Chapter XXI: Book XIII: Seventh Crusade (2)

Before the opening of the council, the pope held a congregation in the monastery of St. Just, where he had chosen to fix his residence. The patriarch of Constantinople exposed the deplorable state of his church: heresy had resumed its empire in a great part of Greece, and the enemies of the Latin church were advancing to the very gates of Constantinople; the bishop of Berytus read a letter, in which the patriarch of Jerusalem and the barons and prelates of Palestine described the ravages of the Carismians, and showed that the heritage of Christ was upon the point of becoming the prey of the barbarians, if the West did not take arms for its defence. The dangers and misfortunes of the Christians of the East affected the fathers of the council deeply. Thadæus, taking advantage of their emotion, announced that the emperor, his master, fully partook of their profound grief, and that he was ready to employ all his powers for the defence of Christendom. Frederick promised to arrest the progress of the irruption of the Tartars, to re-establish the domination of the Latins in Greece, to go in person to the Holy Land, and to deliver the kingdom of Jerusalem; he still further promised, in order to put an end to all divisions, to restore to the Holy See all he had taken from it, and to repair all wrongs offered to the sovereign pontiff. Such lofty promises, made by the most powerful monarch of Christendom, created as much joy as surprise in the greater part of the bishops; the whole assembly appeared impatient to know what would be the reply of Innocent. The pope proved inflexible, and rejected with scorn propositions, as he said, already made several times, and which had no other guarantee but the too suspicious loyalty of Frederick. He was determined to view the new protestations of the emperor as nothing but a fresh artifice to deceive the Church, and turn aside the course of its justice. “_The axe_,” added he, “_is already lifted, and ready to cut the roots of the tree_;” words very ill assorted with the charity of the Gospel, and which plainly show that Innocent had prepared the solemn pomp of a council with less purpose to oppose the foes of Christendom than to prepare the fall, and consummate the ruin of his personal enemy.

The pope held this preparatory sitting in order to make a trial of his strength, and to become acquainted with the dispositions of the bishops. A few days afterwards, the council was opened with great solemnity in the metropolitan church of St. John; the sovereign pontiff, wearing the tiara, and clothed in pontifical robes, was placed upon an elevated seat, having on his right hand the emperor of Constantinople, and on his left the count of Provence and the count of Thoulouse. After having given out the _Veni Creator_, and invoked enlightenment from the Holy Ghost, he pronounced a discourse, for the subject of which he took the five griefs with which he was afflicted, and compared them to the five wounds of the Saviour of the world upon the cross. The first was the irruption of the Tartars; the second, the schism of the Greeks; the third, the invasion of the Holy Land by the Carismians; the fourth, the relaxation of ecclesiastical discipline and the progress of heresy; and the fifth, the persecution he endured from Frederick.

Whilst describing the misfortunes of Christendom, the pontiff could not restrain his tears. His voice, if we may believe a contemporary historian, was often stifled by sobs; he conveyed to all hearts the sentiments by which he was affected; but he soon abandoned the language of compassion and despair, and assumed that of anger and menace. The Tartars, the Carismians, and the Mussulmans, inspired him with less hatred than the emperor of Germany, and it was for this prince he reserved all the thunders of his eloquence. He reproached him, in the most vehement expressions, with all the crimes that could draw upon his head the maledictions of his age, the hatred of his contemporaries, and the contempt of posterity. When the pope had pronounced his discourse, a profound silence reigned throughout the assembly; it appeared to the greater part of the terrified bishops that the voice of Heaven had made itself heard for the purpose of condemning Frederick: all eyes were turned upon the deputies of the emperor, and no one could believe that either of them would dare to reply to the interpreter of the anger of Heaven. All at once Thadæus of Suesse arose, and addressed the council, calling upon God, who searches all hearts, to witness that the emperor was faithful to all his promises, and had never ceased to endeavour to serve the cause of the Christians. He combated all the accusations of the sovereign pontiff, and in his reply did not hesitate to allege numerous complaints against the court of Rome.[275] The angry pope replied from his lofty throne; he again accused the emperor, and evinced but too great a desire to find him guilty: the first sitting of the council, entirely occupied with these violent debates, exhibited the unedifying spectacle of a contest between the head of the faithful, who accused a Christian prince of perjury, felony, heresy, and sacrilege; and the minister of an emperor, who reproached the court of Rome with having exercised an odious despotism, and committed revolting iniquities.

