ST. LOUIS.
The news of the Carismian invasion of Palestine reduced Europe to a
condition of panic. It came on the heels of other adversities, which had
shaken the stoutest hearts. The Latin empire at Constantinople, as we
have noted, was again on the verge of falling into the hands of the
Greeks. The Tartars were ravaging the Danube, and threatening the domain
of the Emperor Frederick II. Terror paralyzed trade, travel, and social
intercourse everywhere; even in Italy and along the borders of France
fear fed the imagination that an army of demi-demons was about to
appear. The rustling of the woods, the soughing of the winds, forest
fires, the dust raised by storms, strange cloud shapes on the horizon,
were omens, if not the signs, of the advance of this horde let loose
from hell. Pope Innocent IV. called a council at Lyons. In his opening
address he spoke of the five wounds of the Saviour, which he likened to
five griefs that afflicted him as the Vicegerent of Christ. These were
the Tartar menace, the Greek schism, the Carismian conquest of
Palestine, the relaxation of ecclesiastical discipline and progress of
heresy, and, finally, as if it were the climax of the woes of
Christendom, the obduracy of the Emperor Frederick II. in opposing the
papal schemes. The Holy Father could weep over the wickedness of
Tartars, Carismians, and Moslems, but he could only rage against
Frederick. His spirit communicated itself to his prelates. Under his
direction they passed resolutions advising the Germans to dig trenches
and build walls against the Tartars; they also calmly proposed a crusade
against the Infidels; but, with more evidence of deep feeling, they bent
to the floor, dashed out the lights of their candles, and repeated with
sepulchral voices the amen to the papal anathema of the foremost
Christian monarch in the world. The Pope’s fulmination concluded with
these words: “I forbid any, under pain of excommunication, to henceforth
yield him obedience. I command the electors to elect another emperor,
and I reserve to myself the right of disposing of his kingdom of
Sicily.” This was the glory of the so-called Ecumenical Council of
Lyons.
Frederick, on hearing of the outrage perpetrated upon him, called for
his crown, and, placing it upon his head, exclaimed; “There it is; and
before it shall be wrested from me my enemies shall know the terror of
my arms. Let this pontiff tremble, who has broken every tie that bound
me to him.” From that day, as history shows, the popes lost power ever
again to lead united Europe.
But for the pious zeal of one man, it is not probable that another
crusading host would ever have set out against the Moslem.
The hero of the seventh crusade was Louis IX., the “Good St. Louis” of
France. He was the son of Louis VIII., who, Guizot says, “added to the
history of France no glory, save that of having been the son of Philip
Augustus, the husband of Blanche of Castile, and the father of St.
Louis.”
Blanche of Castile was a woman remarkable for her personal beauty and
queenly bearing. She knew how to unite dignity of mien and elegance of
estate with that suavity which wins the hearts of all. According to a
contemporary, Matthew Paris, she was “the most discreet woman of her
time, with a mind singularly quick and penetrating, and with a man’s
heart to leaven her woman’s sex and ideas; personally magnanimous, of
indomitable energy, sovereign mistress in all the affairs of her age,
worthy to be compared with Semiramis, the most eminent of her sex.” The
only weakness remembered of Queen Blanche was one which might be
attributed to the intensity of her maternal affection. She was rudely
jealous of Marguerite when the latter became wife of her son Louis, and
resented the least absorption of her son’s attention and love. She was
possessed of decided ability for government, and at the death of her
husband, Louis VIII. (1226), assumed the direction of affairs as the
guardian of her son, then a lad of eleven years.
Louis IX. is described as very handsome, his features of almost feminine
delicacy, his hair light, long, and flowing. He was extremely courteous,
gentle, and companionable. One might have suspected weakness from the
softness of his manners, until it was observed that he maintained the
same quiet demeanor while shrewdly watching the chicanery of the court
and while planning the most warlike and desperate expeditions against
his foes. When La Marche rebelled and insulted his Majesty, Louis made
no retort, but deliberated regarding him with his counsellors without
apparent resentment, and laid plans so shrewd and far-reaching that they
conquered both the rebel’s arms and hatred. The kings of France had
always been at variance, often at swords’ points, with the great feudal
barons of the realm; but in 1243 Louis made such arrangement with them
as won their complete fidelity.
The moral qualities of Louis IX., as well as his repute for sound
judgment, led to his selection by foreigners to arbitrate their
disputes, as when Henry III. of England and his barons submitted their
differences to the French king’s opinion. He was by impulse and
principle a philanthropist, loving the people of all conditions. The
sick domestics of the palace were often nursed by the royal hand.
Wherever he went his servants were ordered to distribute sufficient
money to provide for the needs of one hundred poor persons, that the
people might not feel the shadow of royalty without its sunshine. The
chroniclers delight in picturing the monarch under the broad tree,
listening to the complaints of a crowd of his humblest subjects. That
justice and mercy might extend beyond his personal supervision, he
appointed “restitution offices,” where the best of men granted rehearing
of any case in which a worsted litigant deemed himself injured by the
letter of the law. This, perhaps, is the first institution in the spirit
of our modern courts of equity. During an illness, in which he thought
he might die, he summoned his son Louis and said, “Fair son, I pray thee
make thyself beloved of the people of thy kingdom, for verily I would
rather a Scot should come and govern our people well and loyally than
have thee govern them ill.”
