This biography was written by Eloise Wilding.

Saint Louis, King of France 1214 - 1270 Louis IX, Saint and King, was the oldest son of King Louis VIII and Queen Blanche of France. Like every other royal prince, he had private tutors to teach him the arts and sciences, and the grace and dignity that were expected of every heir to the royal throne. But his devoted mother Blanche, reserved to herself the teaching of her first-born, a deep respect and reverence for everything associated with his religion. She did her work well. She used to say to him: "I love you, my dear son, with as much love as any mother can love her child; but I would rather see you dead at my feet than that you should offend God by mortal sin." The young prince never forgot those serious words of his saintly mother.

He bought back the Crown of Thorns from the Eastern Emperor in Constantinople and built a magnificent shrine for it in Paris. During his whole life, he had a great devotion to the Crown of Thorns and he is often represented in art as kneeling in humble meditation before his own royal crown beside the Crown of Thorns of his heavenly King.

It was the dominating dream of his life to win back the Holy Land from the Saracens and to open up for Christian pilgrims the shrines and places that were so intimately associated with the life and death of his beloved Redeemer. He led two crusades, but both ended in failure. He was taken prisoner in 1250 and his armies were scattered to end his first crusade. The second crusade ended in greater tragedy. On July 1, 1270, he sailed for Tunis in North Africa. Dysentery and other diseases broke out among the Crusaders on the African Coast, and Louis and his second son were among the victims. With the words, "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit" on his lips, he gave up his soul to God on August 25, 1270. A weeping nation received his bones and heart, and kept them enshrined in the Abbey of St. Dennis until they were scattered in the frenzy of the French Revolution.

A grateful Church recognized him as a King and a Crusader for God. He was canonized 27 years after his death and his feast is August 25.

His descendents occupied the throne of France for five hundred years, his name is held in veneration, and churches and shrines have been dedicated to his memory. It was only natural that when Father Augustine Verot, a loyal son of France and pastor of St. Paul's Church in Ellicott City, planned to build a mission chapel in Clarksville that he would choose as its patron St. Louis the King.