The ill success of the first Crusades appeared to redouble the zeal of
the Christians for the recovery of the Holy Land. Great misfortunes had
attended many of the enterprises, but vast numbers had been enriched
by the plunder of magnificent cities, and some of the leaders had
acquired territorial possessions. Rome, whose policy it was to keep up
the fanaticism, did all in its power to promote these wicked, senseless
expeditions, and never ceased calling the attention of Europe to
Jerusalem defiled by the infidels, and its holy places profaned. These
touching pictures, accompanied by numerous promises of indulgence, had
a prodigious effect: France and England for a moment laid aside their
quarrels; and their kings, Philip and Richard, levied armies for the
delivery of the Holy Land. This was the golden age for ambitious popes
and greedy princes or adventurers. Whether Celestine urged Cœur de Lion
to undertake a mad expedition to the East, or Innocent III. hounded on
Simon de Montfort to his massacre and plunder of the Albigeois, the
motives were the same--thirst of power and influence in the pontiffs,
and solid gain of wealth in their tools.
Followed by their numerous battalions, accompanied by their most
powerful vassals, the two kings embarked and met at Messina. The artful
Tancred, king of Sicily, nearly succeeded in his attempt to embroil the
two monarchs; but a religious moderation quieted the nascent storm.
The French directed their course towards St. Jean d’Acre, which city,
having an excellent port, was equally necessary to the Christians
to preserve Tyre and Tripoli, as it was to the Saracens to secure a
communication between Egypt and Syria. For more than two years, Guy of
Lusignan, king of Jerusalem, had besieged this important place with
forces much less numerous than were employed in defending it. With an
army increased by torrents of Crusaders, with which the West constantly
inundated the East, and the wreck of the army of the emperor Frederick,
Guy ventured to march against Saladin, who was advancing to succour
Acre. Never had the Christian legions evinced more ardour; the combat
was bloody, but the success doubtful. Each claimed the honour of the
victory; but certainly the loss was least on the part of the Crusaders;
they resumed the siege, and the besieged continued to defend themselves
with the same vigour, when Philip Augustus arrived in the camp. His
presence added greatly to the hopes of the besiegers: the walls of
Acre were fast falling beneath the attacks of its numerous assailants;
the victorious soldiers would speedily have achieved the long-delayed
conquest, if the king of the French had not checked their courage out
of courtesy for the English monarch: he thus lost the great opportunity
of which the infidels made good use; they repaired their breaches; and
with the strength of their walls their spirits revived also. At length
Richard arrived, dragging in his train, bound in chains of silver,
Isaac Comnenus, king, or as he ostentatiously styled himself, emperor
of Cyprus, which island he had conquered during his voyage. A happy
harmony presided over the first proceedings of the kings of France
and England, who shared by turns both honour and danger. The army
calculated upon seeing Acre yield to the first general assault. When
the French monarch attacked the city, Richard mounted the trenches. On
the following day the king of England conducted the assault, and Philip
in his turn provided for the safety of the besiegers. The emulation
which prevailed between the two nations and their kings produced
extraordinary acts of valour.
Ptolemaïs, or Acre, saw indeed beneath its walls all the illustrious
captains and warriors that Europe could then boast, and that in an age
excelling most others in chivalric bravery. The tents of the Franks
covered a vast plain, and their army presented a noble aspect. A
spectator, on glancing his eye along the shore at the towers of Acre
and the camp of the Christians, in which they had built houses and
traced streets, traversed incessantly by an immense crowd, might have
imagined he saw two rival cities which were at war with each other.
Each nation had its separate quarter, and so many languages were spoken
by the Crusaders, that the Mussulmans could not find interpreters
enough to enable them to understand the prisoners. In this confused
multitude, each people had a different character, different manners,
and different arms; but at the signal of battle, all were animated with
the same zeal and the same ardour. The presence of the two monarchs
had re-established discipline, and Acre must soon have surrendered, if
discord, that eternal enemy of the Christians, had not entered their
camp with Richard.