This contest, the results of which were likely to prove equally injurious to the head of the Church and the head of the Empire, was prolonged during several days; it doubtless scandalized all those that the pope had not associated with him in his resentments, and most of the bishops must have been afflicted at being thus diverted from the principal object of the convocation.

At length, however, the calamities of the Eastern Christians, the captivity of Jerusalem, and the dangers of Byzantium engaged the attention of the fathers of the council. The pope and the assembly of prelates decided that a new crusade should be preached for the deliverance of the Holy Land and the Latin empire of Constantinople. They renewed all the privileges granted to Crusaders by preceding popes and councils, as well as all the penalties directed against such as should favour either pirates or Saracens: during three years all who should take the cross would be exempted from every kind of tax or public office; but if after taking the vow they did not perform it, they incurred excommunication. The council recommended to the barons and knights to reform the luxury of their tables and the splendour of their dress; they advised all the faithful, and particularly ecclesiastics, to practise works of charity, and to arm themselves with all the austerities of penitence against the enemies of God. In order to obtain the protection of Heaven by the intercession of the Holy Virgin, the pope and the fathers of the council ordered that the octave of the Nativity should be celebrated in the church. In several councils Christian knights had been forbidden to take part in the profane solemnities of tournaments; the council of Lyon renewed the prohibition, persuaded that these military festivals might turn aside the minds of the warriors from the pious thoughts of the crusades, and that the expenses they occasioned would render it impossible for the bravest of the lords and barons to make the necessary preparations for the pilgrimage beyond the seas. The council ordered that the clergy should pay the twentieth part of their revenue, and the sovereign pontiff and cardinals the tenth of theirs, to provide for the expenses of the holy war. Half of the revenues of all non-resident benefices was specially reserved for the assistance of the empire of Constantinople. The decrees of the council ordered all whose mission it was to preach the word of God, to urge princes, counts, barons, and the corporations of cities, to contribute to the extent of their power to the success of the holy war; the same statutes recommended the clergy to show to the faithful that sacrifices offered to the crusade were the surest means of redeeming their sins; but above all they recommended the clergy to excite the faithful, in the tribunal of penitence, to multiply their offerings, or at least to bequeath in their testaments something for the assistance of the Christians of the East.

It was thus the council declared war against nations opposed to the Christians, and prepared means for assuring the triumphs of the soldiers of Christ. We are nevertheless surprised that the pope said nothing about preaching a crusade against the Tartars, whose invasion he had compared to one of the wounds of the Saviour on the cross. In the state of desolation in which Hungary was then placed, none of the bishops of that unfortunate kingdom had been able to appear at the council, and no friendly voice was raised to direct attention to, or implore favour for the Hungarian nation. The Tartars, it is true, repulsed by the duke of Neustadt, had fallen back from the banks of the Danube; but there was great reason to dread their return: to prevent fresh invasions, the council contented itself with advising the Germans to dig ditches and build walls on the roads the Tartarian hordes were likely to take. These measures, which even then must have been known to be insufficient, assist us at the present day in forming an opinion of the spirit of improvidence and blindness which then presided over political councils. Who can fail to be surprised at seeing, in an assembly so grave as a council, Europe pressed to lavish its treasures and sacrifice its armies for the deliverance of Constantinople and Jerusalem, whilst the most redoubtable of the barbarians were at their doors, and threatening to invade their own territories?

