§ 57. ST. LOUIS AND THE LAST CIUTSAUES. 283
by pope and council for a new expedition, and the usual gracious offers were made to those who should participate in the movement. St. Louis responded. During a sickness in 1245 and at the moment when the attendants were about to put a cloth on his face thinking he was dead, the king had the cross bound upon his breast.
On June 12, 1248, Louis received at St. Denis from the hand of the papal legate the oriflamme, and the pilgrim's wallet and staff. He was joined by his three brothers, Robert, count of Artois, Alphonso, count of Poitiers, and Charles of Anjou. Among others to accompany the king were Jean de Joinville, seneschal of Champagne, whose graphic chronicle has preserved the annals of the Crusade.1 The number of the troops is given at thirty-two thousand. Venetian and Genoese fleets carried them to Cyprus, where preparations had been made on a large scale for their mainten ance. Thence they sailed to Egypt. Damietta fell, but after this first success, the campaign was a dismal disaster. Louis' benevolence and ingenuousness were not combined with the force of the leader. He was ready to share suffering with his troops but had not the ability to organize them.2 His piety could not prevent the usual vices from being practised in the camps.3
1 Joinville, accompanied by twenty knights, joined the king at Cyprus. He was a man of religious fervor, made pilgrimages to all the shrines in the vicinity of his castle before his departure, and never failed in his long absence to confine himself to bread and water on Fridays (History, an. 1250). One of his paragraphs gives a graphic insight into the grief which must have been felt by thousands of Crusaders as they left their homes for the long and uncer tain journey to the East. It runs : "In passing near the castle of Joinville, I dared never turn my eyes that way for fear of feeling too great regret and lest my courage should fail on leaving my children and my fair castle of Joinville, which I loved in my heart."
2 Joinville speaks of Louis having " as much trouble in keeping his own people together in time of peace as in the time of his ill fortunes." an. 1249.
8 Within a stone's throw of the king's tent were several brothels. A curious punishment was prescribed by the king for a knight caught with a harlot at Acre. Joinville, pt. II. an. 1250, Bohn's trans. 484.
284 THK MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1204.
Leaving Alexandria to one side, and following the advice of the count of Artois, who argued that whoso wanted to kill a snake should first strike its head, Louis marched in the direction of the capital, Cairo, or Babylon, as it was called. The army was harassed by a sleepless foe, and reduced by fevers and dysentery. The Nile became polluted with the bodies of the dead.1 At Mansourah the Turks dealt a crushing defeat. On the retreat which followed, the king and the count of Poitiers were taken prisoners. The count of Artois had been killed. The humiliation of the Crusaders had never been so deep.
The king's patient fortitude shone brightly in these mis fortunes. Threatened with torture and death, he declined to deviate from his faith- or to yield up any of the places in Palestine. For the ransom of his troops, he agreed to pay 500,000 livres, and for his own freedom to give up Damietta and abandon Egypt. The sultan remitted a fifth part of the ransom money on hearing of the readiness with which the king had accepted the terms.
Clad in garments which were a gift from the sultan, and in a ship meagrely furnished with comforts, the king sailed for Acre. On. board ship, hearing that his brother, the count of Anjou, and Walter de Nemours were playing for money, he staggered from his bed of sickness and throwing the dice, tables, and money into the sea, reprimanded the count that he should be so soon forgetful of his brother's death and the other disasters in Egypt, as to game.2 At Acre, Louis remained three years, spending large sums upon the fortifications of Jaffa, Sidon, and other places. The death of Blanche, his mother, who had been acting as queenregent during his absence, induced him to return to his realm.
Like Richard the Lion-hearted, Louis did not look upon
1 See the appalling description of Joinville, an. 1249.
2 Joinville, an. 1250.