Conrad of Montferrat and Guy de Lusignan both claimed the poor honour
of being king of Jerusalem; and the kings of England and France
took opposite sides; indeed, it was impossible for the headstrong
self-willed Richard and the astute politic Philip to remain long
friends in the same camp. Whenever Philip took the field, Richard
played Achilles, and sulked in his tent. The besieged had never
more than one of the monarchs to contend with at a time; and the
Christian army really became less redoubtable for its accession of
strength. Amidst their disputes, both monarchs fell dangerously ill;
and their hatred and suspicion were so great, that each accused the
other with having made an attempt upon his life. As Saladin sent them
refreshments and physicians, and as they addressed frequent messages
to him, each monarch reproached the other with keeping up an impious
understanding with the Saracens.
They, however, began to be convinced that such dissensions jeopardized
the safety of the army and the interests of the cause; the Jerusalem
monarchy was amicably arranged, and the siege was resumed with
fresh vigour. But the besieged had taken advantage of the respite
granted to them by the Christian cabals, and had strengthened their
fortifications. The besiegers were astonished at the opposition
they met with. We should have told our readers that Saladin, with a
numerous army, was on the heights above Acre; so that the Christians
were between the two fires of his forces and the garrison of the city.
Whenever the Crusaders attacked Acre, Saladin made a skirmishing dash
at their camp. Many battles were fought at the foot of the hills; but
on the two occasions of general assaults on the city, the Christians
were obliged to return precipitately to defend their tents.
But time must exhaust the resources of a city so strongly beleaguered:
the walls began to crumble under incessant attacks, and war, famine,
and disease weakened the garrison; there were not soldiers enough to
defend the walls and move about the cumbrous machines; the place wanted
provisions, munitions of war, and Greek fire. The troops and the people
began to murmur against Saladin and the emirs; and the commander of
the garrison at length proposed a capitulation to Philip Augustus; but
he swore by the God of the Christians that he would not spare a single
inhabitant of Ptolemaïs if the Mussulmans did not restore all the
cities that had fallen into their power since the battle of Tiberias.
Irritated by this determination, the chief of the emirs retired, saying
that he and his companions would rather bury themselves beneath the
ruins of the city than listen to such terms, and that they would defend
Acre _as a lion defends his blood-stained lair_. On his return into the
place, he communicated his courage, or rather his despair, to every
heart. When the Christians resumed their assaults, they were repulsed
with a vigour that astonished them. “The tumultuous waves of the
Franks,” says an Arabian author, “rolled towards the place with the
rapidity of a torrent; they mounted the half-ruined walls as wild goats
ascend the steepest rocks, whilst the Saracens precipitated themselves
upon the besiegers like stones detached from the summits of mountains.”
In one general assault a Florentine knight of the family of Buonaguisi,
followed by a few of his men, fought his way into one of the towers of
the infidels, and got possession of the Mussulman banner that floated
from it. Overpowered by numbers and forced to retreat, he returned to
the camp, bearing off the flag he had so heroically won. In the same
assault, Alberic Clement, the first marshal of France of whom history
makes mention, scaled the ramparts, and, sword in hand, penetrated into
the city, where he found a glorious death. Stephen, count of Blois,
and several knights were burnt by the Greek fire, the boiling oil, the
melted lead, and heated sand which the besiegers poured down upon all
who approached the walls.
The obstinate ardour of the Mussulmans was sustained during several
days; but as they received no succour, many emirs, at length despairing
of the safety of Ptolemaïs, threw themselves by night into a bark, to
seek an asylum in the camp of Saladin, preferring to encounter the
anger of the sultan to perishing by the swords of the Christians. This
desertion, and the contemplation of their ruined towers, filled the
Mussulmans with terror. Whilst pigeons and divers constantly announced
to Saladin the horrible distresses of the besieged, the latter came
to the resolution of leaving the city by night, and braving every
peril to join the Saracen army. But their project being discovered by
the Christians, they blocked up and guarded every passage by which
the enemy could possibly escape. The emirs, the soldiers, and the
inhabitants then became convinced that they had no hope but in the
mercy of the Christian leaders, and promised, if they would grant them
liberty and life, to give up sixteen hundred prisoners, together with
the wood of the true cross. By the capitulation, they engaged to pay
two hundred thousand byzants of gold, and the garrison, with the entire
population, were to remain hostages for the execution of the treaty.
A Mussulman soldier was sent from the city to announce to Saladin
that the garrison had been forced to capitulate. The sultan, who was
preparing to make a last effort to save the place, learnt the news with
deep regret. He summoned a council to know if they approved of the
capitulation; but scarcely were the principal emirs assembled in his
tent, when they saw the standards of the Crusaders floating over the
walls of Ptolemaïs.