The piety of Louis shone in his care of religious houses and in the
establishment of hospitals, especially for leprosy, a disease which was
brought into Europe by pilgrims returning from the East. Churches were
multiplied and ornamented, for, said the monarch, “the most sure means
to avoid perishing like the impious is to love and enrich the place in
which dwells the glory of the Lord.”
It is not to the discredit of the personal character of Louis IX. that
he was not entirely free from the bigotry and superstition of his age.
He treated heresy as of the nature of rebellion, and did not stay the
heavy hand of persecution in some instances. He especially revered
relics. When a nail, which was believed to have been one of those that
pierced the hands of Jesus, was temporarily missing from its casket, he
cried, “I would rather that the best city in my kingdom had been
swallowed up in the earth.” With joy he paid a large price to Baldwin
II., the Latin King of Constantinople, for our Saviour’s crown of
thorns. The “Holy Chapel,” which he built to shield the precious relics,
still remains one of the finest monuments of mediæval times. In private
life Louis would have preferred the daily routine of a monk to the
diversions of the court. He prided himself on the hard haircloth worn
next his skin as a token of perpetual humility more than he cared for
his royal robe. At his waist hung, instead of silken tassels, a scourge
of iron chains, which drew blood from his back once a week. He never
laughed on a Friday. Except where the dignity of his throne required
public defence, Louis scarcely maintained his royal self-respect, so
meek did he try to be. A common woman once brazenly said to him, “You
are unfit for a king of France, fit only to be a king of monks and
priests.” Louis humbly replied, “You say the truth,” and with a smile
gave her a handful of money.
As early as 1239, when Louis IX. was twenty-four years of age, he
manifested great zeal for the crusades, and sent Amaury de Montfort to
fight as his personal representative on the field. Five years later
(1244) he was afflicted with such serious illness that at one moment he
was believed to be dead. The watchers were startled by his sepulchral
voice: “He, by God’s grace, hath visited me—He who cometh from on high
hath recalled me from among the dead.” Reviving from his swoon, he bade
the Bishop of Paris place upon his shoulder the cross of the voyage over
the sea. Three years passed, during which he seemingly forgot the vow,
but an incident proved that the holy enthusiasm still burned in his
heart. Allusion being made one day to the cross he wore as having been
assumed at a moment when he was of wavering mind through bodily
weakness, the king instantly undid the emblem from his shoulder and gave
it to the Bishop of Paris; he then added, “Now assuredly I am in my
senses. He that knoweth all things knoweth that until that cross is
replaced upon my shoulder no food shall enter my lips.”
At this time Pope Innocent IV. was attempting to arouse Europe to a new
crusade, but since his greater zeal was for a crusade against Frederick
II., the holy war lacked recruits. Germany was in the midst of the civil
dissension which Innocent had stirred up by acknowledging his
subservient tool, Henry, Landgrave of Hesse, as emperor. Italy was rent
with the contention between Guelph and Ghibelline, fostered by the same
mistaken judgment of Innocent. England was at war with Scotland and
Wales. Frederick II., in order to avert the thickening disasters from
his realm, proposed to personally abdicate the imperial throne in favor
of his son Conrad, and himself to lead an army to Palestine, with an
oath never to return, if even this personal sacrifice would appease the
papal resentment. Louis IX. besought the Holy Father to accede to this
proposal and to assume a different attitude towards a Christian monarch,
but Innocent was obdurate to all entreaties. The church of Christ was
ruled by the hatred and wrath of one who, above all men, should have
remembered the Lord’s prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive
those who trespass against us.” The penalty of breaking the precepts of
human wisdom and divine charity at length fell upon him. The Pope lost
the sympathy of the kingdoms; even the French nobles, though jealous of
Germany, formed a league for their defence against papal encroachments.
This, if not the origin of, greatly favored the movement for Gallican
liberties, which has continued ever since.
Louis IX. took upon himself the duty of leading the crusade; he convoked
a parliament of the dignitaries of his realm, and by his eloquence moved
the princes and nobles to follow his example. His queen, Marguerite,
with many of her proudest ladies, assumed the cross. Among the warriors
was the Prince de Joinville, the endeared companion and adviser of the
king, to whose prolific and graceful pen the world is indebted for the
history of Louis’s time and personal adventures. Those who did not at
once volunteer to join the crusade were variously persuaded by the zeal
of the monarch. It was the custom for the French kings at certain
solemnities to present their courtiers with mantles, which they put on
in his presence and wore afterwards as the sign of royal favor. Louis
observed the custom on Christmas eve. As the guests marched from the
shaded robing-room to the lighted chapel they were amazed to discover
the cross of voyage sewed upon every man’s shoulder. The courtiers
laughed at the joke perpetrated upon them, but, feeling its
significance, yielded to the royal will and honored their investment by
taking the crusaders’ vow.
The example of the king affected the entire population. In every village
was seen the procession of volunteers seeking the blessing of the altar
and enrolling themselves under their lords. Whole territories were thus
stripped of their defenders and even of the tillers of the soil; rising
arts were bereft of their workmen. France was despoiling itself for the
sake of an idea. Modern utilitarianism may deride it, but our sentiment
applauds where our judgment condemns. It was indeed still the “age of
faith.”
