St. Louis

Louis IX

 or St. Louis

(born April 25, 1214, Poissy, France—died Aug. 25, 1279, near Tunis, Tun.; canonized Aug. 11, 1297; feast day August 25) King of France (1226–70). He inherited the throne at age 12. His mother served as regent until 1234, helping to subdue rebellious barons and Albigensian heretics (see Cathari). Louis led a Crusade (1248–50) in hopes of regaining Jerusalem and Damascus, but his troops were badly defeated by the Egyptians. On his return he reorganized the royal administrative system and standardized coinage. He built the extraordinary Sainte-Chapelle to house a religious relic believed to be Jesus' crown of thorns. Louis made peace with the English in the Treaty of Paris (1259), allowing Henry III to keep Aquitaine and neighboring lands but obliging him to declare himself Louis's vassal. He died of plague during a Crusade. The most popular of the Capetian kings, his reputation for justness and piety led the French to venerate him as a saint even before his canonization in 1297.

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St. Louis 

a city in the central USA, in the state of Missouri; situated on the Mississippi River, below the Mississippi’s confluence with the Missouri River. Population, 560,000(1975; 2.4 million including suburbs).

A major industrial, commercial, and transportation center of the region between the Great Lakes and the West Coast, St. Louis is an important river port. Manufacturing employs 260,000 people (1973; approximately 300,000 in 1969), and mining, 3,000. The principal industries are machine building, the production of chemicals, and the food and light industries. The leading branches of the machine building industry are the aerospace industry and the production of electrical-engineering, radio-electronic, and transportation equipment and farm machinery. Oil is refined and a variety of chemicals are produced; there is also ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy. Light industry is represented by the production of leather and footwear, clothing, and fur goods, and the food industry by meat processing, flour milling, and beer brewing. Most of the oil refineries and chemical and metallurgical plants are located in the suburbs (East St. Louis, Granite City), on the left bank of the Mississippi. Lead ore is mined in the vicinity.

St. Louis has two universities. The city was founded by the French in 1764.

V. GOKHMAN