[5] Most historians have taken their accounts of this war of the Moguls from an esteemed work, entitled Fragmentum de Statu Saracœnorum; it, however, contains many errors, and ought to be rectified in several places by the study of the Oriental historians. Some valuable information respecting this war of the Tartars may also be found in the Armenian Hayton, and in Sanuti; but these authors must be read with precaution and suspicion.
[6] Bela IV., king of Hungary, wrote to the pope, that if he were not speedily succoured he should form an alliance with the Tartars. The pope reproved him warmly. Alexander IV. wrote to all Christian princes, prelates, and communities, to consult upon the means of resisting the barbarians, as well in the East as in the West. In Raynaldi—the year 1262, Nos. 29 and 30—his letter may be seen, in which he enters into many details upon the levy of soldiers, and upon subsidies. This letter has been preserved by Matthew Paris, who speaks of the councils held on this subject; some facts relative to the invasion of the Tartars may likewise be found in William of Nangis and Matthew of Westminster, as well as in the Collection of Councils.
[7] This singular fact is related by the Arabian historian Aboulfeda, and repeated by M. Deguignes, vol. iv. p. 133.
[8] This circular is reported by Raynaldi, Nos. 68 and 69. The motives alleged by the pope, in his letter, astonish the wise Fleuri, who observes upon the spirit of contradiction which we have mentioned.
[9] These expeditions of Bibars are related with all their details in the chronicles of Ibn-Ferat and in Makrizi. Although we have much abridged our account, we fear we shall be accused of tediousness. We have yielded to our inclination of filling up the deficiencies which exist in all the chronicles of the West in their accounts of this period. The life of Bibars has likewise been of great service to us.
[10] The Arabian chronicles describe this event in a very obscure and equivocal manner; they scarcely mention the massacre of the prisoners, and say but little of the capitulation; they accuse the Franks of having taken Mussulman prisoners away with them, which is not very probable.
[11] We are afraid M. Michaud carries the partialities of Biography into the pages of History: in the former, such are sometimes excusable; in the latter, never. Our readers who look back to the taking of Jerusalem or Ptolemaïs, will at once see how weak is the claim of the Christians to a superiority over their adversaries in mercy. As to the religious portion of the account, history teems with wholesale conversions of conquered armies and nations. See Charlemagne and our own Alfred, for instance. We thought that the idea of Mahometanism being a religion of the sword was exploded. Gibbon positively denies it to be so, and asserts that no precept or passage of the Koran inculcates it.—Trans.
[12] Sanuti is almost the only Christian writer that affords information on the taking of Sefed.
[13] “I cannot tell the amount,” says Joinville, “of what the king laid out for the fortification of Jaffa, it was so great. He closed the canal between the two seas, he built twenty-four towers, and cleansed the ditches without and within. There were three gates, of which the legate built one, and likewise part of the walls. And in order to show you what the king must have expended, I will tell you what the legate said when I asked him how much that gate and the wall had cost him. I had reckoned that the first cost him five hundred livres, and the latter three hundred livres; but he told me, as God might help him, that the gate and the wall had cost him thirty thousand livres.”
[14] This little incident is quite dramatic, and, in good hands, would not look badly on canvass. Would it not assist art, if historians, when forcibly struck by the scenes they describe, would suggest to painters, who so frequently prove they are at a loss for subjects by their injudicious choice, events, persons, and passions fit for the pencil?—Trans.