He sat by her couch in the palace which had been put at their disposal, and she could see that he was hoping she had changed her mind.

‘I feared you were lost at sea,’ he told her.

She smiled wanly and thought: I hoped you were. But she was too weak to indulge in vituperation.

‘I thought my end had come,’ he said, ‘when one of Manuel’s ships overtook us, boarded us, and I became a prisoner of the Greek Emperor.’

‘If you had joined with my uncle against him that would not have happened,’ she reminded him.

‘God was with me,’ went on Louis. ‘He made that clear when he sent the Sicilians to capture the Greek ship which was carrying me.’

‘So you became the prisoner of the Sicilians instead of the Greeks,’ she said coldly.

‘Indeed I was not. The King of Sicily treated me as an honoured guest.’

‘He had attacked the Greeks. He had seen that this was the wise thing to do … as Raymond did.’

‘Oh wars!’ said Louis. ‘Little good ever came of them.’

‘Except that kings gained their crowns through them and prevented others from taking them.’

‘The King of Sicily gave me ships that I might come to Naples and meet you here as we had arranged. It was God’s will that he should rescue me from the Greeks. Eleonore, we have suffered much, both of us. God has been good to us. Let us forget our differences.’

She turned her face to the wall.

‘We have a daughter,’ continued Louis. ‘We will have more children … sons. Eleonore, we must try to be good parents to our daughter. We must get a male heir. Let us start again.’

‘I am determined to be free,’ said Eleonore. ‘And while we are here we must go to Rome and see the Pope.’

Louis shook his head.

‘I had hoped,’ he said, ‘that in view of everything that has happened we might forget our differences.’

‘It is because of what has happened that I remember them,’ said Eleonore.

And Louis knew she was adamant.


Louis was bewildered. He was torn between two emotions. His love for Eleonore was one and the other his desire for a peaceful life.

His feelings astonished him. He could not understand the power Eleonore had over him. She with her sensuous demanding body might have been repulsive to a man of his aesthetic tastes. Not so. In her presence he felt stimulated and he had come to the conclusion that unhappy as she made him he was more so without her. He knew that if she had her way and there was a divorce, duty would demand that he married elsewhere. He did not want that. What he prayed for was a reconciliation with his wife. Yet he knew that if he could have escaped from this strange power she exerted, if he could have given himself up to a life of meditation and prayer he would have been a contented man. How ironical that there were men of ambition who longed above all things for a crown, while one such as himself who had had that crown thrust on him would have given a great deal to be able to pass it on to someone else.

Suger was writing urgent letters from Paris. He had heard of the scandals surrounding the Queen and the talk that a divorce had been suggested.

Did Louis understand the full implications of this? What of his daughter? If he were wise he would seek a reconciliation with the Queen and at least do nothing until he returned to Paris and discussed the situation with Suger himself.

To shelve the matter suited Louis. He hated to make big decisions. Let it wait. There was always hope that the difficulties could be smoothed out. Eleonore was too weak now to indulge in sensational love affairs such as those she was said to have enjoyed with her uncle and Saladin. She had suffered more than he had by the sea voyage in spite of his capture and release.

‘We must do nothing rash,’ said Louis. ‘We must get back to Paris and there we will see if a solution can be reached which will be satisfactory to us both.’

Eleonore, her energy drained by her recent ordeals, agreed with unusual meekness.


Pope Eugenius III, being in exile from Rome, was in residence at Tusculum where he gave separate audiences to both Louis and Eleonore.

He had problems of his own but he was prepared to give great consideration to the dilemma of a man as powerful and as devoted to the Church as the King of France.

It was his opinion that a divorce would be disastrous, and he told Louis this. Louis was in complete agreement with him.

It was not so easy to convince Eleonore.

The Pope received her with a show of affection and told her that he deplored the nature of her problem. The Queen of France had duties to her country. She could not indulge in light and frivolous conduct, and this was what she would do if she asked for a divorce.

