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sent ten Mussulmans to hell." Saladin understood enthusiasm, and
respected it; and to have had the destruction of Jerusalem connected with
his name would' have caused him deep displeasure. He therefore consented
to the terms of capitulation demanded of him. The fighting men were
permitted to retreat to Tyre or Tripolis, the last cities of any
importance, besides Antioch, in the power of the Christians; and the
simple inhabitants of Jerusalem had their lives preserved, and permission
given them to purchase their freedom on certain conditions; but, as many
amongst them could not find the means, Malek-Adhel, the sultan's brother,
and Saladin himself paid the ransom of several thousands of captives.
All Christians, however, with the exception of Greeks and Syrians, had
orders to leave Jerusalem within four days. When the day came, all the
gates were closed, except that of David by which the people were to go
forth; and Saladin, seated upon a throne, saw the Christians defile
before him. First came the patriarch, followed by the clergy, carrying
the sacred vessels, and the ornaments of the church of the Holy
Sepulchre. After him came Sibylla, Queen of Jerusalem, who had remained
in the city, whilst her husband, Guy de Lusignan, had been a prisoner at
Nablous since the battle of Tiberias. Saladin saluted her respectfully,
and spoke to her kindly. He had too great a soul to take pleasure in the
humiliation of greatness.
[Illustration: The Christians of the Holy City defiling before Saladin.--
--28]
The news, spreading through Europe, caused amongst all classes there,
high and low, a deep feeling of sorrow, anger, disquietude, and shame.
Jerusalem was a very different thing from Edessa. The fall of the
kingdom of Jerusalem meant the sepulchre of Jesus Christ fallen once more
into the hands of the infidels, and, at the same time, the destruction of
what had been wrought by Christian Europe in the East, the loss of the
only striking and permanent gage of her victories. Christian pride was
as much wounded as Christian piety. A new fact, moreover, was
conspicuous in this series of reverses and in the accounts received of
them; after all its defeats and in the midst of its discord, Islamry had
found a chieftain and a hero. Saladin was one of those strange and
superior beings who, by their qualities and by their very defects, make a
strong impression upon the imaginations of men, whether friends or foes.
His Mussulman fanaticism was quite as impassioned as the Christian
fanaticism of the most ardent crusaders. When he heard that Reginald of
Chatillon, Lord of Karat, on the confines of Palestine and Arabia, had
all but succeeded in an attempt to go and pillage the Caaba and the tomb
of Mahomet, he wrote to his brother Malek-Adhel, at that time governor of
Egypt, "The infidels have violated the home and the cradle of Islamism;
they have profaned our sanctuary. Did we not prevent a like insult
(which God forbid!) we should render ourselves guilty in the eyes of God
and the eyes of men. Purge we, therefore, our land from these men who
dishonor it; purge we the very air from the air they breathe." He
commanded that all the Christians who could possibly be captured on this
occasion should be put to death; and many were taken to Mecca, where the
Mussulman pilgrims immolated them instead of the sheep and lambs they
were accustomed to sacrifice. The expulsion of the Christians from
Palestine was Saladin's great idea and unwavering passion; and he
severely chid the Mussulmans for their soft-heartedness in the struggle.
"Behold these Christians," he wrote to the Khalif of Bagdad, "how they
come crowding in! How emulously they press on! They are continually
receiving fresh re-enforcements more numerous than the waves of the sea,
and to us more bitter than its brackish waters. Where one dies by land,
a thousand come by sea. . . . The crop is more abundant than the
harvest; the tree puts forth more branches than the axe can lop off. It
is true that great numbers have already perished, insomuch that the edge
of our swords is blunted; but our comrades are beginning to grow weary of
so long a war. Haste we, therefore, to implore the help of the Lord."
Nor needed he the excuse of passion in order to be cruel and sanguinary
when he considered it would serve his cause; for human lives and deaths
he had that barbaric indifference which Christianity alone has rooted out
from the communities of men, whilst it has remained familiar to the
Mussulman. When he found himself, either during or after a battle,
confronted by enemies whom he really dreaded, such as the Hospitallers of
St. John of Jerusalem or the Templars, he had them massacred, and
sometimes gave them their death-blow himself, with cool satisfaction.
But, apart from open war and the hatred inspired by passion or cold
calculation, he was moderate and generous, gentle towards the vanquished
and the weak, just and compassionate towards his subjects, faithful to
his engagements, and capable of feeling sympathetic admiration for men,
even his enemies, in whom he recognized superior qualities, courage,
loyalty, and loftiness of mind. For Christian knighthood, its precepts
and the noble character it stamped upon its professors, he felt so much
respect and even inclination that the wish of his heart, it is said, was
to receive the title of knight, and that he did, in fact, receive it with
the approval of Richard Coeur de Lion. By reason of all these facts and
on all these grounds he acquired, even amongst the Christians, that
popularity which attaches itself to greatness justified by personal deeds
and living proofs, in spite of the fear and even the hatred inspired
thereby. Christian Europe saw in him the able and potent chief of
Mussulman Asia, and, whilst detesting, admired him.
After the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin, the Christians of the East, in
their distress, sent to the West their most eloquent prelate and gravest
historian William, Archbishop of Tyre, who, fifteen years before, in the
reign of Baldwin IV., had been Chancellor of the kingdom of Jerusalem.
