The Last Crusaders Gather

As religious enthusiasm was not sufficiently strong to make men forget their worldly interests, many nobles who had taken the cross entertained great fears of being ruined by the holy war, and most of them hesitated to set out.

Continuing Louis IX Leads The Last Crusade,
our selection from History of the Crusades by Joseph François Michaud published in 1840. The selection is presented in four easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Louis IX Leads The Last Crusade.

Time: 1270
Place: Egypt

While these bloody scenes were passing in Italy, Louis IX was following up the establishment of public peace and his darling object, the crusade, at the same time. The holy monarch did not forget that the surest manner of softening the evils of war, as well as of his absence, was to make good laws; he therefore issued several ordinances, and each of these ordinances was a monument of his justice. The most celebrated of all is the Pragmatic Sanction, which Bossuet called the firmest support of Gallican liberties. He also employed himself in elevating that monument of legislation which illustrated his reign and which became a light for following ages.

The Count of Poitiers, who was to accompany his brother, was in the meantime engaged in pacifying his provinces, and established many regulations for maintaining public order. He, above everything, endeavored to abolish slavery; having for a maxim “that men are born free, and it is always wise to bring back things to their origin.” This good prince drew upon himself the benedictions of his people; and the love of his vassals assured the duration of the laws he made.

We have said that Prince Edward, son of Henry III, had taken the oath to combat the infidels. He had recently displayed a brilliant valor in the civil war that had so long desolated England; and the deliverance of his father and the pacification of the kingdom had been the reward of his exploits. It was his esteem for the character of Louis IX, more than the spirit of devotion, that induced him to set out for the East. The King of France, who himself exhorted him to take the cross, lent him seventy livres tournois for the preparations for his voyage. Edward was to follow Louis as his vassal, and to conduct under his banners the English crusaders, united with those of Guienne. Gaston de Béarn, to whom the French monarch advanced the sum of twenty-five thousand livres, prepared to follow Prince Edward to the Holy Land.

The period fixed upon for the departure of the expedition was drawing near. By order of the legate, the curés in every parish had taken the names of the crusaders, in order to oblige them to wear the cross publicly, and all had notice to hold themselves in readiness to embark in the month of May, 1270. Louis confided the administration of his kingdom, during his absence, to Matthew, Abbot of St. Denis, and to Simon, Sieur de Nesle; he wrote to all the nobles who were to follow him into the Holy Land, to recommend them to assemble their knights and men-at-arms. As religious enthusiasm was not sufficiently strong to make men forget their worldly interests, many nobles who had taken the cross entertained great fears of being ruined by the holy war, and most of them hesitated to set out. Louis undertook to pay all the expenses of their voyage, and to maintain them at his own cost during the war — a thing that had not been done in the crusades of Louis VII or Philip Augustus, in which the ardor of the crusaders did not allow them to give a thought to their fortunes or to exercise so much foresight. We have still a valuable monument of this epoch in a charter, by which the King of France stipulates how much he is to pay to a great number of barons and knights during the time the war beyond the seas should last.

Early in the month of March, Louis repaired to the Church of St. Denis, where he received the symbols of the pilgrimage and placed his kingdom under the protection of the apostles of France. 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 everyone 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 Muslin 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; 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 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.

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