The Historians' History of the World 08

As ransom for the noble prisoners the sultan offered to accept some of the baronial castles in Palestine, or those which belonged to the Templars and Hospitallers. But the king and his peers replied that the liege lord, the emperor of Germany, would never consent that a pagan or Tatar should hold any fief of him; and that no cession of the property of the knights could be made, for the governors of their castles swore on their investiture that they would never surrender their charge for the deliverance of any man. The king was even threatened with torture, but as the Mussulmans saw in him no symptoms of fear on which they could work, they proposed to make a pecuniary ransom. Louis offered to pay ten thousand golden besants, which were equal to five hundred thousand livres, for the deliverance of his army, and that as the royal dignity could not be estimated by a vulgar scale, he would for his own freedom surrender the city of Damietta. The sultan was liberal in the fulness of his joy at such a completion of his victories, and remitted a fifth part of the pecuniary ransom.[77] Peace was to continue for ten years between the Mussulmans and the Christians, and the Franks were to be restored to those privileges in the kingdom of Jerusalem which they enjoyed before the landing of Louis at Damietta. The repose which succeeded the treaty was interrupted by the murder of the sultan; but after a few acts of hostility the successful emirs, and their mamelukes, renewed with a few changes the condition of amity. One moiety of the ransom was to be discharged before the king left the river, and the other on his arrival at Acre. The sick at Damietta, with the stores and baggage, were to be retained by the sultan till the last portion of the ransom should be paid.

Damietta was accordingly surrendered. But the mamelukes were more savage and unprincipled than any preceding enemies of the Latin name. They burned all the military engines, murdered the sick, and some of the most ferocious thirsted for the blood of the Christian potentates. The counsels of justice prevailed, and the Christians were relieved from their fears that the treaty would not be acted upon. The counts of Flanders and Brittany, the count of Soissons, and others embarked for France. The royal treasure at Damietta could not furnish the stipulated portion of the ransom. The new grand master of the Templars opposed the institutes of his order to the king’s request for a loan of the funds of the society, and contended that he could not divert them from their regular and appointed purposes. But state necessity trampled over mere statutable forms, and the chest of the Templars was seized by the royal officers. The king’s person was redeemed, and the French went to Acre.

The expedition of St. Louis into Egypt resembles in many respects the war in Egypt thirty years before. In both cases the Christian armies were encamped near the entrance of the Ashmun canal; they could not advance, and the surrender of Damietta was the price of safety.

[1250-1254 A.D.]