In June, 1248, Louis took up the pilgrim staff together with the
oriflamme of France. He left the kingdom to the care of his mother,
Blanche, and with his wife set out upon what proved to be one of the
most romantic and tragic of adventures. At Lyons he made confession to
the Pope, whom he again unavailingly entreated to be at peace with
Frederick. As the cavalcade was nearing Avignon his men were assaulted,
and begged to be permitted to avenge the insult by an attack upon that
city. “No,” replied the king; “I go from France not to avenge my own
injuries, but those of my Lord Jesus Christ.” At Marseilles a similar
outrage occurred. The king refused to retaliate, saying, “God forbid
that Satan should prevail, for he is angered at our expedition and is
seeking to put obstacles in the way.”
In August he set sail from Aigues-Mortes, a place he had purchased and
in whose harbor he had prepared his fleet; he here diminished his host
by discharging with abundant recompense all such as he deemed not of the
right sort either in character or pious purpose. As the French had no
experience in navigation, the movement of the fleet was committed to
Genoese captains. Joinville’s experience will be appreciated by many
landsmen: “A great fool is he who, having any sin on his soul, places
himself in such danger; for if he goes to sleep at night he cannot be
certain he shall not find himself at the bottom of the sea in the
morning.” Landing in Cyprus, the expedition was warmly received by the
king of the island, but found scanty supply of provisions. Louis
appealed to the Venetians, who sent him much corn and wine. Frederick
II., learning of the crusaders’ need, also sent supplies. Louis replied
with thanks to the emperor, and sent another appeal to the Pope to
forego his wrath upon so generous a friend to the cause of the Master;
but it evoked no compassion in the relentless heart of the pontiff.
Louis was prevailed upon to spend the winter in Cyprus, under pledge of
the Cypriotes to accompany him in the spring. Luxury brought relaxation
of discipline and all its accompanying vices. This was followed by a
pest, which caused the death of two hundred and fifty knights. During
the winter there arrived an embassy of Tartars, who announced the
conversion to Christianity of one of their great princes, and solicited
alliance with the French. Louis apparently credited the story, and sent
to the Tartar chief a scarlet tent, in the canvas of which were wrought
in silken letters many texts of Scripture, which it was hoped might
assist the convert’s meditation. The embassage proved to be a
ruse—doubtless an attempt to spy out the destination and power of the
crusaders.
A more significant overture was received from the Masters of the
Templars and Hospitallers, who proposed, rather than war, to open
negotiations with the Sultan of Cairo, who might be disposed to grant
more than the Christians could wrest from him. This Louis regarded as an
insult to his prowess and vow.
It had been determined to strike the enemy in Egypt. Of the wisdom of
this project few were persuaded. The Arabian writers speak of it as
showing an imbecile mind. Egypt was at this time governed by Negmeddin,
son of Malek-Kamel, the conqueror of the Christians in their former
attempt at Damietta. This chieftain had united in his hand all the
Moslems from the Nile to the Euphrates. Aware of the plans of the coming
invaders, he massed a great fleet to descend the Nile and meet the fleet
of the Christians, and an army of commensurate proportions to guard the
banks.
The crusaders sailed from Cyprus with eight hundred vessels; these
carried not only warriors and implements of battle, but many artisans
and vast material for establishing a colony, which project is regarded
even by those who deprecate the military assault as showing the wide
statesmanship of the French king. A storm scattered the fleet, driving
many ships against the coast of Syria, and compelling Louis to return to
Cyprus with the loss of half his armament.
A second attempt was more successful, and the fleet approached the walls
of Damietta. Joinville dilates upon the magnificent spectacle: the sea
covered for miles with the ships, whose topmasts gleamed with the sign
of the cross; the mouth of the Nile guarded by the vessels of the
Moslem; the shores lined with the multitude of warriors in various
accoutrements, drawn from all the lands of the Infidel; the very sky
resounding with their pagan cries and the noise of their trumpets and
drums.
At break of the next day the French began the assault. Queen
Marguerite’s bark was alone left at a distance, whence she might watch
the fight. The knights stood, lance in hand, beside their horses on the
broad barges, some of which were propelled by as many as three hundred
rowers. At word of command the fleet seemed to be lifted by the
innumerable oars and to be fairly hurled upon the shore. Before they
could land the daylight became obscured with showers of arrows,
javelins, and stones, that poured upon them from the banks. For a moment
the fleet was retarded by the deluge of missiles that smote the rowers,
but the king’s quick command redoubled their strokes. As the vessels
grounded on the beach he himself led the assault, leaping into the sea
shoulder-deep with sword in hand. The whole army emulated his heroism,
and with the cry, “Montjoie! St. Denis!” plunged into the water. The
attack was as when the sea itself assails the land with tidal wave. The
Moslems were driven back. The crusaders completed their array on solid
ground, but scarcely were they in battle order before the Moslem cavalry
rode down upon them with the noise and speed of a sirocco from the
neighboring desert. Amid the terrible mêlée Louis bent his knees a
moment on the sands, anew giving himself to the will of Heaven, then
dashed into the thickest of the fight. The shore ran with rills of
blood, which incarnadined the sea. Steadily the oriflamme of France
mounted the beach. The war-galleys made an equally furious assault upon
the Moslem navy. With the impetuous ramming of the tough prows of the
French vessels many a ship filled with Egyptian warriors was sent to the
bottom. The cross gained the mouth of the river, up which its defenders
fled. By nightfall the coast and both banks of the Nile had been gained,
and under the stars of Egypt the Christian camp resounded with the Te
Deum and shouts of victory.