He, accompanied by a legate of Pope Gregory VIII., scoured Italy, France,
and Germany, recounting everywhere the miseries of the Holy Land, and
imploring the aid of all Christian princes and peoples, whatever might be
their own position of affairs and their own quarrels in Europe. At a
parliament assembled at Gisors, on the 21st of January, 1188, and at a
diet convoked at Mayence on the 27th of March following, he so powerfully
affected the knighthood of France, England, and Germany, that the three
sovereigns of these three states, Philip Augustus, Richard Coeur de Lion,
and Frederick Barbarossa, engaged with acclamation in a new crusade.
They were princes of very different ages and degrees of merit, but all
three distinguished for their personal qualities as well as their
puissance. Frederick Barbarossa was sixty-seven, and for the last
thirty-six years had been leading, in Germany and Italy, as politician
and soldier, a very active and stormy existence. Richard Cceur de Lion
was thirty-one, and had but just ascended the throne where he was to
shine as the most valiant and adventurous of knights rather than as a
king. Philip Augustus, though only twenty-three, had already shown
signs, beneath the vivacious sallies of youth, of the reflective and
steady ability characteristic of riper age. Of these three sovereigns,
the eldest, Frederick Barbarossa, was first ready to plunge amongst the
perils of the crusade. Starting from Ratisbonne about Christmas, 1189,
with an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men, he traversed the
Greek empire and Asia Minor, defeated the Sultan of Iconium, passed the
first defiles of Taurus, and seemed to be approaching the object of his
voyage, when, on the 10th of June, 1190, having arrived at the borders of
the Selef, a small river which throws itself into the Mediterranean close
to Seleucia, he determined to cross it by fording, was seized with a
chill, and, according to some, drowned before his people's eyes, but,
according to others, carried dying to Seleucia, where he expired. His
young son Conrad, Duke of Suabia, was not equal to taking the command of
such an army; and it broke up.
The majority of the German princes returned to Europe: and "there
remained beneath the banner of Christ only a weak band of warriors
faithful to their vow, a boy-chief, and a bier. When the crusaders of
the other nations, assembled before St. Jean d'Acre, saw the remnant of
that grand German army arrive, not a soul could restrain his tears.
Three thousand men, all but stark naked, and harassed to death, marched
sorrowfully along, with the dried bones of their emperor carried in a
coffin. For, in the twelfth century, the art of embalming the dead was
unknown. Barbarossa, before leaving Europe, had asked that, if he should
die in the crusade, he might be buried in the church of the Resurrection
at Jerusalem; but this wish could not be accomplished, as the Christians
did not recover the Holy City, and the mortal remains of the emperor were
carried, as some say, to Tyre, and, as others, to Antioch, Where his tomb
has not been discovered." (_Histoire de la Lutte des Papes et des
Empereurs de la Maison de Souabe,_ by M. de Cherrier, Member of the
Institute, t. i., p. 222.)
Frederick Barbarossa was already dead in Asia Minor, and the German army
was already broken up, when, on the 24th of June, 1190, Philip Augustus
went and took the oriflamme at St. Denis, on his way to Vezelai, where he
had appointed to meet Richard, and whence the two kings, in fact, set
out, on the 4th of July, to embark with their troops, Philip at Genoa,
and Richard at Marseilles. They had agreed to touch nowhere until they
reached Sicily, where Philip was the first to arrive, on the 16th of
September; and Richard was eight days later. But, instead of simply
touching, they passed at Messina all the autumn of 1190, and all the
winter of 1190-91, no longer seeming to think of anything but quarrelling
and amusing themselves. Nor were grounds for quarrel or opportunities
for amusements to seek. Richard, in spite of his promise, was unwilling
to marry the Princess Alice, Philip's sister; and Philip, after lively
discussion, would not agree to give him back his word, save "in
consideration of a sum of ten thousand silver marks, whereof he shall pay
us three thousand at the feast of All Saints, and year by year in
succession, at this same feast." Some of their amusements were not more
refined than their family arrangements, and ruffianly contests and
violent enmities sprang up amidst the feasts and the games in which kings
and knights nearly every evening indulged in the plains round about
Messina. One day there came amongst the crusaders thus assembled a
peasant driving an ass, laden with those long and strong reeds known by
the name of canes. English and French, with Richard at their head,
bought them of him; and, mounting on horseback, ran tilt at one another,
armed with these reeds by way of lances. Richard found himself opposite
to a French knight, named William des Barres, of whose strength and valor
he had already, not without displeasure, had experience in Normandy. The
two champions met with so rude a shock that their reeds broke, and the
king's cloak was torn. Richard, in pique, urged his horse violently
against the French knight, in order to make him lose his stirrups; but
William kept a firm seat, whilst the king fell under his horse, which
came down in his impetuosity. Richard, more and more exasperated, had
another horse brought, and charged a second time, but with no more
success, the immovable knight. One of Richard's favorites, the Earl of
Leicester, would have taken his place, and avenged his lord; but "let be,
Robert," said the king: "it is a matter between him and me;" and he once
more attacked William des Barres, and once more to no purpose. "Fly from
my sight," cried he to the knight, "and take care never to appear again;
for I will be ever a mortal foe to thee, to thee and thine." William des
Barres, somewhat discomfited, went in search of the King of France, to
put himself under his protection. Philip accordingly paid a visit to
Richard, who merely said, "I'll not hear a word." It needed nothing less
than the prayers of the bishops, and even, it is said, a threat of
excommunication, to induce Richard to grant William des Barres the king's
peace during the time of pilgrimage.
