His cap- greatest part of his nobles; all who could not redeem their lives by service or ransom were inhumanly massacred; and the walls of Cairo were decorated with a circle of Christian heads.109 The king of France was loaded with chains; but the generous victor, a great-grandson of the brother of Saladin, sent a robe of honour to his royal captive; and his deliverance, with that of his soldiers, was obtained by the restitution of Damietta 110 and the payment of four hundred thousand pieces of gold. In a soft and luxurious climate, the degenerate children of the companions of Noureddin and Saladin were incapable of resisting the flower of European chivalry; they triumphed by the arms of their slaves or Mamalukes, the hardy natives of Tartary, who at a tender age had been purchased of the Syrian merchants, and were educated in the camp and palace of the sultan. But Egypt soon afforded a new example of the danger of prætorian bands; and the rage of these ferocious animals, who had been let loose on the strangers, was provoked to devour their benefactor. In the pride of conquest, Touran [A.D. 1250, Shah, the last of his race, was murdered by his Mamalukes ; and the most daring of the assassins entered the chamber of the captive king, with drawn scymetars, and their hands imbrued in the blood of their sultan. The firmness of Louis commanded their respect; 112 their avarice prevailed over cruelty May 4] 109 Savary, in his agreeable Lettres sur l'Egypt, has given a description of Damietta (tom. i. lettre xxiii. p. 274-290) and a narrative of the expedition of St. Louis (xxv. p. 306). [In his Art of War, ii. p. 338-50, Oman gives a full account of the battle of Mansurah. He shows that the battle was lost because the reckless charge of Robert of Artois led to the separation of the cavalry and infantry; and it was only by a combination of cavalry and infantry that it was possible to deal with the horse-archers of the East.] 110 For the ransom of St. Louis, a million of byzants was asked and granted; but the sultan's generosity reduced that sum to 800,000 byzants, which are valued by Joinville at 400,000 French livres of his own time, and expressed by Matthew Paris by 100,000 marks of silver (Ducange, Dissertation xx. sur Joinville). 111 [Al-Muazzam Tūrān Shah, A.D. 1249-50.] 113 The idea of the emirs to choose Louis for their sultan is seriously attested by Joinville (p. 77, 78), and does not appear to me so absurd as to M. de Voltaire (Hist. Générale, tom. ii. p. 386, 387). The Mamalukes themselves were strangers, rebels, and equals; they had felt his valour, they hoped his conversion: and such a motion, which was not seconded, might be made perhaps by a secret Christian in their tumultuous assembly. [An interesting monument of Mamluk history at this time is a coin of the Mamluk queen, Shajar ad-Durr, the Tree of Pearls, who had risen from the condition of a slave. When the French landed in 1249, she concealed the death of her husband Salih. After the battle of Mansurah, the heir died, and she was proclaimed queen, and reigned alone 2 months. Then she married one Aibak; slew him; and was herself beaten to death by the slaves of a divorced wife of Aibak. The coin was struck at the moment of the discomfiture of St. Louis. See Stanley Lane-Poole, Coins and Medals, p. 158-161.] and zeal; the treaty was accomplished; and the king of France, with the relics of his army, was permitted to embark for Palestine. He wasted four years within the walls of Acre, unable to visit Jerusalem, and unwilling to return without [Return to glory to his native country. The memory of his defeat excited Louis, after sixteen years of wisdom and repose, to undertake the seventh and last of the crusades. His finances were restored, his kingdom was enlarged; a new generation of warriors had arisen, and he embarked with fresh confidence at the head of six thousand horse and thirty thousand foot. The loss of Antioch had provoked the enterprise; a wild hope of baptizing the King of Tunis tempted him to steer for the African coast; and the report of an immense treasure reconciled his troops to the delay of their voyage to the Holy Land. Instead of a proselyte he found a siege; the