The joy of the Christians was soon mingled with wonder. The horizon to
the south of them suddenly seemed on fire. The scouts, approaching
Damietta in the early dawn, discovered that its walls were like the
crater of some vast volcano pouring up clouds of smoke shot through with
flashes of flame. The gates of the town were wide open. Entering
cautiously, they found the streets filled with newly slaughtered
multitudes. It would seem that the panic of the Moslems had left them
neither heart nor wit for the defence of their stronghold. In the
blindness of their rage they had put to death multitudes of Christians,
and the Christians, in the frenzy of their despair, had slain their
Moslem neighbors. Fakr Eddin, the commandant, had given orders to fire
the houses, mosques, and fortifications, consuming everything, that the
crusaders might not profit by their victory.
The Christians upon entering the city found little spoil to tempt their
rapacity, and were easily persuaded to celebrate their conquest with the
services of religion. King Louis marched at the head of a grand
procession to the great mosque, which they solemnly consecrated to the
worship of the Virgin Mary. The Sultan of Cairo had been prevented by
illness from personally taking part in the battle. He expressed his
displeasure at the defeat of his soldiers by ordering the beheading of
fifty-four men of the garrison of Damietta. But the display of vengeance
upon the helpless could not restore his lost prestige in the presence of
a gigantic enemy.
Queen Marguerite established her court in Damietta. The army encamped
without the walls. All gave themselves up to enjoyment, as if a single
defeat of the foe had been its annihilation. Instead of following up the
advantage gained, it was determined to await the gathering of the ships
scattered by the storm, and for the arrival of a French contingent under
the king’s brother, who desired to also share in the conquest. Inaction
produced the usual consequences in the camp. Vice reigned in the very
proximity of the king’s quarters, which he was as powerless to prevent
as monarchs of that age generally were to cleanse the slums that crept
close to their palaces. The leaders fell to quarrelling over the scanty
spoil of Damietta, and even disputed its possession by the sovereign.
The soldiers robbed the traders who came into the camp, and soon
prevented even the supply of comforts from this source. Foray parties
brought in the Egyptian women they captured, and established harems,
which had not even the screens of Oriental custom. The king’s authority
fell into total disregard.
There was also strife between the English and the French. William
Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, excited jealousy by his impetuous and
successful enterprises, in one of which he captured a stronghold near
Alexandria, together with many women belonging to noble Egyptian
families. In another raid he seized a richly laden caravan. The French
disputed the possession of his booty. The Count d’Artois was especially
envious of the renown of his fellow-warrior, and seized a portion of the
spoil in the name of Louis. When the king hesitated to order its
restoration, fearing to excite division in his immediate family, Earl
William declared to the royal face, “You are not then a king, since you
are not able to administer justice.” He left the camp and retired to
Acre. The Count d’Artois added insult by exclaiming, “Now the army of
the noble French is well purged of these _tailed_ Englishmen”—alluding
to a rumor that, as punishment for the murder of Thomas à Becket, the
people of the British Isles had begun to develop the caudal appendage in
proof that they were of “their father, the devil.”
During these dissensions the lines of the encampment were left without
any systematic defence, and were constantly raided by parties of swift
Bedouin riders, who made their assault as the sudden dust-clouds of
Libya overwhelm the traveller and quickly disappear again in their
kindred sands. Carismian adventurers were also lured by the sultan’s
promise of a golden bezant for every Christian head, and half as much
for a right hand, and a fifth for a foot. They dashed upon the detached
groups, or stole secretly by night into the tents, and bore away their
prize, leaving the mutilated bodies of the knights to tell of their
deed. The sultan, Negmeddin, knowing that disease was hastening his end,
redeemed the time by the incessant activity of his subalterns.
Mansourah, at the junction of the branches of the Nile, soon presented
the aspect of an impregnable circle of fortifications.
The arrival of the king’s brother, the Count of Poitiers, revived the
martial ardor of the French; and it was decided to attack the Egyptian
capital, Cairo, or Babylon (Babloon), as it was then called. The
majority of the crusaders supposed this place to be the Babylon of the
Scriptures, still stored with the immense riches of the ancients, and
waiting for them to fulfil upon it the curses of the prophets. There was
a rumor that certain renegade Moslems had already entered into a compact
to deliver the citadel of Cairo to the advancing Christians. This report
even reached Europe, where it was magnified into a detailed account of
the capture of the Egyptian capital, and awakened universal joy, to be
turned into mourning as the news of the real events arrived.
Negmeddin, Sultan of Cairo, died, but the event was kept secret within
the citadel, while Chegger-Eddour, the favorite sultana, issued orders
as if her husband were living, until the new sultan, Almoadam Turan
Shan, had securely gripped the reins of power.
Meanwhile the French were advancing. On December 19th they reached the
canal Aschmoun, a deep and broad stream, which could be crossed only by
the crusaders building a causeway. As fast as this work extended into
the stream the Moslems dug away the opposite bank, and so each day left
the canal of unlessened width. The Infidels massed across the canal;
their fleet waited in the Nile above. The Christians were forced to make
their camp at Mansourah, on the identical site of the terrible disaster
thirty years before.
But neither the memories of the spot which monumented the fatal end of
the previous crusade, nor the evidences of danger which they saw on
every side, could subdue the gayety for which the French even in that
age were proverbial. When a knight of rank was being buried his
companions interrupted the chanting of the mass for the repose of his
soul by their bantering as to which of them was most apt to win the hand
of his widow. Joinville notes the punishment that followed this
irreverence, in that all of this company perished in the very next
battle, and that not one of their widows respected the memory of her
husband sufficiently to remain long without marrying one of his
better-behaved comrades. On this old battle-ground the crusaders were
incessantly assailed with missiles and with Greek fire, whose huge
balls, exploding with tremendous detonations, scattered danger far and
wide, and destroyed the wooden towers and engines of the French as fast
as they could be constructed.