Such a comrade was assuredly very inconvenient, and might be under
difficult circumstances very dangerous. Philip, without being
susceptible or quarrelsome, was naturally independent, and disposed to
act, on every occasion, according to his own ideas. He resolved, not to
break with Richard, but to divide their commands, and separate their
fortunes. On the approach of spring, 1191, he announced to him that the
time had arrived for continuing their pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and
that, as for himself, he was quite ready to set out. "I am not ready,"
said Richard; "and I cannot depart before the middle of August." Philip,
after some discussion, set out alone, with his army, on the 30th of
March, and on the 14th of April arrived before St. Jean d'.Acre. This
important place, of which Saladin had made himself master nearly four
years before, was being besieged by the last King of Jerusalem, Guy de
Lusignan, at the head of the Christians of Palestine, and by a multitude
of crusaders, Genoese, Danish, Flemish, and German, who had flocked
freely to the enterprise. A strong and valiant Mussulman garrison was
defending St. Jean d'Acre. Saladin manoeuvred incessantly for its
relief, and several battles had already been fought beneath the walls.
When the King of France arrived, he was received by the Christians
besieging," say the chronicles of St. Denis, "with supreme joy, as if he
were an angel come down from heaven.". Philip set vigorously to work to
push on the siege; but at his departure he had promised Richard not to
deliver the grand assault until they had formed a junction before the
place with all their forces. Richard, who had set out from Messina at
the beginning of May, though he had said that he would not be ready till
August, lingered again on the way to reduce the island of Cyprus, and to
celebrate there his marriage with Berengaria of Navarre, in lieu of Alice
of France. At last he arrived, on the 7th of June, before St. Jean
d'Acre; and several assaults in succession were made on the place with
equal determination on the part of the besiegers and the besieged. "The
tumultuous waves of the Franks," says an Arab historian, "rolled towards
the walls of the city with the rapidity of a torrent; and they climbed
the half-ruined battlements as wild goats climb precipitous rocks, whilst
the Saracens threw themselves upon the besiegers like stones unloosed
from the top of a mountain." At length, on the 13th of July, 1191, in
spite of the energetic resistance offered by the garrison, which defended
itself "as a lion defends his blood-stained den," St. Jean d'Acre
surrendered. The terms of capitulation stated that two hundred thousand
pieces of gold should be paid to the chiefs of the Christian army; that
sixteen hundred prisoners and the wood of the true cross should be given
up to them; and that the garrison as well as all the people of the town
should remain in the conquerors' power, pending full execution of the
treaty.
Whilst the siege was still going on, the discord between the Kings of
France and England was increasing in animosity and venom. The conquest
of Cyprus had become a new subject of dispute. When the French were most
eager for the assault, King Richard remained in his tent; and so the
besieged had scarcely ever to repulse more than one or other of the kings
and armies at a time. Saladin, it is said, showed Richard particular
attention, sending him grapes and pears from Damascus; and Philip
conceived some mistrust of these relations. In camp the common talk,
combined with anxious curiosity, was, that Philip was jealous of
Richard's warlike popularity, and Richard was jealous of the power and
political weight of the King of France.
When St. Jean d'Acre had been taken, the judicious Philip, in view of
what it had cost the Christians of East and West, in time and blood, to
recover this single town, considered that a fresh and complete conquest
of Palestine and Syria, which was absolutely necessary for a
re-establishment of the kingdom of Jerusalem, was impossible: he had
discharged what he owed to the crusade; and the course now permitted and
prescribed to him was to give his attention to France. The news he
received from home was not encouraging; his son Louis, hardly four years
old, had been dangerously ill; and he himself fell ill, and remained some
days in bed, in the midst of the town he had just conquered. His enemies
called his illness in question, for already there was a rumor abroad that
he had an idea of giving up the crusade, and returning to France; but the
details given by contemporary chroniclers about the effects of his
illness scarcely permit it to be regarded as a sham. "Violent sweats,"
they say, "committed such havoc with his bones and all his members, that
the nails fell from his fingers and the hair from his head, insomuch that
it was believed--and, indeed, the rumor is not yet dispelled--that he had
taken a deadly poison." There was nothing strange in Philip's illness,
after all his fatigues, in such a country and such a season; Saladin,
too, was ill at the same time, and more than once unable to take part
with his troops in their engagements. But, however that may be, a
contemporary English chronicler, Benedict, Abbot of Peterborough, relates
that, on the 22d of July, 1191, whilst King Richard was playing chess
with the Earl of Gloucester, the Bishop of Beauvais, the Duke of
Burgundy, and two knights of consideration, presented themselves before
him on behalf of the King of France. "They were dissolved in tears,"
says he, "in such sort they could not utter a single word; and, seeing
them so moved, those present wept in their turn for pity's sake. 'Weep
not,' said King Richard to them; 'I know what ye be come to ask; your
lord, the King of France, desireth to go home again, and ye be come in
his name to ask on his behalf my counsel and leave to get him gone.'
