Louis VI the Fat

Louis VI 'the Fat' (1081-1137), King of France, spent his reign in the saddle: year after year he battered the robber barons of the Île-de-France; Thomas de Marle above all; until the roads to Paris were safe, and in 1124 he raised the great host and the Oriflamme of Saint-Denis against Emperor Henry V, who turned back without a battle. Fat, tireless and shrewdly served by Abbot Suger, he made the Capetian crown a power in fact as well as name. His son Louis VII continues our line.