Louis IX of France

You don't take on responsibility to be admired, you take it on to serve, wholeheartedly, even when it costs you. That is exactly how Louis lives: crowned King of France at twelve, he rules his kingdom like a prayer. He sits beneath an oak and hears the case of anyone who comes to him; with his own hands he washes the feet of lepers. For the Crown of Thorns he builds the Sainte-Chapelle in the heart of Paris, a shrine of stone and light. Then he takes the cross himself: twice he sets out on crusade, and he dies before Tunis, far from his kingdom. Kingship as service, Christian rule in its purest form. And you: whom do you serve with what you have been given?