'It is true, sir; you know all,' answered the messengers; 'our king
sayeth, that if he depart not speedily from this land, he will surely
die.' 'It will be for him and for the kingdom of France,' replied King
Richard, 'eternal shame, if he go home without fulfilling the work for
the which he came, and he shall not go hence by my advice; but if he must
die or return home, let him do what he will, and what may appear to him
expedient for him, for him and his.'" The source from which this story
comes, and the tone of it, are enough to take from it all authority; for
it is the custom of monastic chroniclers to attribute to political or
military characters emotions and demonstrations alien to their position
and their times. Philip Augustus, moreover, was one of the most decided,
most insensible to any other influence but that of his own mind, and most
disregardful of his enemies' bitter speeches, of all the kings in French
history. He returned to France after the capture of St. Jean d' Acre,
because he considered the ultimate success of the crusade impossible, and
his return necessary for the interests of France and for his own. He was
right in thus thinking and acting; and King Richard, when insultingly
reproaching him for it, did not foresee that, a year later, he would
himself be doing the same thing, and would give up the crusade without
having obtained anything more for Christendom, except fresh reverses.
[Illustration: RICHARD COEUR DE LION HAVING THE SARACENS BEHEADED.----7]
On the 31st of July, 1191, Philip, leaving with the army of the crusaders
ten thousand foot and five hundred knights, under the command of Duke
Hugh of Burgundy, who had orders to obey King Richard, set sail for
France; and, a few days after Christmas in the same year, landed in his
kingdom, and forth-with resumed, at Fontainebleau according to some, and
at Paris according to others, the regular direction of his government.
We shall see before long with what intelligent energy and with what
success he developed and consolidated the territorial greatness of France
and the influence of the kingship, to her security in Europe and her
prosperity at home.
From the 1st of August, 1191, to the 9th of October, 1192, King Richard
remained alone in the East as chief of the crusade and defender of
Christendom. He pertains, during that period, to the history of England,
and no longer to that of France. We will, however, recall a few facts to
show how fruitless, for the cause of Christendom in the East, was the
prolongation of his stay and what strange deeds--at one time of savage
barbarism, and at another of mad pride or fantastic knight-errantry--were
united in him with noble instincts and the most heroic courage. On the
20th of August, 1191, five weeks after the surrender of St. Jean d'Acre,
he found that Saladin was not fulfilling with sufficient promptitude the
conditions of capitulation, and, to bring him up to time, he ordered the
decapitation, before the walls of the place, of, according to some,
twenty-five hundred, and, according to others, five thousand, Mussulman
prisoners remaining in his hands.
[Illustration: Richard Coeur de Lion having the Saracens beheaded.----37]
The only effect of this massacre was, that during Richard's first
campaign after Philip's departure for France, Saladin put to the sword
all the Christians taken in battle or caught straggling, and ordered
their bodies to be left without burial, as those of the garrison of St.
Jean d'Acre had been. Some months afterwards Richard conceived the idea
of putting an end to the struggle between Christendom and Islamry, which
he was not succeeding in terminating by war, by a marriage. He had a
sister, Joan of England, widow of William II., king of Sicily; and
Saladin had a brother, Malek-Adhel, a valiant warrior, respected by the
Christians. Richard had proposals made to Saladin to unite them in
marriage and set them to reign together over the Christians and
Mussulmans in the kingdom of Jerusalem. The only result of the
negotiation was to give Saladin time for repairing the fortifications of
Jerusalem, and to bring down upon King Richard and his sister, on the
part of the Christian bishops, the fiercest threats of the fulminations
of the Church. With the exception of this ridiculous incident, Richard's
life, during the whole course of this year, was nothing but a series of
great or small battles, desperately contested, against Saladin. When
Richard had obtained a success, he pursued it in a haughty, passionate
spirit; when he suffered a check, he offered Saladin peace, but always on
condition of surrendering Jerusalem to the Christians, and Saladin always
answered, "Jerusalem never was yours, and we may not without sin give it
up to you; for it is the place where the mysteries of our religion were
accomplished, and the last one of my soldiers will perish before the
Mussulmans renounce conquests made in the name of Mahomet." Twice
Richard and his army drew near Jerusalem, "without his daring to look
upon it, he said, since he was not in a condition to take it." At last,
in the summer of 1192, the two armies and the two chiefs began to be
weary of a war without result. A great one, however, for Saladin and the
Mussulmans was the departure of Richard and the crusaders. Being unable
to agree about conditions for a definitive peace, they contented
themselves, on both sides, with a truce for three years and eight months,
leaving Jerusalem in possession of the Mussulmans, but open for worship
to the Christians, in whose hands remained, at the same time, the towns
they were in occupation of on the maritime coast, from Jaffa to Tyre.
This truce, which was called peace, having received the signature of all
the Christian and Mussulman princes, was celebrated by galas and
tournaments, at which Christians and Mussulmans seemed for a moment to
have forgotten their hate; and on the 9th of October, 1192, Richard
embarked at St. Jean d'Acre to go and run other risks.
Thus ended the third crusade, undertaken by the three greatest sovereigns
and the three greatest armies of Christian Europe, and with the loudly
proclaimed object of retaking Jerusalem from the infidels, and
re-establishing a king over the sepulchre of Jesus Christ. The Emperor
Frederick Barbarossa perished in it before he had trodden the soil of
Palestine. King Philip Augustus retired from it voluntarily, so soon as
experience had foreshadowed to him the impossibility of success. King
Richard abandoned it perforce, after having exhausted upon it his heroism
and his knightly pride. The three armies, at the moment of departure
from Europe, amounted, according to the historians of the time, to five
or six hundred thousand men, of whom scarcely one hundred thousand
returned; and the only result of the third crusade was to leave as head
over all the most beautiful provinces of Mussulman Asia and Africa,
Saladin, the most illustrious and most able chieftain, in war and in
politics, that Islamry had produced since Mahomet.
