retreat without obstruction. The sultan, without accepting or rejecting the proposition, asked what guarantees would be given him for the surrender of Damietta. Louis offered as hostage one of his brothers, the Count of Anjou, or the Count of Poitiers. “We must have the king himself,” said the Mussulmans. A unanimous cry of indignation arose amongst the crusaders. “We would rather,” said Geoffrey de Sargines, “that we had been all slain, or taken prisoners by the Saracens, than be reproached with having left our king in pawn.” All negotiation was broken off; and on the 5th of April, 1250, the crusaders decided upon retreating.
This was the most deplorable scene of a deplorable drama; and at the same time it was, for the king, an occasion for displaying, in their most sublime and most attractive traits, all the virtues of the Christian. Whilst sickness and famine were devastating the camp, Louis made himself visitor, physician, and comforter; and his presence and his words exercised upon the worst cases a searching influence. He had one day sent his chaplain, William de Chartres, to visit one of his household servants, a modest man of some means, named Gaugelme, who was at the point of death. When the chaplain was retiring, “I am waiting for my lord, our saintly king, to come,” said the dying man; “I will not depart this life until I have seen him and spoken to him: and then I will die.” The king came, and addressed to him the most affectionate words of consolation; and when he had left him, and before he had re-entered his tent, he was told that Gaugelme had expired. When the 5th of April, the day fixed for the retreat, had come, Louis himself was ill and much enfeebled. He was urged to go aboard one of the vessels which were to descend the Nile, carrying the wounded and the most suffering; but he refused absolutely, saying, “I don’t separate from my people in the hour of danger.” He remained on land, and when he had to move forward he fainted twice. When he came to himself, he was amongst the last to leave the camp, got himself helped on to the back of a little Arab horse, covered with silken housings, and marched at a slow pace with the rear-guard, having beside him Geoffrey de Sargines, who watched over him, “and protected me against the Saracens,” said Louis himself to Joinville, “as a good servant protects his lord’s tankard against the flies.”
Neither the king’s courage nor his servants’ devotion was enough to insure success, even to the retreat. At four leagues’ distance from the camp it had just left, the rear-guard of the crusaders, harassed by clouds of Saracens, was obliged to halt. Louis could no longer keep on his horse. “He was put up at a house,” says Joinville, “and laid, almost dead, upon the lap of a tradeswoman from Paris; and it was believed that he would not last till evening.” With his consent, one of his lieges entered into parley with one of the Mussulman chiefs; a truce was about to be concluded, and the Mussulman was taking off his ring from his finger as a pledge that he would observe it. “But during this,” says Joinville, “there took place a great mishap. A traitor of a sergeant, whose name was Marcel, began calling to our people, ‘Sirs knights, surrender, for such is the king’s command: cause not the king’s death.’ All thought that it was the king’s command; and they gave up their swords to the Saracens.” Being forthwith declared prisoners, the king and all the rear-guard were removed to Mansourah; the king by boat; and his two brothers, the Counts of Anjou and Poitiers, and all the other crusaders, drawn up in a body and shackled, followed on foot on the river bank. The advance-guard, and all the rest of the army, soon met the same fate.