French panted and died on the burning sands; Louis expired in his tent; and no sooner had he closed his than his son and successor gave the signal of the retreat.113 is thus," says a lively writer, "that a Christian king died the ruins of Carthage, waging war against the sectaries of Mahomet, in a land to which Dido had introduced the deities of Syria.' "114 France. before St. His death eyes Tunis, in "It seventh the crusade. near A.D. 1270, Aug. 25 lukes of 1250-1517 A more unjust and absurd constitution cannot be devised than The Mamathat which condemns the natives of a country to perpetual ser- Egypt. A.D. vitude, under the arbitrary dominion of strangers and slaves. Yet such has been the state of Egypt above five hundred years. The most illustrious sultans of the Baharite and Borgite dynasties 115 were themselves promoted from the Tartar and Circassian bands; and the four-and-twenty beys or military chiefs, have ever been succeeded not by their sons but by their servants. They produce the great charter of their liberties, the 113 See the expedition in the Annals of St. Louis, by William de Nangis, p. 270287, and the Arabic Extracts, p. 545, 555 of the Louvre edition of Joinville. [R. Steinfeld, Ludwigs des Heiligen Kreuzzug nach Tunis, 1270, und die Politik Karls I. von Sizilien (1896).] 114 Voltaire, Hist. Générale, tom. ii. p. 391. us The chronology of the two dynasties of Mamalukes, the Baharites, Turks or Tartars of Kipzak, and the Borgites, Circassians, is given by Pocock (Prolegom. ad Abulpharag. p. 6-31), and de Guignes (tom. i. p. 264-270) [see S. Lane-Poole, Mohammadan Dynasties, p. 80-83]; their history from Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., to the beginning of the 15th century, by the same M. de Guignes (tom. iv. p. 110-328). [Weil's Gesch. der Chalifen, vols. 4 and 5.] [Conquered by Salim I. A.D. 1517] treaty of Selim the First with the republic; 116 and the Othman 116 Savary, Lettres sur l'Egypt, tom. ii. lettre xv. p. 189-208. I much question the authenticity of this copy; yet it is true that Sultan Selim concluded a treaty with the Circassians or Mamalukes of Egypt, and left them in possession of arms, riches, and power. See a new Abrégé de l'Histoire Ottomane, composed in Egypt, and translated by M. Digeon (tom. i. p. 55-58, Paris, 1781), a curious, authentic, and national history. 117 [And Egypt was governed by a Turkish Pasha, whose power was limited by the council of beys.] 118 Si totum quo regnum occupârunt tempus respicias, presertim quod fini propius, reperies illud bellis, pugnis, injuriis, ac rapinis refertum (Al Jannabi, apud Pocock, p. 31). The reign of Mohammed (A.D. 1311-1341) affords an happy exception (de Guignes, tom. iv. p. 208-210). 119 They are now reduced to 8500; but the expense of each Mamaluke may be rated at 100 louis, and Egypt groans under the avarice and insolence of these strangers (Voyages de Volney, tom. i. p. 89-187). 120 See Carte's History of England, vol. ii. p. 165-175, and his original authors, Thomas Wikes [Wykes; ed. by Luard, Annales Monastici, iv. 1869] and Walter Hemingford [Walterus Gisburniensis; ed. by H. C. Hamilton for the English Historical Society, 1848] (1. iii. c. 34, 35) in Gale's Collections (tom. ii. p. 97, 589. 592). They are both ignorant of the Princess Eleanor's piety in sucking the poisoned wound, and saving her husband at the risk of her own life. 121 Sanutus, Secret. Fidelium Crucis, 1. iii. p. xii. c. 9, and de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. p. 143, from the Arabic historians. Antioch. June 12 less exposed to the calamities of the holy war, was finally Loss of occupied and ruined by Bondocdar, or Bibars, 122 sultan of Egypt A.D. 1268, and Syria; the Latin principality was extinguished; and the first seat of the Christian name was dispeopled by the slaughter of seventeen, and the captivity of one hundred thousand, of her inhabitants. The maritime towns of Laodicea, Gabala, Tripoli, Berytus, Sidon, Tyre, and Jaffa, and the stronger castles of the Hospitalers and Templars, successively fell; and the whole existence of the Franks was confined to the city and colony of St. John of Acre, which is sometimes described by the