The History of France (Vol. 1-6). Guizot François

his subjects, how compassionately towards the afflicted, and how humbly in his own respect, and with what zeal he labored to make progress, according to his power, in every virtue, all this can be attested by persons who carefully watched his manner of life, and who knew the spotlessness of his conscience. It is the opinion of the most clear-sighted and the wisest that, in proportion as gold is more precious than silver, so the manner of living and acting which the king brought back from his pilgrimage in the Holy Land was holy and new, and superior to his former behavior, albeit, even in his youth, he had ever been good and guileless, and worthy of high esteem.” These are the words written about St. Louis by his confessor Geoffrey de Beaulieu, a chronicler, curt and simple even to dryness, but at the same time well informed. An attempt will be made presently to give a fair idea of the character of St. Louis’s government during the last fifteen years of his reign, and of the place he fills in the history of the kingship and of politics in France; but just now it is only with the part he played in the crusades and with what became of them in his hands that we have to occupy our attention. For seven years after his return to France, from 1254 to 1261, Louis seemed to think no more about them, and there is nothing to show that he spoke of them even to his most intimate confidants; but, in spite of his apparent calmness, he was living, so far as they were concerned, in a continual ferment of imagination and internal fever, ever flattering himself that some favorable circumstance would call him back to his interrupted work. And he had reason to believe that circumstances were responsive to his wishes. The Christians of Palestine and Syria were a prey to perils and evils which became more pressing every day; the cross was being humbled at one time before the Tartars of Tchingis-Khan, at another before the Mussulmans of Egypt; Pope Urban was calling upon the King of France; and Geoffrey de Sargines, the heroic representative whom Louis had left in St. Jean d’Acre, at the head of a small garrison, was writing to him that ruin was imminent, and speedy succor indispensable to prevent it. In 1261, Louis held, at Paris, a parliament, at which, without any talk of a new crusade, measures were taken which revealed an idea of it: there were decrees for fasts and prayers on behalf of the Christians of the East and for frequent and earnest military drill. In 1263, the crusade was openly preached; taxes were levied, even on the clergy, for the purpose of contributing towards it; and princes and barons bound themselves to take part in it. Louis was all approval and encouragement, without declaring his own intention. In 1267, a parliament was convoked at Paris. The king, at first, conversed discreetly with some of his barons about the new plan of crusade; and then, suddenly, having had the precious relics deposited in the Holy Chapel set before the eyes of the assembly, he opened the session by ardently exhorting those present “to avenge the insult which had so long been offered to the Saviour in the Holy Land and to recover the Christian heritage possessed, for our sins, by the infidels.” Next year, on the 9th of February, 1268, at a new parliament assembled at Paris, the king took an oath to start in the month of May, 1270.

      Great was the surprise, and the disquietude was even greater than the surprise. The kingdom was enjoying abroad a peace and at home a tranquillity and prosperity for a long time past without example; feudal quarrels were becoming more rare and terminating more quickly; and the king possessed the confidence and the respect of the whole population. Why compromise such advantages by such an enterprise, so distant, so costly, and so doubtful of success? Whether from good sense or from displeasure at the burdens imposed upon them, many ecclesiastics showed symptoms of opposition, and Pope Clement IV. gave the king nothing but ambiguous and very reserved counsel. When he learned that Louis was taking with him on the crusade three of his sons, aged respectively twenty-two, eighteen, and seventeen, he could not refrain from writing to the Cardinal of St. Cecile, “It doth not strike us as an act of well-balanced judgment to impose the taking of the cross upon so many of the king’s sons, and especially the eldest; and, albeit we have heard reasons to the contrary, either we be much mistaken or they are utterly devoid of reason.” Even the king’s personal condition was matter for grave anxiety. His health was very much enfeebled; and several of his most intimate and most far-seeing advisers were openly opposed to his design. He vehemently urged Joinville to take the cross again with him; but Joinville refused downright. “I thought,” said he, “that they all committed a mortal sin to advise him the voyage, because the whole kingdom was in fair peace at home and with all neighbors, and, so soon as he departed, the state of the kingdom did nought but worsen. They also committed a great sin to advise him the voyage in the great state of weakness in which his body was, for he could not bear to go by chariot or to ride; he was so weak that he suffered me to carry him in my arms from the hotel of the Count of Auxerre, the place where I took leave of him, to the Cordeliers. And nevertheless, weak as he was, had he remained in France, he might have lived yet a while and wrought much good.”

