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EIGHTH CRUSADE.
A.D. 1255-1270.
Louis IX., during his sojourn in Palestine, had not only employed himself in fortifying the Christian cities; he had neglected no means of establishing that union and harmony among the Christians themselves, which he felt would create their only security against the attacks of the Mussulmans: unhappily for this people, whom he would have preserved at the peril of his life, his counsels were not long in being forgotten, and the spirit of discord soon displaced the generous sentiments to which his example and discourses had given a momentary life.
It may have been observed in the course of this history, that several maritime nations had stores, counting-houses, and considerable commercial establishments at Ptolemaïs, which had become the capital of Palestine. Among these nations, Genoa and Venice occupied the first rank: each of these colonies inhabited a separate quarter, and had different laws, besides interests, which kept them at constant variance; the only thing they possessed in common,[1] was the Church of St. Sabbas, in which the Venetians and the Genoese assembled together to celebrate the ceremonies of their religion.
This common possession had often been a subject of quarrel between them; a short time after the departure of St. Louis, discord broke out anew, and roused all the passions that the spirit of rivalry and jealousy could give birth to between two nations which had so long contended for the empire of the sea and pre-eminence in commerce. Amidst this struggle, in which the very object of the contest ought to have recalled sentiments of peace and charity to their hearts, the Genoese and Venetians often came to blows in the city of Ptolemaïs, and more than once, the sanctuary, which the two parties had fortified like a place of war, resounded with the din of their sacrilegious battles.
Discord very soon crossed the seas, and carried fresh troubles into the West. Genoa interested the Pisans in her cause, and sought allies and auxiliaries even among the Greeks, at that time impatient to repossess Constantinople. Venice, in order to avenge her injuries, courted the alliance of Manfroi, who had been excommunicated by the head of the Church. Troops were raised, fleets were armed, and the parties attacked each other both by land and sea; and this war, which the sovereign pontiff was unable to quell, lasted more than twenty years, sometimes to the advantage of the Venetians, as frequently to that of the Genoese; but always fatal to the Christian colonies of the East.
This spirit of discord likewise extended its baneful influence to the rival orders of St. John and the Temple; and the blood of these courageous defenders of the Holy Land flowed in torrents in cities of which they had undertaken the defence; the Hospitallers and Templars pursued and attacked each other with a fury that nothing could appease or turn aside, both orders invoking the aid of the knights that remained in the West. Thus the noblest families of Christendom were dragged into these sanguinary quarrels, and it was no longer asked in Europe whether the Franks had conquered the Saracens, but if victory had been favourable to the knights of the Temple or to those of the Hospital.
The brave Sergines, whom Louis IX. had at his departure left at Ptolemaïs, and the wisest of the other defenders of the Holy Land, had neither authority enough to reëstablish tranquillity, nor troops enough to resist the attacks of the Mussulmans. The only hope of safety which appeared to be left to the Christians of Palestine, arose from the divisions which also troubled the empire of the Saracens; every day new revolutions broke out among the Mamelukes; but, by a singular contrast, feuds, that weakened the power of the Franks, often seemed only to increase that of their enemies. If, from the feeble kingdom of Jerusalem, we pass into Egypt, we there behold the strange spectacle of a government founded by revolt, and strengthening itself amidst political tempests. The Christian colonies, since the taking of Jerusalem, by Saladin, had no longer a common centre or a common tie; the kings of Jerusalem, in losing their capital, lost an authority which served at least as a war-cry, by which to rally ardent spirits around them. Nothing was preserved of royalty but the name, nothing was gained from republicanism but its license. As to the Mamelukes, they were less a nation than an army, in which they at first quarrelled for a leader, and in which they afterwards obeyed him blindly. From the bosom of each of their revolutions sprang a military despotism, armed with all the passions that had given birth to it, and, what must have redoubled the alarm of the Christians, this despotism breathed nothing but war and conquest.
We have said, in the preceding book, that Aibek, after having espoused the sultana Chegger-Eddour, had mounted the throne of Saladin; but it was not long before his reign was disturbed by the rivalries of the emirs. The death of Phares-Eddin Octhaï, one of the leaders opposed to the new sultan, disconcerted the projects of the faction, but the jealousy of a woman did that which neither faction nor license had been able to effect. Chegger-Eddour could not pardon Aibek for having asked the hand of a daughter of the prince of Mossoul, and the faithless husband was assassinated in the bath by slaves. The sultana, after having gratified her woman’s vengeance, called in the ambition of the emirs and the crimes of policy to her aid.[2] She sent for the emir Saif-Eddin, to ask his advice, and to offer him her hand and empire. Upon being introduced into the palace, Saif-Eddin found the Sultana seated, with the bleeding body of her husband at her feet: at this spectacle, the emir was seized with horror, and the calmness which the sultana displayed, together with the sight of the bloody throne, upon which she proposed to him to take his seat with her, added to his fright; Chegger-Eddour summoned two other emirs, who could not endure her presence, but fled away, terrified at what they saw and heard. This scene passed during the night. At break of day, the news of it was spread throughout Cairo, and the indignation of the people and the army was general and active: the mother of Aibek amply revenged the death of her son. Chegger-Eddour, in her turn, perished by the hands of slaves, and her body, which was cast into the castle ditch, might teach all the ambitious who were contending for the empire, that revolutions, likewise, sometimes have their justice.