From the end of the twelfth to the middle of the thirteenth century,
between the crusade of Philip Augustus and that of St. Louis, it is usual
to count three crusades, over which we will not linger. Two of these
crusades--one, from 1195 to 1198, under Henry VI., Emperor of Germany,
and the other, from 1216 to 1240, under the Emperor Frederick II. and
Andrew II., King of Hungary--are unconnected with France, and almost
exclusively German, or, in origin and range, confined to Eastern Europe.
They led, in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, to wars, negotiations, and
manifold complications; Jerusalem fell once more, for a while, into the
hands of the Christians; and there, on the 18th of March, 1229, in the
church of the Resurrection, the Emperor Frederick II., at that time
excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX., placed with his own hands the royal
crown upon his head. But these events, confused, disconnected, and
short-lived as they were, did not produce in the West, and especially in
France, any considerable reverberation, and did not exercise upon the
relative situations of Europe and Asia, of Christendom and Islamry, any
really historical influence. In people's lives, and in the affairs of
the world, there are many movements of no significance, and more cry than
wool; and those facts only which have had some weight and some duration
are here to be noted for study and comprehension. The event which has
been called the fifth crusade was not wanting, so far, in real
importance, and it would have to be described here, if it had been really
a crusade; but it does not deserve the name. The crusades were a very
different thing from wars and conquests; their real and peculiar
characteristic was, that they should be struggles between Christianity
and Islamism, between the fruitful civilization of Europe and the
barbarism and stagnation of Asia. Therein consist their originality and
their grandeur. It was certainly on this understanding, and with this
view, that Pope Innocent III., one of the greatest men of the thirteenth
century, seconded with all his might the movement which was at that time
springing up again in favor of a fresh crusade, and which brought about,
in 1202, an alliance between a great number of powerful lords, French,
Flemish, and Italian, and the republic of Venice, for the purpose of
recovering Jerusalem from the infidels. But from the very first, the
ambition, the opportunities, and the private interests of the Venetians,
combined with a recollection of the perfidy displayed by the Greek
emperors, diverted the new crusaders from the design they had proclaimed.
What Bohemond, during the first crusade, had proposed to Godfrey de
Bouillon, and what the Bishop of Langres, during the second, had
suggested to Louis the Young, namely, the capture of Constantinople for
the sake of insuring that of Jerusalem, the first crusaders of the
thirteenth century were led by bias, greed, anger, and spite to take in
hand and accomplish; they conquered Constantinople, and, having once made
that conquest, they troubled themselves no more about Jerusalem.
Founded, May 16th, 1204, in the person of Baldwin IX., Count of Flanders,
the Latin empire of the East existed for seventy years, in the teeth of
many a storm, only to fall once more, in 1273, into the hands of the
Greek emperors, overthrown in 1453 by the Turks, who are still in
possession.
One circumstance, connected rather with literature than politics, gives
Frenchmen a particular interest in this conquest of the Greek empire by
the Latin Christians; for it was a Frenchman, Geoffrey de Villehardouin,
seneschal of Theobald III., Count of Champagne, who, after having been
one of the chief actors in it, wrote the history of it; and his work,
strictly historical as to facts, and admirably epic in description of
character and warmth of coloring, is one of the earliest and finest
monuments of French literature.
But to return to the real crusades.
At the beginning of the thirteenth century, whilst the enterprises which
were still called crusades were becoming more and more degenerate in
character and potency, there was born in France, on the 25th of April,
1215, not merely the prince, but the man who was to be the most worthy
representative and the most devoted slave of that religious and moral
passion which had inspired the crusades. Louis IX., though born to the
purple, a powerful king, a valiant warrior, a splendid knight, and an
object of reverence to all those who at a distance observed his life, and
of affection to all those who approached his person, was neither biassed
nor intoxicated by any such human glories and delights; neither in his
thoughts nor in his conduct did they ever occupy the foremost place;
before all and above all he wished to be, and was indeed, a Christian,
a true Christian, guided and governed by the idea and the resolve of
defending the Christian faith and fulfilling the Christian law. Had he
been born in the most lowly condition, as the world holds, or, as
religion, the most commanding; had he been obscure, needy, a priest, a
monk, or a hermit, he could not have been more constantly and more
zealously filled with the desire of living as a faithful servant of Jesus
Christ, and of insuring, by pious obedience to God here, the salvation of
his soul hereafter. This is the peculiar and original characteristic of
St. Louis, and a fact rare and probably unique in the history of kings.
(He was canonized on the 11th of August, 1297; and during twenty-four
years nine successive popes had prosecuted the customary inquiries as to
his faith and life.)
It is said that the Christian enthusiasm of St. Louis had its source in
the strict education he received from Queen Blanche, his mother. That is
overstepping the limits of that education and of her influence. Queen
Blanche, though a firm believer and steadfastly pious, was a stranger to
enthusiasm, and too discreet and too politic to make it the dominating
principle of her son's life any more than of her own. The truth of the
matter is that, by her watchfulness and her exactitude in morals, she
helped to impress upon her son the great Christian lesson of hatred for
sin and habitual concern for the eternal salvation of his soul. "Madame
used to say of me," Louis was constantly repeating, "that if I were sick
unto death, and could not be cured save by acting in such wise that I
should sin mortally, she would let me die rather than that I should anger
my Creator to my damnation."
