516 ST. LOUIS AND THE SIXTH CRUSADE. [CH. LIX. 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 knight-errant. A monkish historian would have been content to applaud the most despicable part of his character; but the noble and gallant Joinville, 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 ages, 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. 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.†

In complete armour, the oriflamme waving before him, Louis leaped foremost on the beach; and the strong city of Damietta, 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 the last of his conquests; and in the fifth and sixth crusades, the same

(said he, in his old language) quand il ot medire de la loy Crestienne, ne doit pas deffendre la loy Crestienne ne mais que de l'espée, dequoi il doit donner parmi le ventre dedens, tant comme elle y peut entrer." (p. 12.) * I have two editions of Joinville, the one (Paris, 1668), 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. 11. Observations de Ducange, p. 17.) + Joinville, p. 32. Arabic Extracts, p. 549.

A.D. 1249.]

HIS CAPTIVITY IN EGYPT.

517

causes, almost on the same ground, were productive of similar calamities. 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 troops; the main body of the 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 prisoner, with the 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.†

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 Damiettat and the payment of four hundred thousand pieces of gold. In a soft and luxurious climate, the dege

* 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. Savary, in his agreeable Lettres sur l'Egypte, has given a description of Damietta (tom. i. lettre 23, p. 274-290), and a narrative of the expedition of St. Louis (25, p. 306 -350). For the ransom of St. Louis, a million of byzants was asked and granted; but the sultan's generosity reduced that sum to eight hundred thousand byzants, which are valued by Joinville at four hundred thousand French livres of his own time

518

DEATH OF ST. LOUIS.

[CH. LIX. nerate 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 Mamálukes, 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 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 scimitars, and their hands imbrued in the blood of their sultan. The firmness of Louis commanded their respect; their avarice prevailed over cruelty 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 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 baptising 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; St. Louis expired in his tent; and no sooner had he closed his eyes, than his son and successor gave the signal of the retreat.t "It is thus,"

and expressed by Matthew Paris by one hundred thousand marks of silver. (Ducange, Dissertation 20, sur Joinville.)

*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. + See the expedition in the

A.D. 1250-1517.] MAMALUKES OF EGYPT.

519 says a lively writer, "that a Christian king died near the ruins of Carthage, waging war against the sectaries of Mahomet, in a land to which Dido had introduced the deities of Syria.'

A more unjust and absurd constitution cannot be devised, than that which condemns the natives of a country to perpetual servitude, 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 dynastiest were themselves promoted from the Tartar and Circassian bands; and the four-andtwenty 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 treaty of Selim the First with the republic; and the Othman emperor still accepts from Egypt a slight acknowledgment of tribute and subjection. With some breathing intervals of peace and order, the two dynasties are marked as a period of rapine and bloodshed; but their throne, however shaken, reposed on the two pillars of discipline and valour; their sway extended over Egypt, Nubia, Arabia, and Syria; their Mamalukes were multiplied from eight hundred to twenty-five thousand horse; and their numbers were increased by a provincial militia of one hundred and seven thousand foot, and the occasional aid of sixty-six thousand Arabs.T Princes of Annals of St. Louis, by William de Nangis, p. 270-287, and the Arabic Extracts, p. 545, 555, of the Louvre edition of Joinville. * Voltaire, Hist. Générale, tom. ii. p. 391.

+ The chronology of the two dynasties of Mamalukes, the Baharites, Turks or Tartars of Kipzak, and the Borgites, Circassians, is given by Pococke (Prolegom. ad Abulpharag. p. 6-31), and De Guignes (tom. i. p. 264-270); their history from Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., to the beginning of the fifteenth century by the same, M. de Guignes (tom. iv. p. 110-328.). Savary, Lettres sur l'Egypte, tom. ii. lettre 15, 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.

§ Si totum quo regnum occupârunt tempus respicias, præsertim quod fini propius, reperies illud bellis, pugnis, injuriis, ac rapinis refertum. (Al Jannabi, apud Pococke, p. 31.) The reign of Mahomet (A.D. 1311-1341,) affords a happy exception (De Guignes, tom. iv, p. 208-210.). They are now reduced to eight

520

LOSS OF ANTIOCH.

[CH. LIX. such power and spirit could not long endure on their coast a hostile and independent nation; and if the ruin of the Franks was postponed about forty years, they were indebted to the cares of an unsettled reign, to the invasion of the Moguls, and to the occasional aid of some warlike pilgrims. Among these, the English reader will observe the name of our first Edward, who assumed the cross in the life-time of his father Henry. At the head of a thousand soldiers, the future conqueror of Wales and Scotland delivered Acre from a siege; marched as far as Nazareth with an army of nine thousand men; emulated the fame of his uncle Richard; extorted, by his valour, a ten years' truce; and escaped, with a dangerous wound, from the dagger of a fanatic assassin.* Antioch, whose situation had been less exposed to the calamities of the holy war, was finally occupied and ruined by Bondocdar, or Bibars, sultan of Egypt 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 Hospitallers and Templars, successively fell; and the whole existence of the Franks was confined to the

thousand five hundred; but the expense of each Mamaluke may be rated at one hundred louis; and Egypt groans under the avarice and insolence of these strangers. (Voyages de Volney, tom. i. p. 89-187.)

* See Carte's History of England, vol. ii. p. 165–175, and his original authors, Thomas Wikes and Walter Hemingford (1. 3, c. 34, 35), in Gale's Collection (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. [Wilken (7. 605) does not doubt this illustrious proof of a wife's affection, and in support of it adduces a contemporary writer of some authority. Ptolemæus of Lucca, whose Chronicle is preserved in the Bibliotheca Messina and in Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. Various authorities are quoted by Taaffe (ii. 171-174), which all agree that an attempt was made to assassinate Edward; but they differ widely as to the mode in which the poison was extracted or counteracted. One of them (Chron. Bertinian.), says that it was sucked out by an attendant of the name of Grandison. But this is accompanied by a tale so marvellous, that, although attested by the Abbot Joannes d'Ypre, it throws suspicion on the whole story.-ED.]

+ Sanutus, Secret. Fidelium Crucis, 1. 3, p. 12, c. 9, and De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. p. 143, from the Arabic historians.