more classic title of Ptolemais. After the loss of Jerusalem, Acre,123 which is distant about seventy miles, became the metropolis of the Latin Christians, and was adorned with strong and stately buildings, with aqueducts, an artificial port, and a double wall. The population was increased by the incessant streams of pilgrims and fugitives; in the pauses of hostility the trade of the East and West was attracted to this convenient station; and the market could offer the produce of every clime and the interpreters of every tongue. But in this conflux of nations every vice was propagated and practised; of all the disciples of Jesus and Mahomet, the male and female inhabitants of Acre were esteemed the most corrupt; nor could the abuse of religion be corrected by the discipline of law. The city had many sovereigns, and no government. The kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus, of the house of Lusignan, the princes of Antioch, the counts of Tripoli and Sidon, the great masters of the Hospital, the Temple, and the Teutonic order, the republics of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, the pope's legate, the kings of France and England, assumed an independent command; seventeen tribunals exercised the power of life and death; every criminal was protected in the adjacent quarter; and the perpetual jealousy of the nations often burst forth in acts of violence and blood. Some adventurers, who disgraced the ensign of the cross, compensated their want of pay by the plunder of the Mahometan villages; nineteen Syrian merchants, who traded under the public faith, were despoiled and hanged by 122 [Baybars al-Bundukdāri = the arbalestier.] 123 The state of Acre is represented in all the chronicles of the times, and most accurately in John Villani, 1. vii. c. 144, in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. xiii. p. 337, 338. Acre and the Holy Land. A.D. 18 the Christians; and the denial of satisfaction justified the arms of the sultan Khalil. He marched against Acre, at the head of sixty thousand horse and one hundred and forty thousand foot; his train of artillery (if I may use the word) was numerous and weighty; the separate timbers of a single engine were transported in one hundred waggons; and the royal historian, Abulfeda, who served with the troops of Hamah, was himself a spectator of the holy war. Whatever might be the vices of the Franks, their courage was rekindled by enthusiasm and despair; but they were torn by the discord of seventeen chiefs, and overwhelmed on all sides by the power of the sultan. After a siege The loss of of thirty-three days, the double wall was forced by the Moslems; the principal tower yielded to their engines; the Mamalukes 1291, May made a general assault; the city was stormed; and death or slavery was the lot of sixty thousand Christians. The convent, or rather fortress, of the Templars resisted three days longer; but the great master was pierced with an arrow; and, of five hundred knights, only ten were left alive, less happy than the victims of the sword, if they lived to suffer on a scaffold in the unjust and cruel proscription of the whole order. The king of Jerusalem, the patriarch and the great master of the Hospital effected their retreat to the shore; but the sea was rough, the vessels were insufficient; and great numbers of the fugitives were drowned before they could reach the isle of Cyprus, which might comfort Lusignan for the loss of Palestine. By the command of the sultan, the churches and fortifications of the Latin cities were demolished; a motive of avarice or fear still opened the holy sepulchre to some devout and defenceless pilgrims; and a mournful and solitary silence prevailed along the coast which had so long resounded with the WORLD'S DEBATE.124 124 See the final expulsion of the Franks, in Sanutus, 1. ii. p. xii. c. 11-22. Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., in de Guignes, tom. iv. p. 162, 164, and Vertot, tom. i. l. iii. p. 407-428. [An important source for the siege of Acre is the anonymous De Excidio urbis Acconis (falsely ascribed to Adenulf of Anagnia) published in Martene and Durand, Ampliss. Collectio, vol. 5, p. 757 sqq.] |