Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and Blanche of Castile. He worked with the Parliament of Paris in order to improve the professionalism of his legal administration.
He is the only canonised king of France; consequently, there are many places named after him, most notably St. Louis, Missouri and Mission San Luis Rey de Francia in the United States, São Luís do Maranhão, Brazil and both the state and city of San Luis Potosí, in Mexico. Saint Louis was also a tertiary of the Order of the Holy Trinity and Captives (known as the Trinitarians).[citation needed] On 11 June 1256, the General Chapter of the Trinitarian Order formally affiliated Louis IX at the famous monastery of Cerfroid, which had been constructed by Felix of Valois north of Paris.
France (English i/ˈfræns/ FRANSS or /ˈfrɑːns/ FRAHNSS; French: [fʁɑ̃s] ( listen)), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is the largest western European country and it possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering 11,035,000 km2 (4,260,000 sq mi), just behind that of the United States (11,351,000 km2 / 4,383,000 sq mi).
Over the past 500 years, France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America and Southeast Asia; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second largest colonial empire of the time, including large portions of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.
Louis King (1898–1962) was an American actor and movie director of westerns and adventure movies in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. He was born on June 28, 1898 in Christiansburg, Virginia.
His name was also written as L.H. King and Lewis King. A brother of director Henry King, he entered the movie business in 1919 as a character actor. He specialized in villains and blusterers.
He began his career as a director of a series of westerns in the 1920s under the name of Lewis King: The Bantam Cowboy (1928), The Fightin' Redhead (1928), The Pinto Kid (1928), The Little Buckaroo (1928), The Slingshot Kid (1927), The Boy Rider (1927), Montana Bill (1921), Pirates of the West (1921), and The Gun Runners (1921). He directed action adventures and westerns in the 1930s and 1940s in Hollywood. He directed the 20th Century Fox wartime film Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas in 1943. In the 1950s, he directed westerns on television. He directed episodes of Gunsmoke in 1957, the Zane Grey Theater in 1958, The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, and The Deputy in 1960-1961.
Viscount Philippe Le Jolis de Villiers de Saintignon, known as Philippe de Villiers, born on 25 March 1949, is a French politician. He was the Mouvement pour la France nominee for the French presidential election of 2007. He received 2.23% of the vote, putting him in sixth place. As only the top two candidates advance to the second round of voting, he was eliminated from the race. Before and after the election, Villiers has been internationally notable for his criticism of Islam in France.
Villiers was born in Boulogne in the département of Vendée, France, the second of five children and first son of Jacques Le Jolis de Villiers de Saintignon (born Meurthe-et-Moselle, Nancy, 14 November 1913) and wife Edwige d' Arexy (born Loire Atlantique, Nantes, 1 July 1925). His paternal grandfather, Louis Le Jolis de Villiers, born at Brucheville on 17 October 1874, was killed in action in World War I at Saint-Paul-en-Forêt on 10 September 1914, and married on 24 October 1904 Jeanne de Saintignon (Auverre, 27 July 1880 - 25 August 1959), by whom he had five children, the youngest of whom was Philippe's father Jacques.