We may, however, remark, that Frederick himself had solicited the powers of Europe to assist him in repelling the Tartars; and the pope took much less interest in succouring the empire than he did in endeavouring to wrest it from Frederick. Innocent seemed very little disposed to set an example of that spirit of concord and charity which the council had just recommended to Christian princes; history can but deplore the zeal and ardour he evinced in carrying out his projects of vengeance against the emperor of Germany, at the risk of arousing evil passions, of perpetuating discord, and thus giving up the West to the invasion of the barbarians. In the second sitting of the council he was preparing to crush his enemy and completely overwhelm him with the weight of ecclesiastical power, when Thadæus of Suesse demanded a delay of a few days, to allow the emperor to come in person to justify his conduct and demonstrate his loyalty. The defender of Frederick hoped that the presence of a powerful monarch, by awakening in the minds of the assembly the respect due to the majesty of kings, would bring about the triumph of justice. The pope consented, though very unwillingly, to defer the accomplishment of his menaces; but the emperor could not condescend to appear as a suppliant before an assembly convoked by the most implacable of his enemies: he did not come to the council, and when the required period of delay had expired, the sovereign pontiff took advantage of his absence to reproach him afresh with his bad faith, and his resistance to the laws of the Church.

At the moment in which the assembly of the bishops tremblingly awaited the terrible sentence, the English ambassadors arose to complain of the agents of the court of Rome, whose ambition and avarice were ruining the kingdom of England; they at the same time protested against the feudal supremacy which the pope, in consequence of a cession made by King John, pretended to exercise over the English monarchy and nation. These claims could not restrain the ever-boiling anger of the sovereign pontiff. In vain Thadæus again rose to urge that a great number of bishops were absent—that several princes had not sent their ambassadors to the council; in vain he declared that he should appeal from this to a more numerous and more solemn council; nothing could turn aside the storm or retard the hour of vengeance. Innocent at first replied with moderation to the deputies of England, and even to those of Frederick; but soon assuming the tone of a judge and a master, “I am,” said he, “the vicar of Jesus Christ; all that which I shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, according to the promises of the Son of God made to the prince of the apostles; and therefore, after having deliberated upon it with our brethren the cardinals, and with the council, I declare Frederick attainted and convicted of sacrilege and heresy, to be excommunicated and degraded from the empire; I absolve from their oaths, for ever, all who have sworn fidelity to him; I forbid any, under pain of excommunication incurred by that single fault, to henceforth yield him obedience; to conclude, I command the electors to elect another emperor, and I reserve to myself the right of disposing of the kingdom of Sicily.”

During the reading of this sentence, the pope and the prelates held lighted wax tapers in their hands, and bent towards the earth in sign of malediction and anathema. The envoys of Frederick retired filled with confusion and despair; Thadæus of Suesse was heard to pronounce these words of the Scripture: “_O terrible day! O day of anger and calamity!_” A deep and melancholy silence prevailed throughout this assembly, into the bosom of which it appeared as if the bolts of heaven had just fallen amidst awful peals. The pope alone appeared collected, and his countenance was radiant with joy; he gave out the _Te Deum_, as if he had obtained a victory over the infidels, and declared that the council had terminated its labours.

Such was the council of Lyons, too celebrated in the annals of the middle ages, which has frequently supplied the enemies of religion with a pretext for attacking the judgments of the Church. The pope in his opening discourse had deplored the progress of heresy; but always more eager to combat the enemies of his power than those of religion, he did not propose a single measure to arrest the progress of the new errors. In this council, which had no tendency to the enlightenment of the faithful, the majesty of kings was violently outraged; all the maxims of the rights of nations, and all the precepts of scriptural charity were in it trampled under foot. When Innocent announced the intention of deposing the emperor, not a single bishop raised his voice to divert the sovereign pontiff from this revolting use of his power. The real wrongs that Frederick had committed against the Church; the remembrance of the persecutions he had exercised towards several bishops; the intention which they believed he entertained of plundering the clergy; the threatening language and tone of the pope; that invincible influence under which all feel themselves in a numerous assembly—all assisted in preventing any of the bishops from pleading the cause of reason or recalling the maxims of the Gospel to the mind of the enraged pontiff. Nevertheless the fathers of the council, whatever might be their prejudices or their resentments, did not take part in all the fury of Innocent, and did not actively assist in carrying out his acts of injustice and violence.

