Chapter IX.

St. Louis In Palestine And Syria.

Independently of the heavy losses which he had incurred during his stay in Egypt, the forces of the King were still further diminished when he set sail for the Holy Land by the desertion of some of the principal leaders who had accompanied him. The Count of Soissons, of Bretagne, and many others, who were either sick, disheartened or penniless, renounced the crusade and set out for Europe. When on the 14th of May he arrived at St. Jean d'Acre--a remnant of the kingdom of Jerusalem still belonging to the Christians--Louis had no difficulty in discovering that many of those who had accompanied him so far now wished to leave him. He had at all times shown great consideration for the opinion and wishes of his subjects--a very rare virtue in monarchs--and he preferred the acquiescence of free men to the obedience of slaves. He called them together in council, and said:--

'My Lords! The Queen my mother has entreated and commanded me, so far as it is in her power, to return to France, as my kingdom is in great danger, for I have neither peace nor truce with the King of England. On the other hand, the people of this country to whom I have spoken tell me that this land is lost if I leave it, for all those who are in Acre will follow me, since none dare remain in it with so small a force. {81} I beg you, therefore, to take this matter into consideration; and because this question is of such grave importance, I give you until this day week to deliberate, and then you will answer as it seemeth good to you.'

'On the following Sunday,' says Joinville, 'we presented ourselves before the King, who then asked his brothers and other lords what advice they gave him, whether to go or stay. They all answered that they had deputed Guy of Mauvoisin to convey their opinion to the King. The King commanded him to proceed with that which he had undertaken to do, and he spoke as follows: "Sire, my lords, your brothers and the other nobles here present, have carefully considered your position, and they see that you cannot remain in this country with honour either to yourself or your kingdom. For of the knights who accompanied you, and who joined you in Cyprus, numbering in all two thousand eight hundred, there are not now a hundred in this town. Therefore, sire, they advise you to go back at once to France and provide yourself with men and money, so that you may quickly return to this country and avenge yourself on the enemies of God who held you in prison." The King would not rest content with the opinion expressed by Guy of Mauvoisin, but questioned the Count of Anjou, the Count of Poitiers, and many other nobles who were seated behind them, and they all agreed with him who had spoken for them. . . . I was the fourteenth in rank, and sat opposite the legate,' continues Joinville; 'he asked me what I thought, and I said that, if the King could manage to carry on the campaign for a year, he would gain great honour by remaining. {82} And the legate said angrily, "How is it possible for the King to carry on the campaign with such a handful of troops?" I answered with equal warmth, for I thought he had said it to annoy me, "Sir, since you wish it, I will tell you. It is said--I do not know if it is true--that the King has not yet spent any of his own money, but only the money of the clergy. Let the King therefore now expend the royal treasure, and send to seek for knights in the Morea and over the sea. When they hear of the high pay which the King offers, knights will come to him from all quarters, and then he will be able to carry on the campaign for a year if it pleases God, and by staying he will deliver the poor prisoners who were taken captive when they were serving God and the King, and who will never be set free at all if the King goes away." There was not one present who had not dear friends in prison; therefore no one answered, but all began to weep. The legate next questioned William of Beaumont, who was at that time Marshal of France, and he answered that I had spoken well. "And I will tell you why," said he. But his uncle, the good knight Jean of Beaumont, who was very anxious to return to France, stopped him most rudely, crying out, "Now, long tongue! what do you want? Sit down and be quiet." The King said, "My lord Jean, that was not well done: let him speak." "Certes, sire, I will not let him;" and the Marshal was forced to be silent. No one else agreed with me except the lord of Chatenay. Then the King said, "My lords, I have listened with attention to all that you have to say, and I will answer you on this day week, and inform you what it is my pleasure to do."

