[228] The Chronicle of Ibn-ferat gives some details of this council of the Mussulman princes. The Western historians say nothing of it. It is a pity that James of Vitri, who was sent to the camp of the Saracens to propose the capitulation, should have preserved a profound silence upon so important a circumstance. We have several times remarked that the Arabian historians, when the Mussulmans experience reverses, content themselves with saying, “God is great; may God curse the Christians!” We find the same inconvenience in the Western historians, who are almost always silent when the Christians are conquered.
[229] We cannot refrain from observing that the deliberations of the Mussulmans generally end in resolutions of moderation and mercy; and that those of the Crusaders have, as often, a very different result.—Trans.
[230] As translation can scarcely do justice to this touching little morceau, I subjoin the original.—Trans. Le roi s’assit devant le soudan, et se mist à plorer; le soudan regarda le roi qui ploroit, et lui dist: “Sire, pourquoi plorez vous?” “Sire, j’ai raison,” repondit le roi, “car je vois le peuple dont Dex m’a chargié, perir au milieu de l’eve et mourir de faim.” Le soudan eut pitié de ce qu’il vit le roi plorer, si plora aussi; lors envoya trente mille pains as pauvres et as riches; ainsi leur envoya quatre jours de suite.
[231] Muratori has preserved a little elegiac poem in Latin, upon the taking of Damietta.—See Script. Rer. Ital. vol. vii. p. 992.
[232] See the letter of the patriarch of Alexandria, in the Appendix. The patriarch, at the end of his letter, gives the pope some remarkable opinions upon the manner in which the emperor and the Crusaders were to arrive in Egypt.
[233] The letter of the queen of Georgia is to be found in the continuator of Baronius, under the year 1224. Curious details of the manners of the Georgians in the thirteenth century may likewise be found in James of Vitri, Hist. Orient.
[234] The Chronicle of Upsberg attributes the murder of the respectable Engelbert, archbishop of Maïence, to this indulgence of the preachers of the crusade.
[235] These details, unknown to all the historians of the West, are related by Abulfeda and the greater part of the Arabian historians who treat of the events of this period. The same authors name the Mussulman envoy Fakreddin; they disfigure the name of Frederick’s envoy, and say that this prince selected for this mission the person who had been his governor in his childhood.
[236] The perusal of Arabian authors throws great light upon this part of the history of the crusades; the continuator of William of Tyre, the letters of the patriarch of Jerusalem, or the correspondence of the pope, give but very incomplete information.
[237] The Arabian authors who speak of this treaty, say that one of the conditions was, that the fortifications of Jerusalem should not be repaired; this condition is not named in the treaty which is found in the continuator of Baronius.