The pope did not appeal to their wisdom, and seemed afraid to ask their opinions. Without repeating here that which has frequently been said in schools of theology, impartial history must disapprove of the silent neutrality of the council; but it must at the same time assert that the odious decree against Frederick was not an act of the Church; that the bishops and prelates did not give their formal approbation to it; and that the shame of this great iniquity fails entirely upon the memory of Innocent.[276]

It was at this deplorable period that the cardinals, by order of the pope, clothed themselves for the first time in the scarlet robe, a symbol of persecution, and a sad presage of the blood that was about to flow. Frederick was at Turin when he heard of his condemnation; at this news he called for his imperial crown, and placing it upon his head, exclaimed in a loud and angry voice, “There it is, and before it shall be wrested from me, my enemies shall well know the terror of my arms; let this pontiff tremble, who has broken every tie that bound me to him; he at length permits me henceforth to listen to nothing but the dictates of my just anger.” These threatening words announced a formidable contest, and every friend of peace must have been seized with terror: the fury which animated the emperor and the pope quickly passed into the minds of the people; in the provinces of Germany and Italy all flew to arms. Amidst the agitation in which the West was then plunged, it is probable that Jerusalem and the Holy Land would have been quite forgotten, if a powerful and highly-revered monarch had not placed himself at the head of the crusade which had been proclaimed in the council of Lyons.

The preceding year, at the very moment the nations of the West heard of the last misfortunes of Palestine, Louis IX. of France fell dangerously ill. The most earnest prayers were offered up by the people of his kingdom for the preservation of the virtuous monarch. The malady, the attacks of which became every day more violent, at length created serious alarm. Louis sunk into a mortal lethargy, and the intelligence was soon circulated that he was dead. The court, the capital, the provinces were struck with the deepest grief; nevertheless, the king of France, as if Heaven had not been able to resist the prayers and tears of a whole nation, recovered, even when apparently at the portals of the tomb. The first use he made of speech, after again beholding the light, was to ask for the cross and express his determination of going to the Holy Land.

Those who surrounded him considered his return to life as a miracle effected by the crown of thorns of Christ, and by the protection of the apostles of France; they cast themselves on their knees to return thanks to Heaven, and in the joy they experienced, scarcely paid attention to the vow Louis had made of quitting his kingdom and going to fight against the infidels in the East. When the king began to recover his strength, he repeated his vow, and again asked for the cross of the Crusaders.[277] The queen Blanche, his mother, the princes of his family, and Pierre d’Auvergne, bishop of Paris, then endeavoured to divert him from his purpose, and conjured him, with tears in their eyes, to wait till he was perfectly restored to health before he directed his thoughts to so perilous an enterprise; but Louis thought he was only obeying the will of Heaven. His imagination had been forcibly affected by the calamities of the Holy Land; Jerusalem given up to pillage, the tomb of Christ profaned, were constantly present to his mind. Amidst the height of a burning fever, he had fancied he heard a voice which came from the East, and addressed these words to him: “_King of France, thou seest the outrages offered to the city of Christ; it is thou whom Heaven hath appointed to avenge them_.” This celestial voice resounded still in his ears, and would not allow him to listen to the prayers of friendship or the counsels of human wisdom. Steadfast in his resolution, he received the cross from the hands of Pierre d’Auvergne, and caused it to be announced to the Christians of Palestine—sending them at the same time succours of both men and money—that he would cross the seas as soon as he could assemble an army, and had reëstablished peace in his dominions.

This information, which conveyed such joy to the Christian colonies, spread grief and consternation through all the provinces of France. The sieur de Joinville expresses warmly the regret of the royal family, particularly the despair of the queen mother,[278] by saying, that when this princess saw her son wearing the cross, _she was struck as fearfully as if she had looked upon him dead_. The late disasters of Jerusalem had drawn tears from most Christians in the West, but without inspiring them, as in the preceding age, with any earnest desire of going to fight the infidels. It was impossible to see, in these distant expeditions, anything but great perils and inevitable reverses; and the project of recovering the city of God awakened more alarm than enthusiasm.

The sovereign pontiff, however, sent ecclesiastics into all the Christian states with a charge to preach the holy war. Cardinal Eudes, of Chateauroux, arrived in France with the express commission of publishing and causing to be executed the decrees of the council of Lyons respecting the crusade. The holy expedition was preached in all the churches of the kingdom. Contemporary history scarcely mentions the effect of these preachings, and everything leads us to believe that those who then took the oath to fight against the Saracens were induced to do so more by the example of the king than by the eloquence of the holy orators.