[Illustration: ST. LOUIS ADMINISTERING JUSTICE----46]
In the first years of his government, when he had reached his majority,
there was nothing to show that the idea of the crusade occupied Louis
IX.'s mind; and it was only in 1239, when he was now four and twenty,
that it showed itself vividly in him. Some of his principal vassals, the
Counts of Champagne, Brittany, and Macon, had raised an army of
crusaders, and were getting ready to start for Palestine; and the king
was not contented with giving them encouragement, but "he desired that
Amaury de Montfort, his constable, should, in his name, serve Jesus
Christ in this war; and for that reason he gave him arms and assigned to
him per day a sum of money, for which Amaury thanked him on his knees,
that is, did him homage, according to the usage of those times. And the
crusaders were mighty pleased to have this lord with them."
Five years afterwards, at the close of 1244, Louis fell seriously ill at
Pontoise; the alarm and sorrow in the kingdom were extreme; the king
himself believed that his last hour was come; and he had all his
household summoned, thanked them for their kind attentions, recommended
them to be good servants of God, "and did all that a good Christian ought
to do. His mother, his wife, his brothers, and all who were about him
kept continually praying for him; his mother, beyond all others, adding
to her prayers great austerities." Once he appeared motionless and
breathless; and he was supposed to be dead. "One of the dames who were
tending him," says Joinville, "would have drawn the sheet over his face,
saying that he was dead; but another dame, who was on the other side of
the bed, would not suffer it, saying that there was still life in his
body. When the king heard the dispute between these two dames, our Lord
wrought in him: he began to sigh, stretched his arms and legs, and said,
in a hollow voice, as if he had come forth from the tomb, 'He, by God's
grace, hath visited me, He who cometh from on high, and hath recalled me
from amongst the dead.' Scarcely had he recovered his senses and speech,
when he sent for William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris, together with
Peter de Cuisy, Bishop of Meaux, in whose diocese he happened to be, and
requested them 'to place upon his shoulder the cross of the voyage over
the sea.' The two bishops tried to divert him from this idea, and the
two queens, Blanche and Marguerite, conjured him on their knees to wait
till he was well, and after that he might do as he pleased. He insisted,
declaring that he would take no nourishment till he had received the
cross. At last the Bishop of Paris yielded, and gave him a cross. The
king received it with transport, kissing it, and placing it right gently
Upon his breast." "When the queen, his mother, knew that he had taken
the cross," says Joinville, "she made as great mourning as if she had
seen him dead."
Still more than three years rolled by before Louis fulfilled the
engagement which he had thus entered into, with himself alone, one might
say, and against the wish of nearly everybody about him. The crusades,
although they still remained an object of religious and knightly
aspiration, were from the political point of view decried; and, without
daring to say so, many men of weight, lay or ecclesiastical, had no
desire to take part in them. Under the influence of this public feeling,
timidly exhibited but seriously cherished, Louis continued, for three
years, to apply himself to the interior concerns of his kingdom and to
his relations with the European powers, as if he had no other idea.
There was a moment when his wisest counsellors and the queen his mother
conceived a hope of inducing him to give up his purpose. "My lord king,"
said one day that same Bishop of Paris, who, in the crisis of his
illness, had given way to his wishes, "bethink you that, when you
received the cross, when you suddenly and without reflection made this
awful vow, you were weak, and, sooth to say, of a wandering mind, and
that took away from your words the weight of verity and authority. Our
lord the pope, who knoweth the necessities of your kingdom and your
weakness of body, will gladly grant unto you a dispensation. Lo! we have
the puissance of the schismatic Emperor Frederick, the snares of the
wealthy King of the English, the treasons but lately stopped of the
Poitevines, and the subtle wranglings of the Albigensians to fear;
Germany is disturbed; Italy hath no rest; the Holy Land is hard of
access; you will not easily penetrate thither, and behind you will be
left the implacable hatred between the pope and Frederick. To whom will
you leave us, every one of us, in our feebleness and desolation? "Queen
Blanche appealed to other considerations, the good counsels she had
always given her son, and the pleasure God took in seeing a son giving
heed to and believing his mother; and to hers she promised, that, if he
would remain, the Holy Land should not suffer, and that more troops
should be sent thither than he could lead thither himself. The king
listened attentively and with deep emotion. You say," he answered, "that
I was not in possession of my senses when I took the cross. Well, as you
wish it, I lay it aside; I give it back to you;" and raising his hand to
his shoulder, he undid the cross upon it, saying, "Here it is, my lord
bishop; I restore to you the cross I had put on." All present
congratulated themselves; but the king, with a sudden change of look and
intention, said to them, "My friends, now, assuredly, I lack not sense
and reason; I am neither weak nor wandering of mind; and I demand my
cross back again. He who knoweth all things knoweth that until it is
replaced upon my shoulder, no food shall enter my lips." At these words
all present declared that "herein was the finger of God, and none dared
to raise, in opposition to the king's saying, any objection."
