. In due time young Louis paid court to Marguerite, daughter of the Count of Provence; but she was a relative of his own, and the Pope, considering that the marriage would be useful for the maintenance of the Romish religion in Provence, where the Albigenses were making great progress, sold him a dispensation; and in the month of May, 1234, the Archbishop Gautier gave his blessing to a union that, but for the Pope's changing wrong into right, would have caused great scandal, and would have been punishable by excommunication and its terrible consequences.

Louis went headlong into the scheme of a crusade in Palestine, for the recovery of "the holy sepulchre,”- -an excavation, wherein it was foolishly believed that our Lord had been buried, but without a shadow of evidence in proof that that VOL. XVI. Second Series.

T

was indeed the "glorious resting-place."* One of his first acts was to advance fifty thousand livres of Paris to the Emperor of Constantinople, to enable him to send over troops to Palestine. In return for this accommodation, the Emperor gave him in pawn the county of Namur, in Belgium, which was at that time his property. For the same consideration he assisted him to get possession of the crown of thorns, which, it is unnecessary to say, was a fictitious relic. It was at that time pawned to the Venetians; but, after considerable negotiation Louis obtained it from them, and had it brought to France. Fleury (from Dubois) thus describes the reception of the crown:

“The wooden chest containing it was opened; and the seals of the French Seigneurs and of the Duke of Venice, set on the silver case, inside of which was the golden vase containing the holy crown, were verified. The vase was opened, and the crown was shown to the King, and to all his attendants, who shed many tears, imagining that they could see Jesus Christ Himself, crowned with thorns. This took place on the feast of St. Lawrence. Next day, August 11th, 1239, the relic was carried to Sens. At the entrance of the city, the King and Robert, Count of Artois, the eldest of his brothers, both being barefoot, and in their shirts, carried it thus to the metropolitan church of St. Stephen, attended by all the Clergy of the city, who went before in solemn procession. Next day the King left for Paris, where the reception of the holy crown took place on the eighth day following. Near the Abbey of St. Anthony there was prepared a great platform, whereon were many Prelates clad pontifically. The chest was shown to all the people, and then the King and the Count of Artois, barefooted again, and in their shirts, carried it on their shoulders to the church of Notre Dame, and thence to the Palace, where it was placed in the Chapel Royal, which was then that of St. Nicholas."

Pope Alexander III. being at war with the Emperor, prayed Louis to protect him against "that child of Satan," and to admit him into France. But the French nobility opposed the

• Romanists interpret the words of Isaiah, (xi. 10,) “ And his rest" ( his place of rest) "shall be glorious," of the holy sepulchre. The Vulgate says: Et sepulchrum ejus erit gloriosum.