A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Alice, Queen of France
ALICE,
Queen of France, wife of Louis the Seventh, was the third daughter of Thibaut the Great, count of Champagne. The princess received a careful education in the magnificent court of her father; and being beautiful, amiable, intelligent, and imaginative, Louis the Seventh, on the death of his second wife, in 1160, fell in love with her, and demanded her of her father. To cement the union more strongly, two daughters of the king by his first wife, Eleanor of Guienne, were married to the two eldest sons of the count. In 1165, she had a son, to the great joy of Louis, afterwards the celebrated Philip Augustus. Beloved by her husband, whose ill-health rendered him unequal to the duties of his station, Alice not only assisted him in conducting the affairs of the nation, but superintended the education of her son.
Louis died in 1180, having appointed Alice to the regency; but Philip Augustus being married to Isabella of Hainault, neice to the the earl of Flanders, this nobleman disputed the authority of Alice. Philip, at last, sided with the earl; and his mother, with her brothers, was obliged to leave the court. She appealed to Henry the Second, of England, who was delighted to assist the mother against the son, as Philip was constantly inciting his sons to acts of rebellion against him. Philip marched against them; but Henry, unwilling to give battle, commenced negociations with him, and succeeded in reconciling the king to his mother and uncles. Philip also agreed to pay her a sum equal to five shillings and tenpence English per day, for her maintenance, and to give up her dowry, with the exception of the fortified places.
Alice again began to take an active part in the government; and her son was so well satisfied with her conduct, that, in 1190, on going to the Holy Land, he confided, by the advice of his barons, the education of his son, and the regency of the kingdom, to Alice and her brother, the cardinal archbishop of Rheins. During the absence of the king, some ecclesiastical disturbances happened, which were earned before the pope. The prerogative of Philip, and the letters of Alice to Rome concerning it, were full of force and grandeur. She remonstrated upon the enormity of taking advantage of an absence caused by such a motive; and demanded that things should at least be left in the same situation till the return of her son. By this firmness she obtained her point. Philip returned in 1192, and history takes no other notice of Alice afterwards, than to mention some religious houses which she founded. She died at Paris, in 1205.