nevertheless, Louis, however disinterested, contrived to profit. The Holy Land, since the Emperor Frederic had been called from it by the hostility of the Pope, had been the scene of feud between Mohammedans as well as between Christians. The Sultans of Damascus and of Egypt fought for ascendancy. The knights Templars and knights Hospitallers struggled likewise for supremacy within the Christian territory. And their quarrel was connected with that which commenced in Germany and Italy, the Templars holding for the Pope and France, the Hospitallers for the German Emperor and England. One of these orders concluded a truce with the Sultan of Egypt, the other with the Sultan of Damascus, when the Egyptian called in to his aid the Khorasmins. This was a fierce tribe from the Caspian, driven from their homes by the great Tartar invasion; as they poured into Palestine, the Christians found themselves unable to defend Jerusalem, and therefore evacuated it with the three Grand Masters. The Khorasmins entered the city, and hoisted the cross upon the walls. This being seen by some of the reluctant fugitives, they returned in great numbers, and were all massacred by the barbarians. Angered by such cruel treachery, the Christian knights, though few in number, not more than 300 Templars and 200 Hospitallers, resolved to give battle to the barbarians. It took place near Gaza; the Christians were exterminated, and Jerusalem irretrievably lost. About the same time the Emperor Frederic had repaired to Rome and offered every submission and concession that could induce the Pope to make peace, and allow the powers of Christendom to unite against the infidel. Innocent refused, but fled, having no force to oppose to Frederic. The Pontiff came to Lyons, for the purpose of flinging himself upon Louis, and craving him to enact the part of Charlemagne in CHAP. VI. CHAP. freeing Italy from the enemy of Rome. VI. But Louis could not forget the danger that menaced Palestine, and did not approve of the Pope's obstinacy in prosecuting a private quarrel to the destruction of the interests of Christendom. Soon after, towards the close of 1246, Louis was taken dangerously ill of dysentery at Pontoise. "So bad was his state," writes de Joinville, "that I have heard one of the ladies who nursed him say, that thinking it was all over, she was going to cover his face with a cloth, but that another lady on the opposite side of the bed, (so God willed it) would not suffer his face to be covered, or buried as it were, declaring continually that he was alive. During the conversation of these ladies, our Lord worked upon him, and restored him to his speech. The good king desired them to bring him a crucifix, which was done; and when the good lady, his mother, heard that he had recovered his speech, she was in the utmost possible joy; but when she came and saw that he had put on the cross, she was panic-struck, and seemed as if she would rather have seen him dead." A year elapsed ere the good king fully recovered his health. His thoughts, policy, and preparations were all turned towards the Holy Land. Nevertheless much time passed before he could set forth upon the expedition. Pope Innocent held a council at Lyons, in which he launched a fresh bull of excommunication against Frederic. Louis on his part held a parliament at Paris, where his three brothers, Robert of Artois, Alphonso of Poitou, and Charles of Anjou, with numbers of the nobility, assumed the cross. Amongst them was the Lord de Joinville, seneschal of Champagne, who has left in his memoirs an account of the ensuing crusade. At Christmas it was customary for the king to make a present of a cloak to each of his courtiers. They received the present at night on this occasion, VI. and did not discover till they had put them on, that CHAP. a cross had been sewn upon each garment, which bound them to join the king in his military pilgrimage. Louis had an interview at Cluny with the Pope, who tried to turn his thoughts from the crusade to Palestine, by urging him to accomplish the old scheme of Philip Augustus, in invading England, and dispossessing Henry the Third. Pope Innocent little knew the King of France, and indeed his policy was so capricious, so contrary to reason and to right, that it called forth remonstrance even from churchmen. An English cardinal is reported by Matthew Paris to have told Pope Innocent "that he was making enemies of all the world; that France was impoverished by Rome, and England so ill-used, that like the ass of Balaam she began to kick against the goad." Instead of adopting Innocent's views upon England, Louis made proposals to Henry the Third to convert the existing truce into a lasting peace. As a similar proposal was afterwards made and