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'When we had left the presence of the King I was attacked on all sides. "The King is mad, Sieur de Joinville, if he takes your advice rather than that of the whole kingdom of France." The tables were laid soon after this, and the King bade me sit near him during the repast, in the place where I always sat when his brothers were not present. He did not speak one word to me while the meal lasted, which was not his wont, for he always showed me great attention at that time. I verily believed that he was angry with me for saying that he had not employed his own money, when he had really expended such very large sums. Whilst the King was at prayers after the repast, I went away to a grated window which was in a recess near the head of the King's bed, and put my arms through the bars, and then folded them outside the window; and I stood there leaning against the window, and thinking that if the King returned to France I would go to the Prince of Antioch (who was a kind of relation, and had sent to seek me) until there was another crusade, by the help of which the prisoners might be set free. ...

'At that moment the King came up, and leant on my shoulder, and placed his two hands on my head. I thought it was Philip of Nemours, who had annoyed me the whole day on account of my advice to the King, so I said, "Leave me in peace, Monseigneur Philippe!" Now it chanced that, as he was trying to turn my head towards him, the King's hand slipped down over my face, and then I knew that it was the King, because of an emerald which he wore on his finger. {84} And he said, "Be still; I want to ask how you, who are so young, could be so bold as to venture to advise me to stay, in opposition to all the greatest and wisest men of France, who counselled me to go?" "Sire," I answered, "if I had an evil thought in my heart, I would never, at whatever cost, advise you to carry it out." "Do you say," he continued, "that I shall do an ill deed if I leave this land?" "Yes, sire, I do believe it, so help me God in time of need!" And he said, "If I stay, will you stay?" I replied, "Yes, if I can; either at my own expense or at that of some one else." "Now be of good cheer," he said; "for I am right well pleased with what you have said; but tell no one of it all this week."

'On the following Sunday we met again in the presence of the King, and when he saw that we were all assembled, he said, "My lords, I thank all those who advised me to return to France, and I also return many thanks to those who advised me to stay here. Now I have considered this matter, and if I stay here I do not see that there is any danger of the loss of my kingdom, for the Queen Regent has plenty of men who will defend it. And I have thought much, also, of what the knights in this country say, that if I depart Jerusalem is lost, for no one will dare to stay after I am gone. I have determined, therefore, that I will not at any cost leave the kingdom of Jerusalem which I came to conquer and to keep. And now I am firmly resolved to stay here for the present, and therefore I ask the great lords who are here, as well as all good knights who are willing to stay with me, to come and speak to me freely, and I will give you such ample supplies that the fault shall not be with me if you do not remain." Many who heard these words were put to shame by them, and many wept.' [Footnote 30]

[Footnote 30: Joinville, chap. lxxxii. &c.]

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Having resolved to stay in the East, Louis hastened the departure of his two brothers, the Count of Anjou and the Count of Poitiers, together with those Crusaders who wished to renounce the expedition; and he sent them to France, bearing a long letter addressed 'to his dear and faithful prelates, nobles, knights, citizens, burgesses, and the whole people of the kingdom of France.' It contained an admirably candid account of all that he had done and what had befallen him in Egypt, from the capture of Damietta to the time that he had set sail for Acre, and a pressing exhortation to send the reinforcements which he wanted in order to obtain the freedom of all the Christians still kept in captivity by the Mussulmans, and to insure the safety of all the towns and possessions still held by Christians in Palestine and Syria. I do not hesitate to affirm that never, in any age or in any country, has a sovereign laid before his people his actions and motives, his aims, his failure, his success and his needs, with more unflinching frankness, with so much modest dignity, and such deep religious feeling. [Footnote 31]

[Footnote 31: My account of this remarkable document is taken from the text given in the supplements to the edition of Joinville published by Ducange (1668), pp. 384-388.]

