Practically everyone who writes about St. Thomas tells the story, but G. K. Chesterton tells it best. When Aquinas broke his habit of solitude to attend a royal banquet at the invitation of Louis XI of France (later St. Louis), he did not break his habit of thinking. “Somehow they steered that reluctant bulk of reflection to a seat in the royal banquet hall, and all we know of Thomas tells us that he was perfectly courteous to those who spoke to him, but spoke little, and was soon forgotten in the most brilliant and noisy clatter in the world: the noise of French talking.”