by boat; and his two brothers, the Counts of Anjou and Poitiers, and all the other crusaders, drawn up in a body and shackled, followed on foot on the river bank. The advance-guard, and all the rest of the army, soon met the same fate.
Ten thousand prisoners—this was all that remained of the crusade that had started eighteen months before from Aigues-Mortes. Nevertheless the lofty bearing and the piety of the king still inspired the Mussulmans with great respect. A negotiation was opened between him and the Sultan Malek-Moaddam, who, having previously freed him from his chains, had him treated with a certain magnificence. As the price of a truce and of his liberty, Louis received a demand for the immediate surrender of Damietta, a heavy ransom, and the restitution of several places which the Christians still held in Palestine. “I cannot dispose of those places,” said Louis, “for they do not belong to me; the princes and the Christian orders, in whose hands they are, can alone keep or surrender them.” The sultan, in anger, threatened to have the king put to the torture, or sent to the Grand Khalif of Bagdad, who would detain him in prison for the rest of his days. “I am your prisoner,” said Louis; “you can do with me what you will.” “You call yourself our prisoner,” said the Mussulman negotiators, “and so, we believe you are; but you treat us as if you had us in prison.” The sultan perceived that he had to do with an indomitable spirit; and he did not insist any longer upon more than the surrender of Damietta, and on a ransom of five hundred thousand livres (that is, about ten million one hundred and thirty-two thousand francs, or four hundred and five thousand two hundred and eighty pounds, of modern money, according to M. de Wailly, supposing, as is probable, that livres of Tours are meant). “I will pay willingly five hundred thousand livres for the deliverance of my people,” said Louis, “and I will give up Damietta for the deliverance of my own person, for I am not a man who ought to be bought and sold for money.” “By my faith,” said the sultan, “the Frank is liberal not to have haggled about so large a sum. Go tell him that I will give him one hundred thousand livres to help towards paying the ransom.” The negotiation was concluded on this basis; and victors and vanquished quitted Mansourah, and arrived, partly by land and partly by the Nile, within a few leagues of Damietta, the surrender of which was fixed for the 7th of May. But five days previously a tragic event took place. Several emirs of the Mamelukes suddenly entered Louis’s tent. They had just slain the Sultan Malek-Moaddam, against whom they had for some time been conspiring. “Fear nought, sir,” said they to the king; “this was to be. Do what concerns you in respect of the stipulated conditions, and you shall be free.” Of these emirs one, who had slain the sultan with his own hand, asked the king, brusquely, “What wilt thou give me? I have slain thine enemy, who would have put thee to death, had he lived;” and he asked to be made knight. Louis answered not a word. Some of the crusaders present urged him to satisfy the desire of the emir, who had in his power the decision of their fate. “I will never confer knighthood on an infidel,” said Louis; “let the emir turn Christian; I will take him away to France, enrich him, and make him knight.” It is said that, in their admiration for this piety and this indomitable firmness, the emirs had at one time a notion of taking Louis himself for sultan in the place of him whom they had just slain; and this report was probably not altogether devoid of foundation, for, some time afterwards, in the intimacy of the conversations between them, Louis one day said to Joinville, “Think you that I would have taken the kingdom of Babylon, if they had offered it to me?” “Whereupon I told him,” adds Joinville, “that he would have done a mad act, seeing that they had slain their lord; and he said to me that of a truth he would not have refused.” However that may be, the conditions agreed upon with the late Sultan Malek-Moaddam were carried out; on the 7th of May, 1250, Geoffrey de Sargines gave up to the emirs the keys of Damietta; and the Mussulmans entered in tumultuously. The king was waiting aboard his ship for the payment which his people were to make for the release of his brother, the Count of Poitiers; and, when he saw approaching a bark on which he recognized his brother, “Light up! light up!” he cried instantly to his sailors; which was the signal agreed upon for setting out. And leaving forthwith the coast of Egypt, the fleet which bore the remains of the Christian army made sail for the shores of Palestine.