The terms of the capitulation remained unexecuted; Saladin, under
various pretexts, deferring the payments. Richard, irritated by a
delay which appeared to him a breach of faith, revenged himself upon
his prisoners. Without pity for disarmed enemies, or regard for the
Christians he exposed to sanguinary reprisals, he massacred five
thousand Mussulmans before the city they had so bravely defended, and
within sight of Saladin, who shared the disgrace of this barbarity by
thus abandoning his bravest and most faithful warriors.
Such was the conclusion of this famous siege, which lasted nearly
three years, in which the Crusaders shed more blood and exhibited more
bravery than ought to have sufficed for the subjugation of the whole
of Asia. More than a hundred skirmishes and nine great battles were
fought before the walls of the city; several flourishing armies came to
recruit armies nearly annihilated, and were in their turn replaced by
fresh armies. The bravest nobility of Europe perished in this siege,
swept away by sword or disease.
In this war, both sides exhibited their fanaticism to the utmost
extent; bishops and imaums equally promising remission of sins and
crowns of martyrdom. Whilst the king of Jerusalem caused the book of
the Evangelists to be borne before him, Saladin would often pause on
the field of battle to offer up a prayer, or read a chapter from the
Koran. The Franks and the Christians mutually accused each other of
ignorance of the true God, and of outraging him by their ceremonies.
The Christians rushed upon their enemies, shouting _Dieu le veut! Dieu
le veut!_ and the Saracens as loudly responded by their war-cry of
_Islam! Islam!_
As it has been our constant wish to scatter a few flowers among the
melancholy scenes it is our task to paint, we cannot omit a celebrated
story connected with the siege of Acre.
Among the bravest of the French knights was the all-accomplished
Raoul de Coucy. He tenderly loved the fair Gabrielle de Vergy, and
was by her as warmly loved in return. Fearing to augment the torments
which his mistress underwent from the jealousy of her husband, the
Seigneur Dufaiël, De Coucy enrolled himself among the heroes of the
Cross. Mortally wounded before Acre, he called his faithful squire to
his side, and charged him to convey to the lady Dufaiël, a letter from
his own hand, together with the jewels he had received from her. On
the point of death, he likewise made him promise, under the bond of an
oath, to bear his heart to the lady for whom alone it had ever breathed
a sigh. Raoul being dead, his faithful squire set out to execute his
last wishes: he crossed the seas, and reached Vermandois, never, for a
moment, abandoning the care of his precious but sad charge. Arriving in
the neighbourhood of the castle of Dufaiël it was his ill fortune to
meet with its stern master, the jealous tyrant of Gabrielle, by whom
he was immediately recognised. When closely interrogated, he described
the death of Raoul, and supposing with that all jealousy must be at an
end, told him likewise of the subject of his mission. Dufaiël eagerly
seized the fatal deposit; transported with jealousy, he returned to the
castle, and caused the heart of the unfortunate De Coucy to be served
up to his lady in a dish of hashed meat. She ate of it. “That dish,”
said he, with a bitter smile, “must appear very delicious to you, for
it is the heart of your lover.” At the same time he threw upon the
table the box, the letter, and the jewels. At the sight of these, the
lady Dufaiël, convinced of the death of her lover, and of the cruelty
of her husband, fainted, and only recovered to swear that that food
should be her last. A prey to the deepest despair, continually bathed
in tears, she persistently refused all aliment: in a very few days,
grief completed the sacrifice. Devoured by remorse, it is said that the
barbarous Dufaiël survived her but a short time.
After the siege, Philip’s patience was exhausted by the haughty
assumption, and his envy excited by the heroic exploits of Richard, and
he returned to France, leaving a body of troops under the command of
his rival. We will not venture into the wide field of Cœur de Lion’s
miraculous feats on this scene of action. Two of the greatest heroes of
history, Richard and Saladin, were matched against each other, and,
notwithstanding the superior sagacity and self-command of Saladin,
Richard’s extraordinary courage, strength, and prowess maintained for
him the character of the bravest soldier of the age. But with all
his valour and exertions, he failed in the ostensible object of his
enterprise: circumstances of a various but imperative nature prevented
his reaching Jerusalem; he reluctantly turned his back upon it, when
within three leagues of it, and returned to Europe, after concluding a
truce with Saladin _for three years, three months, three weeks, three
days, and three hours._