A ford was opportunely discovered not far distant; the French marched by
night and prepared to wade the stream at daybreak. Robert, Count
d’Artois, the king’s brother, begged the honor of crossing first. He
promised to wait on the farther bank until the whole army was with him,
but the flight of an opposing band of Moslems was too much for the hot
head of this youth. In vain did the experienced Masters of the Templars
and Hospitallers protest against the foolhardiness of pursuing the
retreating band into the very midst of their fortifications and hosts.
The Count d’Artois replied with taunts, impugning the loyalty and
courage of the older warriors: “They fear that if the country be
conquered their domination will cease.” This was too much for the
self-restraint of the most cautious. “Raise, then, the banner!” cried
the Master of the Templars. William Longsword still remonstrated. The
Count d’Artois replied, “What cowardice in these long-tailed English!”
To which the Englishman made equal bravado: “We shall be to-day where
you will not dare to touch my horse’s tail.” With that all dashed ahead
for the desperate assault. The Moslems could not at first withstand this
impetuous charge. Fakr Eddin was surprised half dressed, and while
endeavoring to rally his troops was slain. On swept the victors, driving
the enemy over the plain and following them into Mansourah.
But a keen-eyed leader had taken the place of the fallen Fakr Eddin.
Bibars Bendoctar, captain of the Mamelukes, quickly checked the flight,
and by skilful manœuvring surrounded the city of Mansourah before the
Christians could emerge from its gates. Thus the victors were imprisoned
within the walls they had conquered. The main body of Christians,
delayed in the crossing, at length followed after their comrades, not
knowing of their unhappy fate. Without orderly array they spread over
the field; a thousand battles were fought instead of one, as band after
band met the scattered detachments of the enemy. Before the Christians
could plan their engagement Bibars had collected an orderly force and
was upon them. Riding through their disconnected ranks, he steadily
pressed the slaughter-line back to the canal. The water was reddened
with the blood of the wounded and soon covered with the bodies of the
drowned. Louis, unable to issue commands that could be heard, set a
splendid example of heroism by dashing with his squires into the
thickest ranks of the foe. He so far outstripped his quickest attendants
that he soon found himself alone, surrounded by six stalwart Moslems,
who endeavored to capture him, his royal person being revealed by his
gorgeous uniform. With great strength and skill, which his countrymen
have never ceased to celebrate, he extricated himself from the danger
and, joined by his guards, led the army in a resistless charge. Their
valor saved that day.
But alas for those in Mansourah! For five hours this valiant but deluded
band stood in the streets, fighting in vain for their lives. Almost the
entire vanguard of fifteen hundred perished. England mourned William
Longsword, whose death, according to the chronicle, was announced at the
very moment to his mother by a vision of her son, a triumphant knight,
entering heaven. The bravery of Longsword so impressed his enemies that
they carefully marked his grave and in after years restored his body to
his kinspeople. France lost the royal brother, Count d’Artois, who, the
English say, attempted to escape by casting himself into the Nile. The
Hospitallers left their Grand Master a prisoner. The Templars watched
long that night before they beheld their leader returning to their camp
covered with wounds and rags. Joinville, who narrates the events of that
fatal day, consoled his king by showing him his own five ghastly wounds.
The Christians were victorious if victory is proved solely by possession
of the field.
Three days later Bibars reappeared; his army stretched from the canal to
the river. Another day of terrible havoc followed. At nightfall the
Christians had maintained their ground, but their losses were equal to a
fresh defeat. The records of nearly all the great families of France are
starred by the dead who represented them that night as they lay unburied
on the plain of Mansourah.
Discretion suggested the retreat of the remnant of the crusaders to
Damietta, but desperation took counsel only of its battle-heated blood.
They determined to remain and hold the ground so dearly won. It was an
unwise decision. While the human enemy was unable to resume the attack,
a more fearful one stalked visibly among them. The multitude of dead
bodies which covered the land and water quickly putrefied and bred
pestilence. The picture of a knight walking days and nights along the
canal, exposed to the fetid death-vapors while he searched among the
corpses for his master, Robert d’Artois, might be an allegory of France
itself as she moaned and waited for thousands of her sons who would
never return. Those who survived were attacked by a virulent disease,
which Joinville thus describes: “The flesh of our legs dried away to the
bone, and our skins became of black or earth color, like an old saddle
which has been a long time laid aside.” The fish of the Nile had become
poisonous from feeding upon the dead bodies, and putrefied the mouths of
those who ate them. “It became necessary for the barbers to cut out the
swollen flesh of the gums of all who were afflicted with this disease so
that they could not eat, but went about in the army crying and moaning.”
So decimated were the ranks that grooms took the places of knights, not
waiting for chivalric ceremonies, and put on the noble armor they had
been accustomed to clean. There were not enough priests left alive to
shrive the dying. King Louis gave himself up to nursing the sick and
consoling their last hours until he himself was prostrated by the
epidemic. The crusaders watched in anxiety by his cot what they feared
would be the extinction of their last hope.
