The king of Cyprus, however, had succeeded in enrolling under his banners a great number of adventurers of all sorts and conditions, men who were accustomed to live amidst perils, and who were attracted by the hope of pillaging the richest countries of the east. The republic of Venice did not disdain to take part in an expedition from which her commerce was likely to derive great advantages. Peter of Lusignan likewise received succours from the brave knights of Rhodes, and, on his return to the isle of Cyprus, he embarked at the head of ten thousand men to realize his projects of conquests over the infidels. The Crusaders, to whom the pope sent a legate, went to attack Alexandria, which they found almost without defence. When the place had fallen into their power, the king of Cyprus wished that they should fortify themselves in it, and there await the armies of Cairo; but his soldiers and allies could not resist their inclination to plunder a flourishing city, and fearing to be surprised by the Mamelukes, they set fire to Alexandria, and abandoned it on the fourth day after the conquest. Without subduing the Mussulmans, they irritated them. After the precipitate departure of the Crusaders, the Egyptian people, listening to nothing but hatred and vengeance, indulged in all sorts of violence against the unfortunate Christians who dwelt in Egypt. By the orders of the sultan of Cairo, everything was seized that belonged to the Venetians; and the Mamelukes, having prepared a fleet, threatened, in their turn, to make descents upon the isles of Rhodes and Cyprus. Again the nations of the West were applied to; the pope intreated all Christian princes to take arms against the infidels; but not one of them would assume the cross, and the king of Cyprus was left alone, to fight out the war he had provoked.
To the ardour for crusades, in the minds of European warriors, had succeeded a passion for distinguishing and enriching themselves by chivalric enterprizes and adventurous expeditions, in which, however, some remembrances of the holy wars were always mingled. The Genoese having formed the project of making war upon the coasts of Barbary, whose piratical inhabitants infested the Mediterranean, demanded a leader and troops of the king of France. On the report alone of such an enterprize, a crowd of warriors, eager to signalize their bravery, issued from all the provinces; the count d’Auvergne, the sieur de Coucy, Guy de la Trimouille, and Messire Jean de Vienne, admiral of France, solicited the honour of combating the infidels in Africa; fourteen hundred knights and nobles, under the orders of the duke of Bourbon, repaired to Genoa, and embarked on board the fleet of that republic; the French and the Genoese, the first led by a desire for booty and the love of glory, the latter by the more positive interests of their commerce, went to this war beyond the sea as to a banquet. “Beautiful and pleasant,” says Froissart, “was it to behold the order of their departure, and how those banners, pennons, and streamers, fairly and richly wrought with the arms of the noble knights, floated to the wind and glistened in the sun; and to hear those trumpets and clarions sound and resound, and other musicians performing their parts, with pipes, flutes, and macaires, as well as the sound and the voice which issued from them, reverberate over all the sea.” After a few days’ sailing, the Christian army arrived on the coast of Barbary, and laid siege to the city of Africa. The inhabitants offered some resistance, and not being able to conceive why they were thus attacked by an enemy they did not know, and of whom they had never heard, they sent deputies to the camp of the Christians to demand of them what motive had brought them beneath their walls. The Genoese, doubtless, reminded the deputies of the piracies carried on in the Mediterranean and upon the coasts of Italy; but the knights could not allege any grievance, and must have felt considerably embarrassed how to answer the questions of the besieged. Froissart, who gives an account of this expedition, informs us that the duke of Bourbon called a council of the principal leaders, and after they had deliberated upon the question proposed by the Saracens, he addressed this reply to them, which we shall report in the old language as near that of the times as we are able: “They who demand why war is made against them, must know that their lineage and race put to death and crucified the son of God named Jesus Christ, and that we wish to avenge upon them this fact and evil deed. Further, they do not believe in the holy baptism, nor in the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ; and all these things being considered is why we hold the Saracens and all their sect as enemies.” The besieged were not likely to be convinced by this explanation, “so,” adds the good Froissart, “they only laughed at it, and said it was neither reasonable nor proved, for it was the Jews who put Christ to death, and not they.”
