Early in the month of March, Louis repaired to the church of St. Denis, where he received the symbols of pilgrimage, and placed his kingdom under the protection of the apostles of France.[28] Upon the day following this solemn ceremony, a mass for the crusade was celebrated in the church of Notre Dame, at Paris. The monarch appeared there, accompanied by his children and the principal nobles of his court; he walked from the palace barefooted, carrying his scrip and staff. The same day he went to sleep at Vincennes, and beheld, for the last time, the spot on which he had enjoyed so much happiness in administering justice to his people. And it was here too that he took leave of Queen Marguerite, whom he had never before quitted,—a separation rendered so much the more painful by the sorrowful reflection it recalled of past events, and by melancholy presentiments for the future.
Both the people and the court were affected by the deepest regret, and that which added to the public anxiety was the circumstance that every one was ignorant of the point to which the expedition was to be directed: the coast of Africa was only vaguely conjectured. The king of Sicily had taken the cross without having the least inclination to embark for Asia; and when the question was discussed in council, he gave it as his opinion that Tunis should be the object of the first attack. The kingdom of Tunis covered the seas with pirates, who infested all the routes to Palestine; it was, besides, the ally of Egypt, and might, if subdued, be made the readiest road to that country. These were the ostensible reasons put forth; the true ones were, that it was of importance to the king of Sicily that the coasts of Africa should be brought under European subjection, and that he did not wish to go too far from Italy. The true reason with St. Louis, and that which, no doubt, determined him, was, that he believed it possible to convert the king of Tunis, and thus bring a vast kingdom under the Christian banners. The Mussulman prince, whose ambassadors had been several times in France, had himself given birth to this idea, by saying, that he asked nothing better than to embrace the religion of Jesus Christ:[29] thus, that which he had said to turn aside an invasion, was precisely the cause of the war being directed against his territories. Louis IX. often repeated that he would consent to pass the whole of his life in a dungeon, without seeing the sun, if, by such a sacrifice, the conversion of the king of Tunis and his nation could be brought about; an expression of ardent proselytism that has been blamed with much bitterness, but which only showed an extreme desire to see Africa delivered from barbarism, and marching with Europe in the progress of intelligence and civilization, which are the great blessings of Christianity.
As Louis traversed his kingdom on his way to Aigues-Mortes, where the army of the Crusaders was to embark, he was everywhere hailed by the benedictions of his people, and gratified by hearing their ardent prayers for the success of his arms; the clergy and the faithful, assembled in the churches, prayed for the king and his children, and all that should follow him. They prayed also for foreign princes and nobles who had taken the cross, and promised to go into the East; as if they would, by that means, press them to hasten their departure.
Very few, however, responded to this religious appeal. The king of Castile, who had taken the cross, had pretensions to the imperial crown, nor could he forget the death of his brother Frederick, immolated by Charles of Anjou. It was not only that the affairs of the empire detained the German princes and nobles; the death of young Conradin had so shocked and disgusted men’s minds in Germany, that no one from that country would have consented to fight under the same banners as the king of Sicily. So black a crime, committed amidst the preparations for a holy war, appeared to presage great calamities. In the height of their grief or indignation, people might fear that Heaven would be angry with the Christians, and that its curse would fall upon the arms of the Crusaders.
When Louis arrived at Aigues-Mortes, he found neither the Genoese fleet nor the principal nobles who were to embark with him; the ambassadors of Palæologus were the only persons who did not cause themselves to be waited for; for a great dread of the crusade was entertained at Constantinople, and this fear was more active than the enthusiasm of the Crusaders. Louis might have asked the Greek emperor why, after having promised to send soldiers, he had only sent ambassadors; but Louis, who attached great importance to the conversion of the Greeks, contented himself with removing the apprehensions of the envoys, and, as Clement IV. died at that period, he sent them to the conclave of the cardinals, to terminate the reunion of the two churches.
At length the unwilling Crusaders, stimulated by repeated exhortations, and by the example of Louis, set forward on their march from all the provinces, and directed their course towards the ports of Aigues-Mortes and Marseilles. Louis soon welcomed the arrival of the count of Poictiers, with a great number of his vassals; the principal nobles brought with them the most distinguished of their knights and their most brave and hardy soldiers; many cities likewise contributed their supply of warriors. Each troop had its banner, and formed a separate corps, bearing the name of a city or a province; the battalions of Beaucaire, Carcassonne, Châlons, Perigord, &c., attracted observation in the Christian army. These names, it is true, excited great emulation, but they also gave rise to quarrels, which the wisdom and firmness of Louis had great difficulty in appeasing. Crusaders arrived from Catalonia, Castile, and several other provinces of Spain; five hundred warriors from Friesland likewise ranged themselves with full confidence under the standard of such a leader as Louis, saying, that their nation had always been proud to obey the kings of France.
Before he embarked, the king wrote once more to the regents of the kingdom, to recommend them to watch carefully over public morals, to deliver France from corrupt judges, and to render to everybody, particularly to the poor, prompt and perfect justice, so that He who judges the judgments of men might have nothing to reproach him with.
Such were the last farewells that Louis took of France. The fleet set sail on the fourth of July, 1270, and in a few days arrived in the road of Cagliari. Here the council of the counts and barons was assembled in the king’s vessel, to deliberate upon the plan of the crusade. Those who advocated the conquest of Tunis, said that by that means the passages of the Mediterranean would be opened, and the power of the Mamelukes would be weakened; and that after that conquest the army would go triumphantly into either Egypt or Palestine. Many of the barons were not of this opinion; they said, if the Holy Land stood in need of prompt assistance, they ought to afford it without delay; whilst they were engaged on the coast of Africa, in a country with which they were unacquainted, the Christian cities of Syria might all fall into the hands of the Saracens; the most redoubtable enemy of the Christians was Bibars, the terrible sultan of Cairo; it was him they ought first to attack; it was into his states, into the bosom of his capital, that the war should be carried, and not to a place two hundred leagues from Egypt. They added to this, remembrances of the defeats of the French army on the banks of the Nile,—defeats that ought to be avenged upon the very theatre of so many disasters.
Contemporary history does not say to what extent Louis was struck with the wisdom of these last opinions; but the expedition to Tunis flattered his most cherished hopes. It had been proposed by the king of Sicily, whose concurrence was necessary to the success of the crusade. It was, therefore, decided that the Genoese fleet should direct its course towards Africa; and two days after, on the twentieth of July, it arrived in sight of Tunis and Carthage.
On the western coast of Africa, opposite Sicily, is a peninsula, described by Strabo, whose circumference is three hundred and forty stadii, or forty-two miles. This peninsula advances into the sea between two gulfs, one of which, on the west, offers a commodious port; the other, on the south-east, communicates, by means of a canal, with a lake which extends three leagues into the land, and which modern geographers term the Gullet. It was upon this spot was built the great rival of Rome, whose site extended over the two shores of the sea. Neither the conquests of the Romans, nor the ravages of the Vandals, had been able to entirely destroy this once flourishing city; but in the seventh century, after being invaded and laid waste by the Saracens, it became nothing but a mass of ruins; a moderate-sized village upon the port, called Marsa, a tower on the point of the cape, a pretty strong castle on the hill of Byrsa,—these were all the remains of that city whose power so long dominated over the Mediterranean and the coasts of Africa and Asia.