The Moslems, keeping at a safe distance from this death-beleaguered
camp, added famine to the other horrors by cutting off supplies. They
lay in wait for vessels laden with provisions from Europe, and seized
them as they were ascending the Nile. At length almost the entire
Christian fleet was captured. Louis was thus reduced to making proposals
to abandon Egypt on condition of the restoration of Jerusalem to
Christian rule. The sultan agreed, provided the king himself should be
surrendered to him as a hostage until the last European had left the
country. Louis consented, but the warriors refused to accede to what
they deemed the disgraceful terms of putting in pawn their king. Nothing
remained but an attempt to return to Damietta.
This retreat of the Christians was fraught with miseries which baffle
description. The women, the children, and the sick were stowed in the
few boats that remained, and in the darkness of night drifted down the
stream. The soldiers took up their perilous march along the banks. Some
of the nobles, together with the papal legate, having secured a vessel,
urged the king to embark. He refused, being determined, as he declared,
to tramp with the last man that survived. The camp they were leaving was
quickly assailed by the Moslems, who went through it slaughtering all
they could find. Louis turned back and fought with the desperation of a
tigress protecting her young. The cry, “Wait for the king!” rang along
the banks, and the vessels stopped; but Louis forbade any to loiter. At
length the rear-guard was in motion. The king was provided with a horse,
and, without helmet or cuirass, arrayed only with his sword and
surrounded by a handful of braves, brought up the rear of a mighty
funeral procession, in which the living were moving to their own graves.
The king afterwards spoke of the heroic fidelity of one of his
attendants, Geoffrey de Sargines, “who protected me against the Saracens
as a good servant protects his lord’s tankard against the flies.” The
cortège—it was such rather than an army—moved along roads lined with the
dead and dying. Horrible cries startled them on every side. Peering
through the darkness, they saw the forms of comrades often deprived of
hands and feet.
As birds of prey follow the traveller in the desert and sometimes do not
wait until he is dead before they attack his languishing form, so the
Moslems pursued the band which they knew to be foredoomed to perish, and
hastened the end by their murderous assault. Those who had embarked on
boats met with a disaster equal to that of those who trudged on land.
The enemy’s fleet stopped them near Mehallah. The Christian boats were
huddled together so that they could not move. The crusaders could
scarcely find foot room on the crowded decks; the Mussulman archers on
the shore poured upon them a storm of arrows, many of which were tipped
with the Greek fire. The Christians on the ships were no longer
soldiers, but victims of slaughter.
On the land it was the same. The king, weak unto death, was defended by
the little band about him. They brought him into a house in the town of
Menieh; within doors a tradeswoman from Paris held the royal head in her
lap, as was supposed, watching him die. Without in the streets brave men
laid down their lives in a last effort to save even their king’s body,
but their heroic devotion served only to emblazon itself on this darkest
page of the history of the crusades. Louis was taken by the foe and
loaded with chains, but he felt more weightily the shame of being the
first king of France ever a prisoner in the hands of a foreign enemy.
Joinville, who tells the story, was dragged to a neighboring house, and
would have been slain but that a little child clung to him and, by this
double appeal of helplessness, excited the interposition of one whom he
calls “the good Saracen.”
The Moslems returned to Mansourah in triumph. They dressed their fleet
in utmost gayety as it bore the person of their royal captive. Their
armies marched on either bank of the Nile, escorting the Christian
survivors, who were driven along with their hands bound behind their
backs.
Queen Marguerite was at Damietta, already entering the pains of
childbed. Ordering all to leave her chamber but an aged knight, she said
to him, “I require you, on the faith you have pledged to me, that if the
enemy shall take this city you will cut off my head rather than allow me
to become a captive.” “Certainly, madam, I will do it,” he replied. The
queen gave birth to a son, whom she called Jean Tristan, because of the
sorrows that begirt his birth. Learning that the remnant of the city
guard proposed abandoning Damietta, she forbade it as involving
additional disgrace. “Be moved by my tears,” she cried, “and have pity
on the poor child whom you see lying on my bosom.” The attitude of this
heroine saved the city, the last spot of Christian possession in the
land they had come to conquer.
Louis languished in prison. He had no clothing but a coarse cassock,
which a fellow-prisoner had taken from his own person. Even the Moslems
who guarded him afterwards expressed their reverence for the piety the
captive monarch displayed, “worthy of a saint of Islam, the religion of
holy resignation.” The sultan at length sent him a wardrobe of fifty
magnificent dresses for himself and his attendants. Louis declined them,
saying that as a French king he could not wear the raiment of a foreign
prince. They prepared him a feast, but Louis declined to partake of it,
because he was a captive. The services of the Moslem physicians he did
not reject, knowing that if it was the purpose of his enemies to keep
him alive to grace their triumph, it was his duty to his throne not to
sacrifice any opportunity of lengthening life by which he might regain
it. The sultan promised him liberty on condition of his issuing an order
for the surrender of Damietta and the Christian strongholds of
Palestine. He replied, “The Christian cities do not belong to me, but to
God.” The sultan then threatened him with the most frightful torture,
such as was reserved for the lowest criminals. Louis replied, “I am the
sultan’s prisoner; he can do with me what he pleases.” A Moslem
rejoined, “You treat us, sire, as if you had us in prison instead of our
holding you.”
About him in an open court Louis daily looked upon the miseries of the
remnant of his army. They were naked, clothed only in scars and blood
from their unhealed wounds. Each day a number were dragged out and
offered the alternative of abjuring their faith and embracing
Mohammedanism or being slain. The dead bodies that were daily cast into
the Nile told the story of their choice. Many were carried to Cairo to
die in its dungeons or were sold as slaves to surrounding tribes.
