Chapter VI.

Christian Europe And Mahometan Asia In The Thirteenth Century.

A just and peaceful policy throughout Christendom was the great need of Christianity in the thirteenth century, for it had to struggle with two enemies, and was exposed to two very formidable dangers.

The Crusaders had inaugurated a fierce and bitter struggle with the Mahometans in Asia; and towards the middle of the thirteenth century, in the very heat of the conflict, and from the depths of Asia itself, a barbarous and almost pagan people--the Mongol Tartars--spread like a foul flood over Eastern Europe. They swept over Russia, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and Germany, ravaging and threatening with total destruction every province through which they passed. M. Abel Rémusat has studied all the documents relating to these terrible invasions, which he describes with the accuracy of a scholar. He writes as follows:--

{44}

'According to the laws established by their first great chief Tchinggis Khan, the Mongols were commanded to show mercy to those princes and nations that gave proof of their submission by surrendering their towns and consenting to pay tribute. All others were given up to the fury of the soldiers, and massacred without distinction of age or sex, the very animals being often included in an indiscriminate slaughter. It was impossible to negotiate with the Tartars in their early invasions; men had either to submit or die, and countless pyramids of human bones, which they erected on the sites of ruined cities, testified to the danger of resistance. These ghastly monuments were to be seen long afterwards, and were the terror of our travellers who passed through the regions which the Tartars had swept over and made desolate.'

The chronicles of the thirteenth century describe the Tartars as--

'A terrible race rushing down from the mountains of the North; an impious multitude who fear nothing, believe nothing, and worship nothing but their king--him they call the great King of kings and Lord of lords; men, or rather brutes, who are relentless; monsters having nothing human about them; greedy for blood, and drinking it with delight; tearing and devouring the raw flesh of animals, of dogs--nay, even of human beings; having an enormous head on a misshapen body, huge chests, large arms and short strong legs; clothed in the skins of cattle, and armed with iron lances; untiring warriors, unequalled archers, and of astounding courage, riding on great and strong horses which are so swift that they can go three days' journey in one day, and require no other food than leaves and the bark of trees. These horses they mount by means of three stirrups suspended one from the other, for they need this ladder on account of the shortness of their legs; crossing the broadest and most rapid rivers without delay or difficulty by means of boats made of ox-hide which they carry about with them: and for the matter of that, it gives them no more trouble to swim than to eat' [Footnote 11]

[Footnote 11: M. Felix Faure has also very ably collected the characteristic features of the Mongol portraits, and put them together so as to form a striking picture. He has taken his materials from the chronicles of the time, and especially from the works of Matthew Paris and Albéric des Trois Fontaines.]

{45}

The name and description of these barbarians, the report of their devastations, and the terror which they inspired, were soon spread throughout Christendom. The princes of Eastern Europe wrote to their relatives and allies in the West, warning them of the danger which threatened them, relating their own troubles, and imploring help against the common enemy.

'What must be done in so sad a case?' said Queen Blanche to her son the King of France. Louis answered, the chronicles say, 'with mournful voice, and yet not without a certain divine inspiration.' 'My mother,' he said, 'there is one heavenly consolation in which we may find support. If these Tartars, as we call them, come here, either we shall send them back to Tartarus, the place from whence they come, or they will send us up to Paradise.'

M. Abel Rémusat says: 'This play upon the words Tartarus (the infernal regions) and Tartar, which is here attributed to St. Louis, is found in almost all the documents of the period, and it is just possible that it affords the true explanation of the change made in the word Tatars by all the nations of the West. These tribes are called Tatari in the Russian chronicles, Tattari by Christophorus Manlius, and Tatari or Tattari in a letter written by Ives of Narbonne to Giraud, Archbishop of Bordeaux. {46} But, as a rule, we find that they were called Tartars from the very first, and "Tartari, imò Tartarei"--Tartars from the depths of Tartarus--as the Emperor Frederick called them, became a favourite expression. There was certainly a very general impression that these Mongols were either demons sent to chastise mankind, or men who had dealings with demons.' [Footnote 12]

[Footnote 12: Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, tome vi. p. 408.]

Another incident of less importance for Europe had, however, a more personal interest for Louis, and had already turned all the ardent piety of his inquiring spirit more and more towards the East. In the summer of 1237 he was at Compiègne, celebrating the marriage of his brother Robert, whom he had invested as knight and endowed with the province of Artois for an appanage. In the midst of the festivities people remarked with surprise that four strangers were present, men of foreign race and unfamiliar appearance, whom the King seemed to treat with great consideration. These, say the chronicles, were emissaries from the Old Man of the Mountain, the chief of an Arab sect and tribe which had sprung up in the midst of the religious, political, and warlike agitations of Islamism. This tribe had established itself in the mountains of Anti-Lebanon, between Antioch and Damascus, and its members had been known in the East for more than a century under the name of Assassins. It is said that they owed this name to the blind fanaticism with which they executed the orders of their sheikh (a word which means both chief and old man), who insured their passionate devotion to himself by all kinds of material indulgences, and made use of them to get rid of his enemies, near and far, Christian and Saracen. {47} In 1190 they assassinated Conrad, Marquis of Montserrat, then about to ascend the throne of Jerusalem, and the great Saladin himself, in spite of all his victories over the Christians, had twice nearly fallen a victim to their blows.