In order to give more solemnity to the publication of the crusade, and to excite the ardour of the warriors for the deliverance of the holy places, Louis IX. convoked a parliament in his capital, in which were assembled the prelates and magnates of the kingdom. The cardinal legate there repeated the exhortations addressed by the head of the Church to the faithful. Louis IX. spoke after the cardinal of Chateauroux, and retraced the picture of the disasters of Palestine. “According to the expression of David, an impious nation has entered into the temple of the Lord; blood has flowed like water around Jerusalem; the servants of God have been massacred in the sanctuary; and their remains, deprived of sepulture, are abandoned to the birds of heaven.” After having deplored the miseries of Sion, Louis IX. reminded his barons and knights of the example of Louis the Young and of Philip Augustus; he exhorted every generous soldier who heard him to take arms, to go across the seas, fight against the infidels, and defend the glory of God and of the French name in the East. Louis, invoking by turns the charity and the warlike virtues of his auditory, endeavoured to awaken in all hearts both inspirations of piety and sentiments of chivalry. There is no necessity for repeating what was the effect of the exhortations and prayers of a king of France who addressed himself to the honour, and appealed to the bravery of his subjects. He had scarcely ceased speaking, when his three brothers, Robert, count d’Artois, Alphonse, duke of Poictiers, and Charles, duke of Anjou, took the oath to go and defend the heritage of Christ and the French colonies in Asia. Queen Marguerite, the countess d’Artois, and the duchess of Poictiers, likewise took the cross and resolved to accompany their husbands. Most of the bishops and prelates who were present at this assembly, influenced by the discourse of the king and the example of the cardinal-legate, did not hesitate to enrol themselves in a war for which, it is true, less enthusiasm was shown than had appeared in a former age, but which was still termed _the war of God_. Among the great vassals of the crown who swore to quit France for the purpose of fighting the Saracens in Asia, the friends of the French monarchy must have numbered, with much joy, Pierre de Dreux, duke of Brittany, Hugh, count de la Marche, and several other lords whose jealous ambition had so long disturbed the kingdom. Quickly after them were seen the duke of Burgundy, Hugh de Chatillon, the count de St. Pol, the counts of Dreux, Bar, Soissons, Blois, Rhotel, Montfort, and Vendôme; the seigneur de Beaujeu, constable of France, and John de Beaumont, great admiral, and great chamberlain; Philip of Courtenay, Guy of Flanders, Archambaud de Bourbon, young Raoul de Coucy, John of Barres, Gilles de Mailly, Robert de Bethune, and Oliver de Thermes. There was not an illustrious family in the kingdom that did not supply one hero for the crusade. In the crowd of these noble Crusaders, history is gratified in observing the celebrated Boilève, who was afterwards provost of the traders of Paris, and the sieur de Joinville, whose name will for ever appear in the history of France by the side of that of Louis IX.

In the assembly of prelates and barons several measures were adopted for the maintenance of public peace and the preparations for the holy war. An immense number of processes at that period disturbed the peace of families, and those processes, of which many were decided by the sword, often amounted to actual wars. The tribunals were enjoined to terminate all affairs brought before them, and in cases in which they could not oblige the parties to acquiesce in a definite judgment, the judges were directed to make them swear to a truce of five years. In agreement with the authority of the pope, and the decrees of the council of Lyons, it was ordered that ecclesiastics should pay to the king the tenth of their revenues, which created a dissatisfaction in the clergy that Louis had great trouble in dispelling. A proscript, issued by royal authority, in concert with the will of the pope, decreed that Crusaders should be protected during three years from the pursuits of their creditors, reckoning from the day of their departure for the Holy Land; this proscript, which likewise excited much murmuring, had great effect in determining many barons and knights to leave the West.

