At length the fleet set sail. Louis had obtained permission from the legate to take with him, in his vessel, the Holy Sacrament, for the assistance of the dying and the sick; so, when beholding altars raised on board a ship, priests clothed in their sacerdotal habits, celebrating divine service, and invoking the protection of Heaven at every hour in the day, it was easy to recognise the pious wreck of a crusade, and the last trophies of the war of Jesus Christ.[335] As the fleet approached the isle of Cyprus, the vessel in which the king was struck violently against a sand-bank; all the crew were seized with terror; the queen and her children uttered piercing cries; but Louis prostrated himself at the foot of the altar, and addressed himself to Him who commands the sea. When the vessel was examined, it was found that it had received considerable damage, and the pilots pressed the king to leave it; but seeing that they themselves did not purpose to abandon the ship, he determined to remain in it. “There is no one here,” said he, “who does not love his body as dearly as I do mine; if I leave, they will leave also, and, perhaps, will not see their country for a length of time; I prefer placing myself, my queen, and my children in the hands of God, to doing such an injury to so great a number of people as there are here.” These words, inspired by an heroic charity, revived the courage of the sailors and the pilgrims, and they resumed their course. When leaving the coasts of Sicily, the fleet very carefully kept clear of the coast of Tunis, as if a secret presentiment warned the French Crusaders of the misfortunes that awaited them upon that shore in a still more disastrous expedition. A tempest placed the fleet in great peril; it was upon this occasion Queen Marguerite made a vow to offer a ship of silver to St. Nicholas of Lorraine, and requested Joinville to become her security with the patron saint of such as are shipwrecked. Whilst everybody else was in despair, Louis found calmness in a philosophy derived from religion; and when the danger was past, he said to his companions: “See if God has not proved to us how vast is his power, when by means of a single one of the four winds, the king of France, the queen, their children, and so many other persons have escaped drowning.” The navigation lasted more than two months, during which many marvellous adventures and accidents were encountered by the pilgrims, which history has preserved an account of, and which would not figure unworthily in a Christian Odyssey.
The fleet at length cast anchor at the isles of Hières. Louis crossed Provence, and passing by Auvergne, arrived at Vincennes on the 5th of September, 1254. The people flocked from all parts to greet him on his passage; the more they appeared to forget his reverses, the more strongly was Louis affected by the remembrance of his lost companions; and the melancholy that clouded his countenance formed a painful contrast with the public joy. His first care was to go to St. Denis, to prostrate himself at the feet of the apostle of France; on the following day he made his public entrance into his capital, preceded by the clergy, the nobility, and the people. He continued to wear the cross upon his shoulder, the sight of which, whilst recalling the cause of his long absence, gave his subjects reason to fear that he had not yet abandoned his enterprise of the crusade. The greater number of the barons and knights that had gone with Louis, had found a grave in either Syria or Egypt. Such as had survived so many disasters, reëntered their castles, which they found deserted and falling to ruins. The good seneschal, after having revisited his home, repaired, barefooted, to the church of St. Nicholas of Lorraine, to discharge the vow of Queen Marguerite. He then set earnestly about repairing the evils his absence had caused, and swore never again to quit the castle of Joinville to seek adventures in Asia.
Thus terminated this holy war, the commencement of which had filled the Christian nations with so much delight, and which had, in the end, plunged the whole West into mourning. Throughout the events I have just described, the seneschal de Joinville has been my guide, and I cannot terminate my recital without paying him the just tribute of my gratitude. The unpretending tone of his narration, the simplicity of his style, the gaiety of his character, have afforded me a happy relief amidst a labour always dry and sometimes revolting. I take delight in beholding him intrepid in the field of battle, preserving his cheerfulness amidst the misfortunes of war, resigned in his captivity, and in all his actions recalling to our minds the true spirit of chivalry. Like his compatriot Villehardouin, he often makes his heroes weep, and as often weeps himself. He braves danger, when danger is present; but he thanks God with all his heart when he has no longer anything to fear.
When I read his memoirs, I am transported back to the thirteenth century, and I think I am listening to a knight who is returned from the crusade, and who tells to me all he has seen and all he has done. He has neither method nor rule; he drops the line of his discourse, and takes it up again; and he extends or abridges his narration, as his imagination is more or less struck by that which he relates. When we read the narratives of Joinville, we are not surprised that Louis should have taken so much delight in his conversation; there is not one of his readers who does not feel the same confidence and friendship for him that the virtuous monarch accorded him, and history adopts without hesitation all that he affirms upon his honour, persuaded that he who was bold enough to speak the truth in the courts of kings will not deceive posterity.
The crusade of St. Louis was like that which immediately preceded it. The enthusiasm for these distant expeditions was daily losing its vivacity and its energy: the crusade no longer appeared anything to the knights beyond a common war, in which the spirit of chivalry was a more powerful principle than religion. It was only a religious affair to Louis IX.
The manner in which this crusade was preached in Europe, the troubles amidst which the voices of the preachers were raised, and particularly the means that were employed to levy the tributes in the West, were calculated to turn away all minds from the object that would be supposed to be the governing one in a holy expedition.
And yet Louis took precautions that had been neglected in preceding wars. Three years were employed in preparing this great enterprise; the knights who arrived in the isle of Cyprus could not express their astonishment at seeing the casks of wine piled one upon another, so high that they appeared like houses; and heaps of wheat, barley, and other grains, so immense, that they might be believed to be mountains. There is no doubt that the princes and nobles who accompanied Louis imitated his example: happy had it been for the Crusaders, if their leaders had shown in war the same prudence and sagacity they displayed in preparing for their expedition!
The French warriors upon all occasions evinced their accustomed bravery; but throughout the crusade there was never exhibited one instance of the genius of a great captain; Louis himself, when in danger, afforded no example to his troops beyond courage and firmness. We have related the prodigies of French valour, and we have described the prodigies of pious resignation in reverses; the Crusaders and their leaders merited, even in their disasters and in the depth of their misery, the esteem and admiration of their enemies; and it is here that history presents the most beautiful spectacle she can offer to man: “Glory, the faithful companion of misfortune.”
We have had occasion, in the course of our narrative, to remark that French gaiety never abandoned the cross-knights in their distant expeditions. This gaiety often mixed itself with the saddest images, and sometimes even did not respect severe propriety. We beg to be permitted to repeat on this head a singular anecdote related by Joinville. On the eve of the battle of Mansourah, one of the knights of the seneschal of Champagne, named Landricourt, died; and whilst the funeral honours were being paid to him, six of his companions in arms talked so loud that they interrupted the priest who was chanting mass. Joinville reproved them warmly, and they then laughed aloud, saying they were talking about remarrying the wife of Messire Hugh de Landricourt, who was on the bier there. The good Joinville was very much scandalized at such discourse, and ordered them to keep silent. When speaking of this indiscreet gaiety of his knights, the seneschal takes care to add that God punished them on the day of battle; for of all the six, he says, there was not one that was not killed and buried, and whose wife did not afterwards find it convenient to marry again.
The manners of the European knights formed a very striking contrast with those of the Mussulmans, who were always grave and serious, even amidst the festivities in which they celebrated the deliverance of their country and the defeat of the Christians.