      All objections, all warnings, all anxieties came to nothing in the face of Louis’s fixed idea and pious passion. He started from Paris on the 16th of March, 1270, a sick man almost already, but with soul content, and probably the only one without misgiving in the midst of all his comrades. It was once more at Aigues-Mortes that he went to embark. All was as yet dark and undecided as to the plan of the expedition. Was Egypt, or Palestine, or Constantinople, or Tunis, to be the first point of attack? Negotiations, touching this subject, had been opened with the Venetians and the Genoese without arriving at any conclusion or certainty. Steps were taken at haphazard with full trust in Providence and utter forgetfulness that Providence does not absolve men from foresight. On arriving at Aigues-Mortes about the middle of May, Louis found nothing organized, nothing in readiness, neither crusaders nor vessels; everything was done slowly, incompletely, and with the greatest irregularity. At last, on the 2d of July, 1270, he set sail without any one’s knowing and without the king’s telling any one whither they were going. It was only in Sardinia, after four days’ halt at Cagliari, that Louis announced to the chiefs of the crusade, assembled aboard his ship the Mountjoy, that he was making for Tunis, and that their Christian work would commence there. The King of Tunis (as he was then called), Mohammed Mostanser, had for some time been talking of his desire to become a Christian, if he could be efficiently protected against the seditions of his subjects. Louis welcomed with transport the prospect of Mussulman conversions. “Ah!” he cried, “if I could only see myself the gossip and sponsor of so great a godson!”

      But on the 17th of July, when the fleet arrived before Tunis, the admiral, Florent de Varennes, probably without the king’s orders and with that want of reflection which was conspicuous at each step of the enterprise, immediately took possession of the harbor and of some Tunisian vessels as prize, and sent word to the king “that he had only to support him and that the disembarkation of the troops might be effected in perfect safety.” Thus war was commenced at the very first moment against the Mussulman prince whom there had been a promise of seeing before long a Christian.

      At the end of a fortnight, after some fights between the Tunisians and the crusaders, so much political and military blindness produced its natural consequences. The re-enforcements promised to Louis, by his brother Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily, had not arrived; provisions were falling short; and the heats of an African summer were working havoc amongst the army with such rapidity that before long there was no time to bury the dead, but they were cast pell-mell into the ditch which surrounded the camp, and the air was tainted thereby. On the 3d of August Louis was attacked by the epidemic fever, and obliged to keep his bed in his tent. He asked news of his son John Tristan, Count of Nevers, who had fallen ill before him, and whose recent death, aboard the vessel to which he had been removed in hopes that the sea air might be beneficial, had been carefully concealed from him. The count, as well as the Princess Isabel, married to Theobald the Young, King of Navarre, was a favorite child of Louis, who, on hearing of his loss, folded his hands and sought in silence and prayer some assuagement of his grief. His malady grew worse; and having sent for his successor, Prince Philip (Philip the Bold), he took from his hour-book some instructions which he had written out for him, with his own hand and in French, and delivered them to him, bidding him to observe them scrupulously. He gave likewise to his daughter Isabel, who was weeping at the foot of his bed, and to his son-in-law the King of Navarre, some writings which had been intended for them, and he further charged Isabel to deliver another to her youngest sister, Agnes, affianced to the Duke of Burgundy. “Dearest daughter,” said he, “think well hereon: full many folk have fallen asleep with wild thoughts of sin, and in the morning their place hath not known them.” Just after he had finished satisfying his paternal solicitude, it