AT the time when Bibars Bendocdar was slaying and ravaging in Syria, and when Edward Plantagenet was hunting and hawking in England, Louis, King of France, summoned his barons to Paris.
The peers and prelates of France, thus invited to meet the King, assembled, in March, 1267, in a hall of the Louvre; and Louis, then in his fifty-fourth year, having entered with a crown of thorns in his hand, expatiated on the sufferings of the Christians of Syria, expressed his resolution of going to their relief, and exhorted all to take the cross. A cardinal, who was present as papal legate, seconded the King's exhortation; and having exerted all his eloquence to rouse the warriors of France, he presented the cross to Louis and three of those princes of whom Margaret of Provence had made the saintly monarch father. At the same time, the cardinal received the oaths of a number of knights and nobles.
The calamities of the expedition to Damietta had not been forgotten by the French nation; and it appears that the determination expressed by Louis was heard with surprise and grief by the assembled magnates. In the King's presence, respect for his sanctity prevented men from raising objections; but when his back was turned, regrets and apprehensions were freely expressed.
"Those who have advised the King to this crusade," exclaimed one knight, " have been guilty of a crime!"
"This day," said a second, "will prove one of the most fatal France ever witnessed."
"If we consent to take the cross," said a third, "we are the King's ruin."
"And," remarked a fourth, "if we take the cross, we lose God's grace; for we do not take the cross for the sake of Christ."
Joinville was among those present at Paris on the occasion; and he was strongly urged by the princes to embark for the East a second time. But Joinville remembered all the horrors endured twenty years earlier, and firmly resisted. "When I was before beyond the sea on the service of God," he said "the King's officers so grievously oppressed my people, that they were reduced to, poverty. We have had great difficulty in recovering ourselves; and I see clearly that were I to undertake another crusade, it would be our ruin."
Notwithstanding the discontent created in France by the new crusade, the King commenced preparations and fixed the time for his departure. Having raised money to defray the expenses, he hired ships from the republic of Genoa, and announced his intention of sailing from France in the summer of 1270.
About the time when Louis was making his preparations, his brother, Charles of Anjou, had been invested by the Pope with the sovereignty of Sicily. Pretending, as King of Sicily, to all the rights enjoyed by the old Emperors of Germany, Charles claimed an annual tribute from Tunis, on the western coast of Africa. Not being in a position to compel payment without aid, and catching at the idea of turning the swords of the crusaders to account, he represented to Louis that the surest way to conquer the Holy Land was to begin with Tunis.
Louis readily entered into the scheme. In fact, the King of Tunis had more than once sent ambassadors to Paris, to declare that conversion to the Christian faith was his dearest wish; and Louis had frequently stated, that he would consent to pass his life in captivity, if, by such a sacrifice, he could bring the Moorish prince to a knowledge of the truth.
Meanwhile, the projected expedition of Louis created much excitement throughout Europe, and the Kings of Castille, Arragon, Navarre, and Portugal, took the cross. At the same time, the Earls of Brittany and Flanders, the Counts of Eu, Champagne, Artois, La Marche, and Soissons, with the Seigneurs de Montmorency, Nemours, and Brienne, swore to combat the infidel.
Bibars Bendocdar must have paused in alarm, when intelligence of the preparations making for his destruction reached his ears. It was not ordered, however, that the bold Sultan should meet these European kings and princes in the shock of war. Scarcely one of them, indeed, had any wish to reach the land they had vowed to save. But there was still hope for the Christians of the East. A few hundred Anglo-Norman warriors were stitching crosses of red silk on their mantles, and preparing to charge the Saracens in the chain armor in which they had fought at Lewes and at Evesham.
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From John G. Edgar
The Crusades and the Crusaders, 1860