In June, 1248, Louis, after having received at St. Denis, together with
the oriflamme, the scrip and staff of a pilgrim, took leave, at Corbeil
or Cluny, of his mother, Queen Blanche, whom he left regent during his
absence, with the fullest powers. "Most sweet fair son," said she,
embracing him; "fair tender son, I shall never see you more; full well my
heart assures me." He took with him Queen Marguerite of Provence, his
wife, who had declared that she would never part from him. On arriving,
in the early part of August, at Aigues-Mortes, he found assembled there a
fleet of thirty-eight vessels with a certain number of transport-ships
which he had hired from the republic of Genoa; and they were to convey to
the East the troops and personal retinue of the king himself. The number
of these vessels proves that Louis was far from bringing one of those
vast armies with which the first crusades had been familiar; it even
appears that he had been careful to get rid of such mobs, for, before
embarking, he sent away nearly ten thousand bow-men, Genoese, Venetian,
Pisan, and even French, whom he had at first engaged, and of whom, after
inspection, he desired nothing further. The sixth crusade was the
personal achievement of St. Louis, not the offspring of a popular
movement, and he carried it out with a picked army, furnished by the
feudal chivalry and by the religious and military orders dedicated to the
service of the Holy Land.
The Isle of Cyprus was the trysting-place appointed for all the forces of
the expedition. Louis arrived there on the 12th of September, 1248, and
reckoned upon remaining there only a few days; for it was Egypt that he
was in a hurry to reach. The Christian world was at that time of opinion
that, to deliver the Holy Land, it was necessary first of all to strike a
blow at Islamism in Egypt, wherein its chief strength resided. But
scarcely had the crusaders formed a junction in Cyprus, when the vices of
the expedition and the weaknesses of its chief began to be manifest.
Louis, unshakable in his religious zeal, was wanting in clear ideas and
fixed resolves as to the carrying out of his design; he inspired his
associates with sympathy rather than exercised authority over them, and
he made himself admired without making himself obeyed. He did not
succeed in winning a majority in the council of chiefs over to his
opinion as to the necessity for a speedy departure for Egypt; it was
decided to pass the winter in Cyprus, and during this leisurely halt of
seven months, the improvidence of the crusaders, their ignorance of the
places, people, and facts amidst which they were about to launch
themselves, their headstrong rashness, their stormy rivalries, and their
moral and military irregularities aggravated the difficulties of the
enterprise, great as they already were. Louis passed his time in
interfering between them, in hushing up their quarrels, in upbraiding
them for their licentiousness, and in reconciling the Templars and
Hospitallers. His kindness was injurious to his power; he lent too ready
an ear to the wishes or complaints of his comrades, and small matters
took up his thoughts and his time almost as much as great.
At last a start was made from Cyprus in May, 1249, and, in spite of
violent gales of wind which dispersed a large number of vessels, they
arrived on the 4th of June before Damietta.
The crusader-chiefs met on board the king's ship, the Mountjoy; and one
of those present, Guy, a knight in the train of the Count of Melun, in a
letter to one of his friends; a student at Paris, reports to him the
king's address in the following terms: "My friends and lieges, we shall
be invincible if we be inseparable in brotherly love. It was not without
the will of God that we arrived here so speedily. Descend we upon this
land and occupy it in force. I am not the King of France. I am not Holy
Church. It is all ye who are King and Holy Church. I am but a man whose
life will pass away as that of any other man whenever it shall please
God. Any issue of our expedition is to usward good; if we be conquered
we shall wing our way to heaven as martyrs; and if we be conquerors, men
will celebrate the glory of the Lord; and that of France, and, what is
more, that of Christendom, will grow thereby. It were senseless to
suppose that God, whose providence is over everything, raised me up for
nought: He will see in us His own, His mighty cause. Fight we for
Christ; it is Christ who will triumph in us, not for our own sake, but
for the honor and blessedness of His name." It was determined to
disembark the next day. An army of Saracens lined the shore. The galley
which bore the oriflamme was one of the first to touch. When the king
heard tell that the banner of St. Denis was on shore, he, in spite of the
pope's legate, who was with him, would not leave it; he leaped into the
sea, which was up to his arm-pits, and went, shield on neck, helm on
head, and lance in hand, and joined his people on the sea-shore. When he
came to land, and perceived the Saracens, he asked what folk they were,
and it was told him that they were the Saracens; then he put his lance
beneath his arm and his shield in front of him, and would have charged
the Saracens, if his mighty men, who were with him, had suffered him.
This, from his very first outset, was Louis exactly, the most fervent of
Christians and the most splendid of knights, much rather than a general
and a king.
Such he appeared at the moment of landing, and such he was during the
whole duration, and throughout all the incidents of his campaign in
Egypt, from June, 1249, to May, 1250: ever admirable for his moral
greatness and knightly valor, but without foresight or consecutive plan
as a leader, without efficiency as a commander in action, and ever
decided or biassed either by his own momentary impressions or the fancies
of his comrades. He took Damietta without the least difficulty. The
Mussulmans, stricken with surprise as much as terror, abandoned the
place; and when Fakr-Eddin, the commandant of the Turks, came before the
Sultan of Egypt, Malek-Saleh, who was ill, and almost dying, "Couldst
thou not have held out for at least an instant?" said the sultan.