The fame of the young King's piety and valour had reached Syria, and it was said that Louis was about to start for the East at the head of a new crusade, and to re-establish the kingdom of Jerusalem. This report caused the Old Man of the Mountain to send two of his fanatical followers to France, with orders to kill the future enemy of their country. But, on the receipt of further information, he renounced the design, and sent other two of his followers to France to prevent the execution of the murder. In this they succeeded: they not only warned Louis of his danger, but had time to return and meet the first emissaries of their master, with whom they went back to Compiègne. 'Louis, who had taken every precaution against their attempt, received them well,' say the chronicles, 'and sent them home to the Old Man of the Mountain with rich gifts.'

Voltaire ridicules the whole story with that levity and shallow common sense which so often led him to place blind confidence in his own scepticism, and made him ready to reject as absurd fables any facts which he could not easily explain. 'The great Prince of the Assassins,' says he, 'fearing lest the King of France, Louis IX., of whom he had never heard, should journey to the East at the head of a new crusade, and snatch away his dominions, sent two noble adherents from his court in the caverns of Anti-Lebanon to assassinate the King in Paris. {48} But next day he was told what an amiable and generous prince this was; so he sent two other nobles by sea to countermand the assassination.' [Footnote 13]

[Footnote 13: Œuvres de Voltaire, tome xxvii. Edit, de Beuchot.]

But, in order to disprove the records of the thirteenth century, something more is necessary than merely to burlesque them in the language of the eighteenth. The chronicles of the time give numerous and detailed accounts of these early transactions between the Old Man of the Mountain and St. Louis. The accounts agree with all the documents of the time which refer to the relations existing between the East and West after the commencement of the Crusades. They are confirmed by other and almost contemporaneous testimony, which shows the Old Man of the Mountain, four years later, asking the help of St. Louis against the Mongol Tartars, from whose invasions Western Asia suffered as much as Eastern Europe. Without thinking of any difference of race or religion, the foes of yesterday eagerly sought each other's help against the common enemy of to-day. Such a complication of nations, princes, and events would give rise to many improbable and contradictory facts, and the true history of the period lies hidden under the many legends which exaggerate and disfigure it.

Another apprehension and another temptation were added about this time to those which already attracted the thoughts and heart of Louis to the East. The dangers of the Latin empire of Constantinople increased daily. {49} It was assailed alike by Greek, Mussulman, and Tartar. In 1236 the young Emperor Baldwin II. resolved to solicit in person the help of the princes of the West, more especially of the young King of France, who was already renowned for his piety and his chivalrous zeal.

Baldwin was the possessor of a treasure which fascinated the imagination of the Christians of those days--the crown of thorns worn by Christ during His passion. He had pledged it at Venice as a security for a considerable loan from the Venetians, and he now offered to make it over to Louis in return for efficient help either in men or money. Louis accepted the offer with rapture. Not long before he had been greatly alarmed at the reported loss of another precious relic, one of the nails said to have fastened the body of our Lord to the cross. It had been deposited in the Abbey of St. Denis, and disappeared one day during a religious ceremony. When it was found, Louis said: 'I would rather that the earth had opened and swallowed up one of the chief cities of my kingdom than have lost it.'

He took every care to avoid the disgrace which would attend any kind of traffic in so sacred a matter, and ultimately obtained the crown of thorns for a sum which, including all expenses, would equal about 54,000_l_. of our money. [Footnote 14]

[Footnote 14: 12,000 livres Parisis, about 1,350,000 francs in modern French money. The French _livre_ (like the English _pound_) was formerly a pound's _weight_ of silver. Charlemagne ordained that a silver sou should be precisely the twentieth part of twelve ounces of silver, and in this way twenty sous came to be looked upon as a livre. Both weight and value have been very greatly reduced in the course of time. Again, the weight of the livre, and consequently its value, varied in different parts of France. The _livre Parisis_ was the livre of Paris, the _livre Tournois_ (p. 19) the livre of Tours, &c.]

{50}

We cannot, in the present day, sympathise with the eager credulity which Christian faith does not require and sound criticism entirely condemns; but we ought to and we can understand it in an age when men contemplated every fact and every tradition of the Gospel with a deep, poetic faith, and when the belief that they were in the presence of any fragment or relic of sacred times was sufficient to call forth emotion and reverence as deep as their faith.

It is to such feelings that we owe one of the most perfect and graceful monuments of the Middle Ages, the Sainte Chapelle, built by Louis between 1245 and 1248, to contain the precious relics which he had accumulated. The architect, Pierre de Montreuil, comprehended and glorified the piety of the King in a marvellous manner, and no doubt his own genius was kindled by the same strong religious feeling which animated St. Louis.

{51}