The conquerors finally wearied of their attempt to subdue the proud
spirits of those whose bodies they held, and proposed to liberate the
king for a million golden bezants and the surrender of Damietta. Louis
accepted the offer on condition that Queen Marguerite should approve,
adding in the spirit of the Chivalry of that age, “The queen is my lady;
I can do nothing without her consent.” It was agreed that Damietta
should be the ransom for the king, while he should pay from his own
purse the ransom money for such of his comrades as survived.
The fulfilment of the treaty was interrupted by a strange turn of
affairs. The Sultan Almoadam, inflated with pride over his victories,
had stirred the jealousy of the Mamelukes. Chegger-Eddour, the
slave-woman who had risen to be the mistress of Egypt, turned also
against the man whom as her husband she had raised to power. The sultan
gave a banquet to his chief officers; at the end of the feast Bibars
Bendoctar, the leader of the Mamelukes, approached him and aimed a blow
with his dagger, which, however, inflicted but a slight wound. Almoadam
fled to a tower; the Mamelukes fired the edifice; their victim threw
himself through the smoke and flames from a window, his bruised body
falling among his foes; Bibars smote him with a sabre. Bleeding and weak
with terror, Almoadam flung himself into the Nile; the soldiers plunged
after him and held him until dead beneath the water.
The infuriated Mamelukes then assailed the galley in which Joinville and
several leaders of the Christians were confined, and bade them prepare
for death. There was but a single priest in the company and no time for
shriving one by one, so they confessed to one another, Joinville, the
layman, giving to Guy d’Ibelin, as he says, “such absolution as God had
given me power to give.” Fortunately the rage of the Mamelukes was
diverted elsewhere, and the “dead men came to life.”
The Moslems, unable to secure a successor to Almoadam from among their
warriors, gave the crown to the Sultana Chegger-Eddour, much to the
disgust of the Mohammedan world. After great dissension and many threats
the leaders of the Moslems proposed to carry out the treaty with the
Franks which the unfortunate Almoadam had agreed to. They took an oath
to observe its conditions and asked of Louis a similar pledge; this he
rejected with scorn, assuming that the word of a French king needed no
confirmation. The knights and lords of his party embarked on vessels and
descended the Nile, the king marching with his Moslem guard along the
shore. At Damietta he was joined by Queen Marguerite and her court.
In spite of its honorable surrender the Moslems hastened to loot
Damietta and put to death every Christian that remained. This breach of
treaty and their new taste of blood infuriated the mob of Moslems for
further deeds of dishonor and cruelty. The galleys of the French were
ordered to reascend the Nile. It was proposed to complete the tragedy in
one act by slaughtering all the invaders. The Moslems were diverted from
this outrage only by the consideration, as expressed in the speech of
one of them, that “the dead pay no ransom,” and that to massacre the
remnant of the French army would be to deprive themselves of the bezants
pledged as the price of their lives. So the miserable exodus of the
crusaders was resumed, not, however, without anticipation that the
fickle temper of their captors might again change. At the mouth of the
Nile a Genoese vessel received the king; as soon as he was on deck an
array of archers sprang to the bulwarks and dispersed the Egyptians, and
the vessel sped rapidly out to sea.
Louis put in at Acre, bringing to the meagre force there but a few more
war-wasted men, wider demands upon its diminished resources, and a
pestilent disease, which slew scores daily. In vain did France call for
her king to return; pride or piety led him to refuse to desert his
unhappy followers. There were still twelve thousand Frenchmen in the
prisons of Egypt or scattered as slaves over the lands bordering the
Nile. These he must endeavor to rescue. The Hospitallers, Templars, and
Teutonic Knights, together with the nobles of Palestine, entreated his
presence with them. For several weeks there were almost daily councils,
some, among them the king’s two surviving brothers, declaring that
France, threatened by England, needed the king, while his presence
almost without following in Palestine could be no help to the Christian
cause, if it did not excite the everywhere victorious Moslems to greater
rapacity. Others among them, like Prince Joinville, advocated remaining.
Louis listened to the latter. The king’s brothers, the dukes of Anjou
and Poitiers, returned to France.
The Moslems of Egypt, grown quickly tired of the Sultana Chegger-Eddour,
made her yield up the sceptre. She shrewdly passed it to a favorite,
Aibek, by marrying him, and thus retained the substance of power.
The new Sultan of Egypt and the Sultan of Damascus and Aleppo each
invoked the aid of Louis against the other. Motives of vengeance would
have inclined him to side with the latter, but dread for the fate of the
French still left in Egypt, and regard for his treaty, hard as its terms
had been, prevented this choice, except in the event of the Egyptians
not speedily fulfilling their part of the contract in liberating the
captives. The threat of such alliance brought from Egypt some
instalments of prisoners. One band of two hundred knights carried with
them to Acre, as their best contribution to the cause, the bones of
several of their comrades for burial in the Holy Land. Louis was deeply
afflicted by the news that many of his soldiers refused to return to
him, having renounced the faith of Christ, who no longer extended to
them His succor. Some of these renegades amassed wealth and rose to
power in Egypt, but never, if we are to believe the Moslem writers,
reached the confidence and respect of the true followers of the Prophet.
