The

defence was difficult; but the conclusion of an advantageous peace may be imputed to the discord of the Mahometans, and their personal esteem for the character of Frederic. enemy of the church is accused of maintaining with the miscreants an intercourse of hospitality and friendship, unworthy of a Christian; of despising the barrenness of the land; and of indulging a profane thought that, if Jehovah had seen the kingdom of Naples, he never would have selected Palestine for the inheritance of his chosen people. Yet Frederic obtained from the sultan the restitution of Jerusalem, of Bethlem and Nazareth, of Tyre and Sidon; the Latins were allowed to inhabit and fortify the city; an equal code of civil and religious freedom was ratified for the sectaries of Jesus, and those of Mahomet; and, while the former worshipped at the holy sepulchre, the latter might pray and preach in the mosque of the temple, 101 from whence the prophet undertook his nocturnal journey to heaven. The clergy deplored this scandalous toleration; and the weaker Moslems were gradually expelled; but every rational object of the crusades was accomplished without bloodshed; the churches were restored, the monasteries were replenished; and, in the space of fifteen years, the Latins of Jerusalem exceeded the number of six thousand. This peace and prosperity, for which they were ungrateful to their benefactor, was terminated by the irruption of the strange and savage hordes of Carizmians.102 Invasion of Flying from the arms of the Moguls, those shepherds of the mians. Caspian rolled headlong on Syria; 103 and the union of the Franks with the sultans of Aleppo, Hems, and Damascus was insufficient to stem the violence of the torrent. Whatever stood against them was cut off by the sword or dragged into captivity; the military orders were almost exterminated in a single battle; [Battle of and in the pillage of the city, in the profanation of the holy 1244, Oct. sepulchre, the Latins confess and regret the modesty and discipline of the Turks and Saracens.

Of the seven crusades, the two last were undertaken by

101 The clergy artfully confounded the mosque, or church of the temple, with the holy sepulchre; and their wilful error has deceived both Vertot and Muratori.

10 The irruption of the Carizmians, or Corasmins, is related by Matthew Paris (p. 546, 547), and by Joinville, Nangis, and the Arabians (p. 111, 112, 191, 192, 528, 530).

03 [They were called in as allies by the Sultan of Egypt, As-Sälih Ayyüb.]

the Cariz

A.D. 1243

Gaza. A.D.

14]

and the

St. Louis, Louis the Ninth, king of France, who lost his liberty in Egypt, sixth cru- and his life on the coast of Africa. Twenty-eight years after 1248-1254 his death, he was canonized at Rome; and sixty-five miracles

sade. A.D.

were readily found, and solemnly attested, to justify the claim of the royal saint.104 The voice of history renders a more honourable testimony, that he united the virtues of a king, an hero, and a man; that his martial spirit was tempered by the love of private and public justice; and that Louis was the father of his people, the friend of his neighbours, and the terror of the infidels. Superstition alone, in all the extent of her baleful influence,105 corrupted his understanding and his heart; his devotion stooped to admire and imitate the begging friars of Francis and Dominic; he pursued with blind and cruel zeal the enemies of the faith; and the best of kings twice descended from his throne to seek the adventures of a spiritual knighterrant. A monkish historian would have been content to applaud the most despicable part of his character; but the noble and gallant Joinville, 106 who shared the friendship and captivity of Louis, has traced with the pencil of nature the free portrait of his virtues, as well as of his failings. From this intimate knowledge we may learn to suspect the political views of depressing their great vassals, which are so often imputed to the royal authors of the crusades. Above all the princes of the middle age, Louis the Ninth successfully laboured to restore the prerogatives of the crown; but it was at home, and not in the East, that he acquired for himself and his posterity; his vow was the result of enthusiasm and sickness; and, if he were the promoter, he was likewise the victim, of this holy madness.

104 Read, if you can, the life and miracles of St. Louis, by the confessor of Queen Margaret (p. 291-523. Joinville, du Louvre)..

105 He believed all that Mother-church taught (Joinville, p. 10), but he cautioned Joinville against disputing with infidels. "L'omme lay," said he in his old language, "quand il ot medire de la loy Chrestienne, ne doit pas deffendre la loy Chrestienne ne mais que de l'espée, de quoi il doit donner parmi le ventre dedens, tant comme elle y peut entrer" (p. 12 [c. 10]).

106 I have two editions of Joinville: the one (Paris, 1688) most valuable for the Observations of Ducange; the other (Paris, au Louvre, 1761) most precious for the pure and authentic text, a Ms. of which has been recently discovered. The last editor proves that the history of St. Louis was finished A.D. 1309, without explaining, or even admiring, the age of the author, which must have exceeded ninety years (Preface, p. xi., Observations de Ducange, p. 17). [Joinville's Histoire de Saint Louys IX. may be now most conveniently consulted in one of the editions of Natalis de Wailly (1867, 1874, &c.). The fine Paris edition of 1761 was edited by Mellot, Sallier, and Capperonnier, and included the Annals of William des Nangis.]

For the invasion of Egypt, France was exhausted of her troops and treasures; he covered the sea of Cyprus with eighteen hundred sails; the most modest enumeration amounts to fifty thousand men; and, if we might trust his own confession, as it is reported by Oriental vanity, he disembarked nine thousand five hundred horse, and one hundred and thirty thousand foot, who performed their pilgrimage under the shadow of his power.1

107

Damietta.

[May]

In complete armour, the oriflamme waving before him, Louis He takes leaped foremost on the beach; and the strong city of Damietta, A.D. 1249 which had cost his predecessors a siege of sixteen months, was abandoned on the first assault by the trembling Moslems. But Damietta was the first and last of his conquests; and in the fifth and sixth crusades the same causes, almost on the same ground, were productive of similar calamities. 108 After a ruinous delay, which introduced into the camp the seeds of an epidemical disease, the Franks advanced from the sea-coast towards the capital of Egypt, and strove to surmount the unseasonable inundation of the Nile, which opposed their progress. Under the eye of their intrepid monarch, the barons and knights of France displayed their invincible contempt of danger and discipline his brother, the count of Artois, stormed with inconsiderate valour the town of Massoura; and the carrier-pigeons announced to the inhabitants of Cairo, that all was lost. But a soldier, who afterwards usurped the sceptre, rallied the flying (A.D. 1250, troops; the main body of Christians was far behind their vanguard; and Artois was overpowered and slain. A shower of Greek fire was incessantly poured on the invaders; the Nile was commanded by the Egyptian galleys, the open country by the Arabs; all provisions were intercepted; each day aggravated the sickness and famine; and about the same time a retreat was found to be necessary and impracticable. The Oriental writers confess that Louis might have escaped, if he would have deserted his subjects: he was made prisioner, with the

107 Joinville, p. 32; Arabic Extracts, p. 549.

108 The last editors have enriched their Joinville with large and curious extracts from the Arabic historians, Macrizi, Abulfeda, &c. See likewise Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 322-325), who calls him by the corrupt name of Redefrans. Matthew Paris (p. 683, 684) has described the rival folly of the French and English who fought and fell at Massoura. [Makrizi's important work is now accessible in Quatremère's French translation. See Appendix 1. The crusade has been recently narrated by E. J. Davis in a work entitled Invasion of Egypt in A.D. 1249 by Louis IX. of France and a History of the Contemporary Sultans of Egypt (1897).]

March]