"What! not a single one of you got slain!" Having become masters of
Damietta, St. Louis and the crusaders committed the same fault there as
in the Isle of Cyprus: they halted there for an indefinite time. They
were expecting fresh crusaders; and they spent the time of expectation in
quarrelling over the partition of the booty taken in the city. They made
away with it, they wasted it blindly. "The barons," said Joinville,
"took to giving grand banquets, with an excess of meats; and the people
of the common sort took up with bad women." Louis saw and deplored these
irregularities, without being in a condition to stop them.
At length, on the 20th of November, 1249, after more than five months'
inactivity at Damietta, the crusaders put themselves once more in motion,
with the determination of marching upon Babylon, that outskirt of Cairo,
now called _Old Cairo,_ which the greater part of them, in their
ignorance, mistook for the real Babylon, and where they flattered
themselves they would find immense riches, and avenge the olden
sufferings of the Hebrew captives. The Mussulmans had found time to
recover from their first fright, and to organize, at all points, a
vigorous resistance. On the 8th of February, 1250, a battle took place
twenty leagues from Damietta, at Mansourah (the city of victory), on the
right bank of the Nile. The king's brother, Robert, Count of Artois,
marched with the vanguard, and obtained an early success; but William de
Sonnac, grand master of the Templars, and William Longsword, Earl of
Salisbury, leader of the English crusaders but lately arrived at
Damietta, insisted upon his waiting for the king before pushing the
victory to the uttermost. Robert taxed them, ironically, with caution.
"Count Robert," said William Longsword, "we shall be presently where
thou'lt not dare to come nigh the tail of my horse." There came a
message from the king ordering his brother to wait for him; but Robert
made no account of it." I have already put the Saracens to flight," said
he, "and I will wait for none to complete their defeat; "and he rushed
forward into Mansourah. All those who had dissuaded him followed after;
they found the Mussulmans numerous and perfectly rallied; in a few
moments the Count of Artois fell, pierced with wounds, and more than
three hundred knights of his train, the same number of English, together
with their leader, William Longsword, and two hundred and eighty
Templars, paid with their lives for the senseless ardor of the French
prince.
The king hurried up in all haste to the aid of his brother; but he had
scarcely arrived, and as yet knew nothing of his brother's fate, when he
himself engaged so impetuously in the battle that he was on the point of
being taken prisoner by six Saracens who had already seized the reins of
his horse. He was defending himself vigorously with his sword, when
several of his knights came up with him, and set him free. He asked one
of them if he had any news of his brother; and the other answered,
"Certainly I have news of him: for I am sure that he is now in Paradise."
"Praised be God!" answered the king, with a tear or two, and went on with
his fighting. The battle-field was left that day to the crusaders; but
they were not allowed to occupy it as conquerors, for, three days
afterwards, on the 11th of February, 1250, the camp of St. Louis was
assailed by clouds of Saracens, horse and foot, Mamelukes and Bedouins.
All surprise had vanished, the Mussulmans measured at a glance the
numbers of the Christians, and attacked them in full assurance of
success, whatever heroism they might display; and the crusaders
themselves indulged in no more self-illusion, and thought only of
defending themselves. Lack of provisions and sickness soon rendered
defence almost as impossible as attack; every day saw the Christian camp
more and more encumbered with the famine-stricken, the dying, and the
dead; and the necessity for retreating became evident. Louis made to the
Sultan Malek-Moaddam an offer to evacuate Egypt, and give up Damietta,
provided that the kingdom of Jerusalem were restored to the Christians,
and the army permitted to accomplish its retreat without obstruction.
The sultan, without accepting or rejecting the proposition, asked what
guarantees would be given him for the surrender of Damietta. Louis
offered as hostage one of his brothers, the Count of Anjou, or the Count
of Poitiers. "We must have the king himself," said the Mussulmans. A
unanimous cry of indignation arose amongst the crusaders. "We would
rather," said Geoffrey de Sargines, "that we had been all slain, or taken
prisoners by the Saracens, than be reproached with having left our king
in pawn." All negotiation was broken off; and on the 5th of April, 1250,
the crusaders decided upon retreating.
This was the most deplorable scene of a deplorable drama; and at the same
time it was, for the king, an occasion for displaying, in their most
sublime and most attractive traits, all the virtues of the Christian.
Whilst sickness and famine were devastating the camp, Louis made himself
visitor, physician, and comforter; and his presence and his words
exercised upon the worst cases a searching influence. He had one day
sent his chaplain, William de Chartres, to visit one of his household
servants, a modest man of some means, named Gaugelme, who was at the
point of death. When the chaplain was retiring, "I am waiting for my
lord, our saintly king, to come," said the dying man; "I will not depart
this life until I have seen him and spoken to him: and then I will die."
The king came, and addressed to him the most affectionate words of
consolation; and when he had left him, and before he had re-entered his
tent, he was told that Gaugelme had expired. When the 5th of April, the
day fixed for the retreat, had come, Louis himself was ill and much
enfeebled. He was urged to go aboard one of the vessels which were to
descend the Nile, carrying the wounded and the most suffering; but he
refused absolutely, saying, "I don't separate from my people in the hour
of danger." He remained on land, and when he had to move forward he
fainted twice. When he came to himself, he was amongst the last to leave
the camp, got himself helped on to the back of a little Arab horse,
covered with silken housings, and marched at a slow pace with the
rear-guard, having beside him Geoffrey de Sargines, who watched over him,
"and protected me against the Saracens," said Louis himself to Joinville,
"as a good servant protects his lord's tankard against the flies."
Neither the king's courage nor his servants' devotion was enough to
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