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To such an extent did Louis carry his conscientious scruples and virtuous inflexibility, that, after the departure of his brothers, 'he called together all the officers of his household, exhorted them to lead sober and chaste lives, and said that, if any were afraid of failing in this duty, he was prepared to grant leave for their return to the West. Not one asked for this permission. But some time after St. Louis found that there were sixteen or seventeen who had not lived as they ought to have done; he dismissed them from his household, and would not pardon them for three or four months, until Easter of the following year.' [Footnote 32]

[Footnote 32: Tillemont, vol. iii. p. 392.]

We have no very definite or reliable information as to the numerical strength of the army after the desertion of the King's brothers, but there can be little doubt that it was unequal to the double task which Louis had set before him--the liberation of the Christian captives held by the Saracens, and the security of the Christians in Palestine and Syria. In his own heart Louis always brooded over another project which he did not openly proclaim; this was to snatch the Holy Sepulchre from the Mussulmans and once more establish the kingdom of Jerusalem:--his was one of those ardent natures which hope against hope. Twice he seemed on the point of realizing this dream: in 1250, Malek Hasser, the Sultan of Aleppo and Damascus, who was then at war with the Mameluke Emirs of Egypt, offered to restore the kingdom of Jerusalem if he would enter into active alliance with him against his enemies. The temptation was strong; but, on leaving Damietta, Louis had concluded a ten years' truce with the Emirs, who on their side had undertaken to set free all their Christian captives. {87} The agreement was at that time being carried out. Louis would not break his word to the Mussulmans, nor would he leave the Christians, whom he had promised to deliver, in captivity, and very probably exposed to a frightful massacre. He made answer to the Sultan of Damascus that he would call upon the Egyptian Emirs to fulfil their engagement without any further delay, and that, if they refused, he would willingly make war upon them. The Emirs did not refuse; they even set free a considerable number of the captives, but they still retained some thousands. Louis waited, negotiating slowly both with the Sultan of Damascus and the Egyptian Emirs. In 1252 the latter, being hard pressed by the enemy, applied in their turn to the King, offering to restore the ancient kingdom of Jerusalem with the exception of four places, to set free all their Christian captives, and to excuse the payment of the 200,000 livres still owing for the ransom. Louis accepted the offer, and a treaty was concluded at Cæsarea; but at the very time when it should have been carried out the Egyptian Emirs and the Sultan of Damascus changed their minds, forgot their differences, and united to attack the remnant of crusading Christians.

Louis had not been dismayed by danger or discouraged by reverses, nor could he be daunted by disappointment: he at once threw his whole energy into a consideration of the position of the Christians in Syria and Palestine; he made every effort both to insure their present safety and also to train and prepare them as a basis of support in future crusades. {88} He resolved to spend in the fortification of their towns the 200,000 livres which he was now prevented from devoting to the ransom of Christian prisoners in Egypt, and preparations were at once begun for putting St. Jean d'Acre, Jaffa, Cæsarea, and Sidon in a state of defence; he visited them constantly, and in case of need protected them against the attacks of the Saracens with such forces as he had,--the Crusaders who had not deserted him, the Templars and Hospitallers, and the Christian population of the East. He had sent a great number of workmen to fortify Sidon; the Saracens surprised them, and massacred nearly all of them,--two or three thousand, say the chronicles. The King resolved to avenge them, and to pay them a solemn act of homage; after making a raid upon the towns and lands of the Mussulmans in the vicinity, he arrived before Sidon.

'The corpses of the Christian workmen had been left unburied on the ground, and emitted a pestilential stench. The King did not content himself with giving orders that they should receive Christian burial, nor even with superintending their interment; he put his own hands to the work, touching the ghastly remains with the greatest reverence, and helping to place them in sacks which had been prepared for the purpose. "Let us go," he would say in the morning to his attendants, "let us help to bury those martyrs who have suffered death for the sake of our Lord. And do not be weary in well-doing, for they have endured far greater things than this will cost us." And when he saw his knights shrink with disgust from the task, "Do not loathe these poor bodies," he said, "for these men are martyrs and in Paradise."' [Footnote 33]

[Footnote 33: M. Faure, who gives this account, has collected his material from scattered notices in Joinville, the Confesseur de la Reine Marguerite, Guillaume de Nangis, Guillaume de Chartres, &c.]