The French knights had more bravery than knowledge, and were much more expert in fighting than in reasoning. They prosecuted the siege and made several assaults, but in all their attacks met with a determined resistance. They were, however, persuaded that Heaven declared in their favour, and performed miracles to assure them the victory. It was said in the camp, that a battalion of ladies in white had appeared amidst the combatants, and created great terror among the Saracens. They likewise told of a miraculous dog which God had sent to the Christian soldiers as a vigilant sentinel, and which had several times prevented their being surprised by the Mussulmans. We repeat these marvellous stories, in order to exhibit the spirit of the knights, who saw nothing but ladies under circumstances in which the early Crusaders would have seen saints and angels. The story of the miraculous dog serves to prove that the French warriors kept but a bad watch around their camp, and that they carried on the siege with more bravery than prudence. Several battles were fought, in which the most rash lost their lives. The heat of the climate and the season gave birth to contagious diseases. In proportion as obstacles multiplied around them, the ardour of the besiegers inclined daily towards depression. Discord, likewise, broke out in the Christian army, in which the French and the Genoese mutually reproached each other with their miseries: winter was drawing near, and they despaired of reducing the place; the duke of Bourbon resolved to raise the siege, and to return to Europe with his knights and soldiers.
During several months no news of this expedition had arrived in France; processions were made and public prayers were put up in all the provinces to ask of Heaven the safe return of the Crusaders. Old chronicles inform us,—“that the lady of Coucy, the lady of Sully, the dauphiness of Auvergne, and all the ladies of France whose lords and husbands were engaged in this voyage, were in great dismay for them whilst the voyage lasted; and when the news came to them that they had already passed the sea, they were all much rejoiced.”
This expedition, which the Genoese had promoted with the intention of defending their commerce against the brigandages of pirates, only served to increase the evil they wished to remedy; vengeance, indignation, and fear armed the infidels against the Christians in every direction. Vessels issued from all the coasts of Africa, covered the Mediterranean, and intercepted the communications with Europe; the merchandizes which had been accustomed to flow from Damascus, Cairo, and Alexandria, no longer appeared; and the historians of the times deplore, as a calamity, the impossibility of procuring spices in either France or Germany.
The war which had begun between Egypt and the kingdom of Cyprus was prosecuted with equal animosity on both sides. Whilst the sultan of Cairo threatened the poor remains of the Christian colonies of the East, the king of Cyprus and the knights of Rhodes spread terror along all the coasts of Syria; in one incursion they took possession of Tripoli, and gave the city up to the flames. Tortosa, Laodicea, and Belinas met with the same fate: this manner of making war in a country that they professed to wish to conquer for the sake of delivering it, excited everywhere the fury of the Mussulmans, without raising the hopes or the courage of the Christians who dwelt there. Pilgrimage to the Holy Land became impracticable, and, during several years, no European Christians were able to visit Jerusalem.
The sultan of Egypt, however, after many fruitless efforts to avenge the expedition against Alexandria, made peace with the king of Cyprus and the knights of Rhodes. It was agreed that the prisoners should be liberated on both sides, and that the king of Cyprus should receive half of the dues levied upon the merchandize which entered at Tyre, Berouth, Sidon, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Damascus. The treaty regulated the tribute which pilgrims should pay in those places of the Holy Land to which their devotion called them. The sultan of Egypt restored to the knights of St. John the house they had formerly possessed in Jerusalem, and the knights had permission to cause the churches of the holy sepulchres of Bethlehem, of Nazareth, &c. to be repaired.
Europe at this period turned its eyes from countries which had so long excited its veneration and enthusiasm to direct them towards regions invaded or threatened by the Turks. We have seen, towards the end of the eleventh century, hordes from this nation spread themselves as conquerors over the whole of Asia. It may be remembered that it was their invasion of Palestine, and their violent domination over the holy city, which roused Christendom, and provoked the first crusade. Their power, which then extended as far as Nice, and which, even at that time, alarmed the Greeks, was checked by the victorious armies of the West. The Turks of whom we are now speaking, and of whom Christendom, towards the end of the fourteenth century, began to be very much in dread, like those who had preceded them, drew their origin from the Tartars. Their warlike tribes, formerly established in Carismia, had been driven thence by the successors of Gengiskhan; and the remains of this conquering nation, after ravaging Syria and Mesopotamia, came, a few years before the first crusade of St. Louis, to seek an asylum in Asia Minor.
The weakness of the Greeks and the division of the Mussulman princes enabled them to conquer several provinces, and to found a new state among the ruins of several empires. The terror inspired by their fierce and brutal valour facilitated their progress, and opened for them the road to Greece. Countries which had been the cradle of civilization, of the arts, and of knowledge, soon succumbed beneath the laws of Ottoman despotism.