Ten thousand prisoners—this was all that remained of the crusade that had started eighteen months before from Aigues-Mortes. Nevertheless the lofty bearing and the piety of the king still inspired the Mussulmans with great respect. A negotiation was opened between him and the Sultan Malek-Moaddam, who, having previously freed him from his chains, had him treated with a certain magnificence. As the price of a truce and of his liberty, Louis received a demand for the immediate surrender of Damietta, a heavy ransom, and the restitution of several places which the Christians still held in Palestine. “I cannot dispose of those places,” said Louis, “for they do not belong to me; the princes and the Christian orders, in whose hands they are, can alone keep or surrender them.” The sultan, in anger, threatened to have the king put to the torture, or sent to the Grand Khalif of Bagdad, who would detain him in prison for the rest of his days. “I am your prisoner,” said Louis; “you can do with me what you will.” “You call yourself our prisoner,” said the Mussulman negotiators, “and so, we believe you are; but you treat us as if you had us in prison.” The sultan perceived that he had to do with an indomitable spirit; and he did not insist any longer upon more than the surrender of Damietta, and on a ransom of five hundred thousand livres (that is, about ten million one hundred and thirty-two thousand francs, or four hundred and five thousand two hundred and eighty pounds, of modern money, according to M. de Wailly, supposing, as is probable, that livres of Tours are meant). “I will pay willingly five hundred thousand livres for the deliverance of my people,” said Louis, “and I will give up Damietta for the deliverance of my own person, for I am not a man who ought to be bought and sold for money.” “By my faith,” said the sultan, “the Frank is liberal not to have haggled about so large a sum. Go tell him that I will give him one hundred thousand livres to help towards paying the ransom.” The negotiation was concluded on this basis; and victors and vanquished quitted Mansourah, and arrived, partly by land and partly by the Nile, within a few leagues of Damietta, the surrender of which was fixed for the 7th of May. But five days previously a tragic event took place. Several emirs of the Mamelukes suddenly entered Louis’s tent. They had just slain the Sultan Malek-Moaddam, against whom they had for some time been conspiring. “Fear nought, sir,” said they to the king; “this was to be. Do what concerns you in respect of the stipulated conditions, and you shall be free.” Of these emirs one, who had slain the sultan with his own hand, asked the king, brusquely, “What wilt thou give me? I have slain thine enemy, who would have put thee to death, had he lived;” and he asked to be made knight. Louis answered not a word. Some of the crusaders present urged him to satisfy the desire of the emir, who had in his power the decision of their fate. “I will never confer knighthood on an infidel,” said Louis; “let the emir turn Christian; I will take him away to France, enrich him, and make him knight.” It is said that, in their admiration for this piety and this indomitable firmness, the emirs had at one time a notion of taking Louis himself for sultan in the place of him whom they had just slain; and this report was probably not altogether devoid of foundation, for, some time afterwards, in the intimacy of the conversations between them, Louis one day said to Joinville, “Think you that I would have taken the kingdom of Babylon, if they had offered it to me?” “Whereupon I told him,” adds Joinville, “that he would have done a mad act, seeing that they had slain their lord; and he said to me that of a truth he would not have refused.” However that may be, the conditions agreed upon with the late Sultan Malek-Moaddam were carried out; on the 7th of May, 1250, Geoffrey de Sargines gave up to the emirs the keys of Damietta; and the Mussulmans entered in tumultuously. The king was waiting aboard his ship for the payment which his people were to make for the release of his brother, the Count of Poitiers; and, when he saw approaching a bark on which he recognized his brother, “Light up! light up!” he cried instantly to his sailors; which was the signal agreed upon for setting out. And leaving forthwith the coast of Egypt, the fleet which bore the remains of the Christian army made sail for the shores of Palestine.
The king, having arrived at St. Jean d’Acre on the 14th of May, 1250, accepted without shrinking the trial imposed upon him by his unfortunate situation. He saw his forces considerably reduced; and the majority of the crusaders left to him, even his brothers themselves, did not hide their ardent desire to return to France. He had that virtue, so rare amongst kings, of taking into consideration the wishes of his comrades, and of desiring their free assent to the burden he asked them to bear with him. He assembled the chief of them, and put the question plainly before them. “The queen, my mother,” he said, “biddeth me and prayeth me to get me hence to France, for that my kingdom hath neither peace nor truce with the king of England. The folk here tell me that, if I get me hence, this land is lost, for none of those that be there will dare to abide in it. I pray you, therefore, to give it thought, for it is a grave matter, and I grant you nine days for to answer me whatever shall seem to you good.” Eight days after, they returned; and Guy de Mauvoisin, speaking in their name, said to the king, “Sir, your brothers and the rich men who be here have had regard unto your condition, and they see that you cannot remain in this country to your own and your kingdom’s honor, for of all