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Asiatic and European, Mussulman and Christian, the inhabitants of Syria and of the neighbouring countries, all beheld this manifestation of faith, piety, loyalty, persevering courage, and sympathetic goodness with surprise and respectful admiration. The King's name and his person became the object of curiosity and reverence. 'A great troop of pilgrims from Upper Armenia,' says Joinville, 'on their way to Jerusalem, came to me, and begged that I would show them the saintly King. I went to the King, and found him sitting in a tent on the bare sand, without carpet or cushion under him. I said, "Sire, there is a great crowd of pilgrims here, and they have begged me to show them the royal saint; for my own part I have no desire to kiss your bones just yet." The King laughed heartily, and bade me bring them to his presence, which I did. And when they had seen the King, they commended him to God; and the King did the same by them.'

The Mussulmans were sometimes rough and threatening, but Louis speedily made them respectful. The Old Man of the Mountain, who was accustomed to inspire fear in all around him, one day sent a messenger to express his astonishment that the King had not yet, 'in order to keep him as a friend, offered him rich presents, as is done yearly by the Emperor of Germany, the King of Hungary, the Sultan of Babylon, and others.' Louis received the messenger coldly, and told him to return in the afternoon. He did so, and found the King sitting in state, having on his right hand the Grand Master of the Templars, and on his left the Grand Master of the Hospitallers, the two Orders for which the Old Man of the Mountain showed most consideration; 'knowing well,' says Joinville, 'that if he had caused one of the chiefs of either Order to be killed by his assassins he would be replaced by another equally good.' {90} The King had deputed the two Grand Masters to answer for him; they told the messenger 'that his master must be very fool-hardy to venture to send such an insolent message to the King, and that if it had not been for the great respect they felt for the King to whom the messenger had been sent, they would have had him thrown into the filthy sea of Acre in spite of his master. And we command you,' added they, 'to return to your lord, and to come back within a fortnight, bringing such letters and jewels from your prince that King Louis shall be contented with him and with you.'

The Old Man of the Mountain did not venture to resist this summons: his messenger returned a fortnight later bringing presents, to which Louis responded by sending back 'a great abundance of jewels, scarlet cloth, cups of gold, and silver bridles.'

The position of St. Louis was precarious and full of peril, and yet he contrived to inaugurate and maintain friendly relations with the non-Christian races that did not make war on him. It was during his sojourn in Syria that he sent the monk Rubruquis, whose quaint account is still extant, on a mission to Mangou, Khan of the Mongol Tartars.

Louis was influenced not only by political motives, but by the hope of attracting these barbarians to Christianity, and he displayed the credulity of blind zeal in giving credit to the slightest rumour of any readiness on their part to receive the Christian faith. {91} More than once Mussulmans from Egypt or Syria were so deeply touched by his piety and many virtues that they had gone to him, begging to be made Christians. 'He received them with great joy,' says his confessor, Geoffrey of Beaulieu, 'and had them baptized and carefully instructed in the faith of Christ. He supported them entirely at his own expense, took them with him to France, and provided means of subsistence for them, their wives and children.' But this was not all; in 1270, by his will, he enjoined his successor to continue 'to all the converts, great and small, whom we brought from over the sea with us, the supplies which we set apart for them.' [Footnote 34]

[Footnote 34: Bouquet's 'Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France,' vol. xx. p. 16; Duchesne, vol. v. p. 430.]