This defection is hardly to be wondered at, since that age refused to
believe the words of Christ, “My kingdom is not of this world, else
would My servants fight.” The Christians partook too largely of the
Moslem idea that religion would triumph by the sword; but they had not
the reserve faith of the Mohammedans, which led them to take up the
kismet, “It is decreed,” when they were forced to retreat.
Europe sent an occasional knight to join the forlorn hope with Louis,
but no organized force. The Pope exhausted his passion in pursuing with
malediction the memory of Frederick II., who had just died. “Let the
heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad,” he wrote to the people of
Sicily upon the death of his old enemy. Against the new emperor, Conrad,
he proclaimed a crusade, offering indulgence to the German mothers and
fathers who would induce their sons to become traitors to their
sovereign.
The English King, Henry III., offered to take the cross for Palestine,
but, having raised a large sum of money for the purpose of an
expedition, found other uses for it. He forbade a large band of his
people embarking for the Holy Land, guarding his ports against their
departure. He even, as Matthew Paris says, “like a hurt or offended
child, who runs to his mother with his complaints,” obtained a papal
mandate enforcing obedience to his whim in this regard. Queen Blanche,
the regent of France, did indeed send a ship laden with money to her
son, but the vessel was sunk off the Syrian coast.
The chief occupation of Louis and his knights was in repairing the few
remaining fortifications held by the Christians, and in making pious
pilgrimages to the holy places at Nazareth, Tabor, and Cana. The Sultan
of Damascus invited him to Jerusalem, but, having come to conquer it, he
would not consent to enter it as a guest, having in mind the example of
Richard Cœur de Lion, who sixty years before had refused to look upon
the city he could not rescue. The Egyptians pressed Louis for alliance
against the Sultan of Damascus. They pledged to liberate all captives
remaining in Egypt, and further to send to Palestine the heads of the
Christians which had been exposed on the walls of Cairo; they would also
give up Jerusalem and nearly all the cities of Palestine. Under this
immense lure Louis made treaty with the Egyptians for fifteen years.
The Sultan of Damascus did not let his resentment cool before he
interposed an army between the Christians and their new allies. He was
defeated February 3, 1251. The Egyptians were unable or unwilling to
fulfil the promise to join Louis’s forces. At the expiration of a year
the Moslems had made peace with each other and declared war upon Louis
as their common enemy. The Turkomans also made raid upon Sidon and
slaughtered two thousand of the Christian people. Louis ordered
Joinville to retaliate by assaulting Baneas, or Cæsarea Philippi, where
they took recompense in blood. As they returned to Sidon they saw the
ground covered with putrefying corpses of their martyred kinsmen. Louis
bade them bury the dead, but no one would touch spade for the disgusting
task. “Come, my friends, let us bestow a little earth upon the martyrs
of Jesus Christ,” said the king; and springing from his horse, he took
one of the bodies in his hands and gently laid it beneath the dirt. His
example was followed by his suite.
A few months later news came of the death of Queen Blanche. The pens of
the historians, who are usually concerned only with great affairs of
state and the issue of battles, linger over the page in which they
describe the tender lamentation of the good Louis. For two days he spoke
to no one; then sent for Joinville, to whom he outpoured his passionate
grief.
The call for Louis’s return to France was renewed; the throne had no
protector; England was threatening. There was no possibility of further
service in the East, yet the king was undecided. Religious processions
of prayer were organized and the altars in various holy places besieged
with petitions for the divine guidance of the royal mind. At length
Heaven seemed to concur in what had long been the judgment of men, and
the king consented to abandon the field.
Fourteen vessels were sufficient to convey his forces. Each was fitted
with an altar for hourly service during the voyage. They raised anchor
in the port of Sidon, April 24, 1254. Off Cyprus the king’s ships were
nearly wrecked, but the courage of the sailors was revived by his words,
if the sea did not subside at his prayer, as some say it did. A
frightful tempest seems to have felt the spell of Queen Marguerite’s vow
of a silver ship to St. Nicholas of Lorraine. After two months and a
half (July 8th) the fleet reached Hyères. The king at first refused to
land, as this place was not yet a French possession; but he was
persuaded to yield his patriotic prejudice on account of his disgust for
the water. His piety also triumphed over his worldly chagrin, for,
“See,” said he, “if God has not proved to us how vast is His power, when
by means of a single one of the four winds the King of France, the
queen, their children, and so many other persons have escaped drowning.”
After a journey of two months more, not a long one for the best mounted
in that age, the royal party reached Paris, September 7, 1254. The king
at once repaired to St. Denis to recognize the protection of his patron
saint. Then, with universal welcome, he entered his capital. The popular
enthusiasm was not altogether of joy as the people contrasted the little
band of lords and knights returning to their wasted estates with the
splendid retinue that six years before had gone forth to conquer a new
empire for France and Christ. But one thing comforted them as they
contemplated the disaster—the piety of their monarch. This was the more
marked as the age had lost much of its religious zest. This crusade was
very unlike the first in that it was sustained by the new spirit of
Chivalry rather than of mere sanctity. Cross-wearing was no longer
thought to be necessarily the emblazoning of Heaven. The haughtiness,
the worldliness, not to say the wickedness, of the popes, who should
have been its spiritual leaders, but who were engrossed in the
gratification of their own jealousies, almost lost the church the
respect of the nations. The beauty of Louis’s devotion, its
unselfishness and spirituality, somewhat redeemed the character of the
movement upon which Christ Himself seemed to frown through His adverse
providence.
THE EIGHTH CRUSADE.