Why did she need a divorce? Because she no longer loved her husband? She must then pray for the return of that love. She must remember that her husband was the King of France. Could she not see that the fortune of France was bound up in the life of its King and Queen? It was her duty to love her husband; to give heirs to the country.

Eleonore pointed out that she and Louis were closely related. Louis was her fourth cousin. It was small wonder that in such circumstances there should have been only one child of the marriage.

The Pope stressed her duty. It would be sinful for her to seek a divorce from Louis. It would displease God, and in view of her recent conduct - if rumour did not lie - she was in urgent need of his clemency.

There was no doubt that Eugenius was a powerful persuader. Moreover he was the Pope and his very office put an aura about him of which even Eleonore could not be unaware.

He talked eloquently of the need to do one’s duty, of the eternal damnation which was awaiting those who failed in this, of the heavenly bliss which was the lot of those who succeeded. It was true that she felt ill, drained of her usual abundant energy. She found herself kneeling in prayer and promising to give her marriage another chance.

That night in the Pope’s palace at Tusculum she shared Louis’s bed once more; and it seemed like the blessing of Heaven when, being by this time on the way back to Paris, she discovered that she had conceived.


Pregnancy brought a certain contentment. She found reunion with little Marie a pleasure. She was surprised that she should have these strong maternal feelings. They compensated her for so much.

Her feelings towards Louis had not changed and she felt angry because she had been lured back to him. She often thought of what might have happened if she had not been persuaded by the Pope. There could have been another marriage. She had much to bring a bridegroom. Beauty, experience, sensuality and rich lands. What more could any woman offer?

Often she thought of Raymond, and wondered what would have happened if she had divorced Louis and married Saladin. He had been an exciting lover, perhaps that was due to the strangeness of him, the fact that he was an infidel. But in her heart it was Raymond whom she had preferred - her own uncle. Well, perhaps that was why they understood each other so well. He was certainly the handsomest man she had ever seen or was ever likely to.

She had heard news of him, how disappointed he was that Louis would not help him in his fight to drive the Saracens from the land about Antioch, which was the road to Jerusalem, and that he had decided to go into battle without the allies he had hoped for. She wished him well. He had convinced her how necessary it was to make the land safe for Christians, necessary not only for pilgrims of the future but for Raymond himself if he were to hold Antioch.

For the time though she could enjoy a calm serenity while she awaited the birth of her child.

And the day came when this child was born. It was another girl! Louis was bitterly disappointed. If he had been given a son he believed that this would have been a sign of his reconciliation with God. His crusade had been a bitter disappointment both costly and purposeless. Little good had come out of it - so little that he need never have done it. The cries of those condemned to the flame at Vitry still rang in his ears; he had come near to losing his wife and had discovered an unbridled sensuality in her nature which did not stop her from acting criminally. That had been a bitter voyage of discovery. Yet he had suffered, and he hoped found favour in the sight of God, and some forgiveness of his sins. If he had been given a son he could have convinced himself that God was smiling on him.

But a daughter!

Eleonore suffered no such disappointment. As heiress of Aquitaine she would not accept the general belief that boys were superior to girls. She was content with her little girl.

The child was christened Alix.


For a short while she could give herself up to the pleasures of motherhood. She could have little Marie at her bedside and show her the baby, delighting in her children in a manner which astonished those about her.

It would not last of course. She was weak from her confinement, and fascinated by the role of motherhood. She must make a song about it. It was as beautiful as the emotions one felt for a lover.

She hoped she would have many children - boys as well as girls.

But not with Louis.

Somewhere in her mind she knew that the idea of divorce had only been set aside by her. She would return to it.

One of her women brought her the terrible news. It came through Galeran, the eunuch. He had told the woman that he thought the Queen would wish to know.

In the fighting round Antioch, Raymond had been killed and the Saracens had sent his head to the Caliph of Baghdad.