The ardent piety and royal generosity of the King impressed even his greatest enemies, and extorted from them expressions of esteem, and almost of sympathy. Whilst he was at Jaffa the Sultan of Damascus sent him word that, if he wished, he might make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and that he should do so in perfect safety. 'The King held a great council,' says Joinville, 'and no one advised him to go. They pointed out to him that if he, who was the greatest of Christian kings, visited Jerusalem as a simple pilgrim, without delivering the city from the hands of the enemies of God, all other kings and pilgrims who followed in his steps would be contented to perform their pilgrimage in the same manner as the King of France had done, and would trouble themselves no further about the deliverance of Jerusalem.' They also cited in support of the advice a great example: in 1192, sixty years earlier, an illustrious Crusader, less holy but quite as brave as himself, Richard Cœur-de-Lion, King of England, discovered that he was quite close to the Holy City. {92} One of his knights cried out, 'Come, sire, come hither, and I will show you Jerusalem.' When Richard heard that, he covered his eyes and wept, and cried to our Lord, 'Ah! Lord God, I pray Thee not to let me even see Thy Holy City, since I am not able to deliver it out of the hands of Thine enemies.'

In the beginning of the year 1253 Louis was still in Syria, undertaking many expeditions, devoting himself to the Christian cause, and working for it with more perseverance than success, when at Sidon he received news which caused him the greatest sorrow and anxiety. Queen Blanche, his mother, had resumed her regency during his absence, and he now heard of her death at Paris, the 27th November, 1252. The Pope's legate, the Archbishop of Tyre, and Geoffrey of Beaulieu, the King's confessor, endeavoured to break the sad tidings to him as gently as possible; they went with him into a small private chapel adjoining his chamber, and all sat down near the altar. At their first words Louis uttered a great cry, and, bursting into tears, fell on his knees before the altar. 'So great was his grief,' says Joinville, 'that for two days he could see no one. After that he sent one of his attendants to seek me. When I entered the room in which he was sitting all alone, he stretched out his arms, and said, "Ah, Seneschal, I have lost my mother!"'

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His loss was indeed a heavy one, both as son and as king. Even those contemporary writers who are least favourable to her acknowledge that Queen Blanche was 'the most discreet woman of her time, singularly acute and sagacious, with a man's courage, but the attractions and keen perceptions of her sex; magnanimous in her nature, a woman of indomitable energy; sovereign mistress of all the affairs of the century; guardian and protector of France; best to be compared to Semiramis, the greatest among women.'

During her son's minority, and from the time of his departure for the East, she had given him constant proofs of enthusiastic but not blind devotion, and had been very useful to him in spite of being slightly tyrannical. Several of the chroniclers assert that the absence of her son from 1248 to 1252, her anxiety on his account, and the duties which she undertook to perform for him, shortened her life. She died at the age of sixty-five; a few days before her death she bade farewell to the world, took the veil and made her vows as a nun of the Abbey of Maubuisson, which she had founded ten years previously and in which she was buried.

Queen Margaret shared her husband's grief. 'Madame Marie de Vertus,' says Joinville, 'a very excellent and pious woman, came to tell me that the Queen was in great affliction, and begged me to go to her and comfort her. When I entered I found her weeping, and I said that he had spoken truly who said that no faith was to be placed in women, "for she was the woman whom you hated above all others, and yet you show all this sorrow for her." She replied that she did not weep for the death of Queen Blanche, but for the King's grief, and for her daughter Isabella, [Footnote 35] who had been left in France under the care of her grandmother, and would now fall to the charge of men.'

[Footnote 35: Afterwards Queen of Navarre.]

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Louis had a sincere love for his wife, and it was well merited, for during the whole crusade both in Egypt and Syria Queen Margaret had displayed both the constancy and courage of her affection. And yet when she rejoined the King at Sidon, in 1253, on hearing of her arrival, Louis asked his seneschal if the Queen and the children were well, and Joinville remarks: 'During the five years I had been with him he had never spoken of the Queen or of his children either to me or any one else. It seemed to me not a right thing thus to be a stranger to his own wife and children.'

But let the degree of affection in the royal household have been what it might, there can be no doubt that his mother Queen Blanche was the woman whom the King most admired, whom he most trusted, and who was treated by him with the greatest respect and consideration.

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