"Life of a king, life of a saint, life of a man. In this work, Jacques LeGoff, one of the truly great medieval historians of our times, magisterially plumbs the depths of the fundamental contradiction of Saint Louis: is it possible to be both a king and a saint? St. Louis lies at the intersection of reasons of state and divine reason; he is an individual around whom LeGoff turns like a detective searching for an ever-elusive truth, that of a life and a legend inextricably intertwined. A fine, eminently readable translation. " --Robert J. Morrissey, University of...