Louis VII of France - Early Life

Early Life

Louis VII was born in 1120 in Paris, the second son of Louis VI of France and Adelaide of Maurienne. As a younger son, Louis VII had been raised to follow the ecclesiastical path. He unexpectedly became the heir to the throne of France after the accidental death of his older brother, Philip, in 1131. A well-learned and exceptionally devout man, Louis VII was better suited for life as a priest than as a monarch.

In his youth, he spent much time in Saint-Denis, where he built a friendship with the Abbot Suger that served him well in his early years as king.

Read more about this topic:  Louis VII Of France

Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:

    The Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.
    Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)

    It is impossible, as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture. That which I have ... insisted upon as the life of the whole, that spirit which is given only by the hand and eye of the workman, can never be recalled.
    John Ruskin (1819–1900)