The king, having arrived at St. Jean d’Acre on the 14th of May, 1250, accepted without shrinking the trial imposed upon him by his unfortunate situation. He saw his forces considerably reduced; and the majority of the crusaders left to him, even his brothers themselves, did not hide their ardent desire to return to France. He had that virtue, so rare amongst kings, of taking into consideration the wishes of his comrades, and of desiring their free assent to the burden he asked them to bear with him. He assembled the chief of them, and put the question plainly before them. “The queen, my mother,” he said, “biddeth me and prayeth me to get me hence to France, for that my kingdom hath neither peace nor truce with the king of England. The folk here tell me that, if I get me hence, this land is lost, for none of those that be there will dare to abide in it. I pray you, therefore, to give it thought, for it is a grave matter, and I grant you nine days for to answer me whatever shall seem to you good.” Eight days after, they returned; and Guy de Mauvoisin, speaking in their name, said to the king, “Sir, your brothers and the rich men who be here have had regard unto your condition, and they see that you cannot remain in this country to your own and your kingdom’s honor, for of all the knights who came in your train, and of whom you led into Cyprus twenty-eight hundred, there remain not one hundred in this city. Wherefore they do counsel you, sir, to get you hence to France, and to provide troops and money wherewith you may return speedily to this country, to take vengeance on these enemies of God who have kept you in prison.” Louis, without any discussion, interrogated all present, one after another, and all, even the pope’s legate, agreed with Guy de Mauvoisin. “I was seated just fourteenth, facing the legate,” says Joinville, “and when he asked me how it seemed to me, I answered him that if the king could hold out so far as to keep the field for a year, he would do himself great honor if he remained.”
Only two knights, William de Beaumont and Sire de Chatenay, had the courage to support the opinion of Joinville, which was bolder for the time being, but not less indecisive in respect of the immediate future than the contrary opinion. “I have heard you out, sirs,” said the king: “and I will answer you, within eight clays from this time, touching that which it shall please me to do.” “Next Sunday,” says Joinville, “we came again, all of us, before the king. ‘Sirs,’ said he, ‘I thank very much all those who have counselled me to get me gone to France, and likewise those who have counselled me to bide. But I have bethought me that, if I bide, I see no danger lest my kingdom of France be lost, for the queen, my mother, hath a many folk to defend it. I have noted likewise that the barons of this land do say that, if I go hence, the kingdom of Jerusalem is lost. At no price will I suffer to be lost the kingdom of Jerusalem, which I came to guard and conquer. My resolve, then, is, that I bide for the present. So I say unto you, ye rich men who are here, and to all other knights who shall have a mind to bide with me, come and speak boldly unto me, and I will give ye so much that it shall not be my fault if ye have no mind to bide.’ ”
Thus none, save Louis himself, dared go to the root of the question. The most discreet advised him to depart, only for the purpose of coming back, and recommencing what had been so unsuccessful; and the boldest only urged him to remain a year longer. None took the risk of saying, even after so many mighty but vain experiments, that the enterprise was chimerical, and must be given up. Louis alone was, in word and deed, perfectly true to his own absorbing idea of recovering the Holy Sepulchre from the Mussulmans and re-establishing the kingdom of Jerusalem. His was one of those pure and majestic souls, which are almost alien to the world in which they live, and in which disinterested passion is so strong that it puts judgment to silence, extinguishes all fear, and keeps up hope to infinity. The king’s two brothers embarked with a numerous retinue. How many crusaders, knights, or men-at-arms, remained with Louis, there is nothing to show; but they were, assuredly, far from sufficient for the attainment of the twofold end he had in view, and even for insuring less grand results, such as the deliverance of the crusaders still remaining prisoners in the hands of the Mussulmans, and anything like an effectual protection for the Christians settled in Palestine and Syria.
