Dom Prosper Guéranger's Prayer to St Louis for France

Thy descendants are no longer here to defend us against these men who use the country for their own purposes and exile those who have been the makers of it. But how terrible are the judgments of the Lord! Thou thyself hast said: “I would rather a stranger than my own son should rule my people and kingdom, if my son is to rule amiss.” Thirty years after the Crusade of Tunis, an unworthy prince, Philip IV thy second successor, outraged the Vicar of Christ. Straightway he was rejected by heaven, and his direct male line became extinct. The withered bough was replaced by another branch, though still from the same root. But the nation had to suffer for its kings, and to expiate the crime of Anagni: the judgment of God allowed a terrible war to be brought about through the political indiscretion of the same Philip the Fair (by marrying his daughter Isabelle to Edward II of England; which marriage after the death of Philip’s three sons Louis X, Philip V, and Charles IX, without male issue, furnished the plea for Isabella’s son Edward III to pretend to the crown of France), a prince as discreditable to the State as to the Church and to his own family. Then for a hundred years the country seemed to be on the brink of destruction; until by a wonderful protection of God over the land, the Maid of Orleans, blessed Joan of Arc, rescued the lily of France from the clutches of the English leopard.

Other faults alas! were to compromise still further, and then, twice over, to wither up or break the branches of the royal tree. Long did thy personal merits outweigh before God the scandalous immorality, which our princes had made their family mark, their odious privilege: a shame, which was transmitted by the expiring Valois to the Bourbons; which had to be expiated, but not effaced, by the blood of the just Louis XVI; and which so many illustrious exiles are still expiating in lowliness and sorrow in a foreign land. Would that thou couldst at least recognize these thy remaining sons by their imitation of thy virtues! For it is only by striving to win back this spiritual inheritance, that they can hope that God will one day restore them the other.

For God, who commands us to obey at all times the power actually established, is ever the master of nations and the unchangeable disposer of their changeable destinies. Then every one of thy descendants, taught by a sad experience, will be bound to remember, O Louis, thy last recommendation: “Exert thyself that every vile sin be abolished from thy land; especially, to the best of thy power, put down all wicked oaths and heresy.”