accepted, we shall hereafter have occasion to note what the conditions were. However apparently fair, it is not surprising that Henry rejected concessions accompanied by a number of restrictions and exceptions, which rendered them inexecutable and unprofitable. Henry had another grievance. The Marquis of Provence, Raymond Berenger, was advancing in age without a male heir. Of his daughters, one was Queen of France, the other Queen of England, the third the wife of Richard of Cornwall. The marquis's first project was to marry his remaining daughter, Beatrice, to Raymond of Toulouse, and bequeath Provence to her and to the issue of her marriage. It was the natural project of a southern anxious to maintain the old independence of that region. But such a project ran counter to the policy of the French court, already possessed of the reversal of Toulouse, and to that of Rome. Yet Pope Innocent CHAP. had favoured the idea at first, angry with the lukewarmness of the French king, and perhaps not disinclined to make tardy reparation to the family of Toulouse. But however sincere and just might have been the views of Innocent in this respect, they were totally changed in his seven days' interview with the King of France at Cluny. It gives a high idea of the address of Louis, that he on that occasion gained all that he desired from the Church, giving in return nothing that the Pontiff sought. The Pope granted him a tenth from the clergy for his crusade, and promised to withhold the dispensation necessary for the marriage of Raymond; whilst Louis by no means consented to abet the Pope's hostility to the Emperor Frederic. Provence, however, was an imperial fief, and transferring its possessions and suzerainty to a French prince was to deal a blow to the German. What Louis proposed was to allow the Marquis of Provence to bequeath his dominions to Beatrice, and then to secure the marriage of that heiress with his younger brother Charles, who was already endowed with Anjou. The marquis expired in 1245, leaving a will, in accordance with the French king's wishes, instituting Beatrice his heiress. Raymond, relying on the Pope and supported by the King of Aragon, advanced to claim. his affianced bride. But Charles of Anjou of a sudden arrived with an army. The whole of Provence preferred the French to the Toulousan prince, foreseeing in the choice of the latter a war which would devastate the country; and the marriage of Charles of Anjou with the heiress of Provence was concluded. This acquisition by a French prince of one of the most important imperial fiefs must have roused the ire of Frederic; but the emperor could not at that time engage in a quarrel with the King of France. Henry the Third complained that the sixteen fortresses which formed the dowry of his wife, Eleanor of Pro vence, were confiscated and lost by this marriage and by the French invasion. He laid the blame chiefly on his mother-in-law Beatrice. She had visited England some time previous, and had been received with great honours. But when she had opportunity to discover and judge of the weakness of the King of England and his brother Richard, Beatrice regretted aloud "the having given her gars (daughters) to such imbecile princes.' Another disputed succession that St. Louis decided about the time was that of Flanders and Hainault. Jeanne, who inherited these duchies, and who had given them to her husband, Thomas of Savoy, dying without heirs, they passed to her sister Margaret. The countess had first married Bouchard, Lord of Avesnes, by whom she had several children. But it appeared that Bouchard had taken deacons' orders before entering upon military service: this coming to the ears of the Pope, His Holiness declared that he must in consequence put away his wife. D'Avesnes having repaired to Rome, was reluctantly compelled to submit to the Pope's injunction. There is an affecting account of his return and meeting with his wife, who, till then, had remained ignorant of the papal sentence. Margaret afterwards married the Count of Dampierre, by whom she had also a family; and as the sons by each marriage claimed the heritage, the dispute was likely to terminate in civil war. Margaret, however, referred the decision of the cause to St. Louis; and he settled it with his usual sense of equity, paying no attention to the ecclesiastical nullification of the marriage with D'Avesnes. The king accorded Hainault to the issue of the first marriage, and Flanders to the second, which thus passed to the family of Dampierre. In 1248 the king had almost completed his preparations for the crusade. Possessed as yet but of the right bank of the Rhone, there was no port on the Mediterranean deep and capacious enough to contain a fleet, or CHAP. VI. |