Louis IX. occupied himself constantly in carrying his design into execution, and neglected no means of winning to his purpose all the nobility of his kingdom; his piety did not disdain to employ, for what he considered a sacred cause, all the empire that kings generally possess over their courtiers; he sometimes even lowered himself to seduction and trick, persuaded that the sanctity of the crusade would excuse everything. After an ancient custom, the kings of France, at great solemnities, gave such of their subjects as were at court certain capes or furred mantles, with which the latter immediately clothed themselves before leaving the court. In the ancient _comptes_ (a sort of audits) these capes were called _livrées_ (whence, no doubt, our word livery), because the monarch gave them (_les livrait_) himself. Louis ordered a vast number of these to be prepared against Christmas Eve, upon which crosses were embroidered in gold and silk. The moment being come, every one covered himself with the mantle that had been given to him, and followed the monarch to the chapel. What was their astonishment when, by the light of the wax tapers, they at once perceived upon all before them, and then upon themselves, the sign of an engagement they had never contracted. Such was, however, the character of the French knights, that they believed themselves obliged to respond to this appeal to their bravery; all the courtiers, as soon as divine service was ended, joined in the laugh with _the skilful fisher of men_,[279] and took the oath to accompany him into Asia.

Notwithstanding all these efforts, the publication of the holy war created in the nation much more sorrow than warlike ardour, and the approaching departure of the monarch afflicted all France. Queen Blanche, and the most prudent of the ministers, who had at first endeavoured to divert Louis IX. from the crusade, repeated their attempts several times: resolved to make a last effort, they went to the king in a body. The bishop of Paris was at their head, and spoke for all; this virtuous prelate represented to Louis, that a vow made in the height of a disease ought not to bind him in an irrevocable manner, particularly if the interests of his kingdom imposed upon him the obligation of dispensing with it. “Everything demanded the presence of the monarch in his dominions; the Poitevins were threatening to take up arms again; the war of the Albigeois was ready to be rekindled; the animosity of England was always to be dreaded, as it paid little heed to treaties; the wars occasioned by the pretensions of the pope and the emperor inflamed all the states adjoining to France, and the conflagration was not unlikely to extend to that kingdom.” Many of the nobles to whom Louis had confided the most important functions of the state, spoke after the bishop of Paris, and represented to the monarch that all the institutions founded by his wisdom would perish in his absence; that France would lose by his departure the fruits of the victories of Saintes and Taillebourg, with all the hopes that the virtues of a great prince made her entertain. Queen Blanche spoke the last. “My son,” said she, “if Providence has made use of me to watch over your infancy and preserve your crown, I have perhaps the right to remind you of the duties of a monarch, and of the obligations which the safety of the kingdom over which God has placed you imposes upon you; but I prefer speaking to you with the tenderness of a mother. You know, my son, that I can have but few days to live, and your departure leaves me only the thought of an eternal separation: happy still if I die before fame may have borne into Europe the intelligence of some great disasters. Up to this day, you have disdained both my counsels and my prayers; but if you will not take pity on my sorrows, think at least of your children, whom you abandon in the cradle; they stand in need of your lessons and your assistance; what will become of them in your absence? are they not as dear to you as the Christians of the East? If you were now in Asia, and were informed that your deserted family was the sport and prey of factions, you would not fail to hasten to us. Well! all these evils that my tenderness makes me dread, your departure is most likely to give birth to. Remain then in Europe, where you will have so many opportunities of displaying the virtues of a great king, of a king the father of his subjects, the model and support of the princes of his house. If Christ requires his heritage to be delivered, send your treasures and your armies into the East; God will bless a war undertaken in his name. But this God, who hears me, believe me, never commands the accomplishment of a vow which is contrary to the great designs of his providence. No; that God of mercy who would not permit Abraham to complete his sacrifice, does not permit you to complete yours, and expose a life upon which so entirely depend both the fate of your family and the welfare of your kingdom.”

On finishing these words, Queen Blanche could not restrain her tears; Louis himself was deeply moved, and threw himself into the arms of his mother; but soon resuming a calm and serene countenance, he said: “My dear friends, you know that all Christendom is acquainted with my resolution; during several months the preparations for the crusade have been carried on under my orders. I have written to all the princes of Europe that I was about to leave my dominions and to repair to Asia; I have announced to the Christians of Palestine that I would succour them in person; I have myself preached the crusade in my kingdoms; a host of barons and knights have obeyed my voice, followed my example, and sworn to accompany me into the East. What do you now propose to me? to change my projects publicly proclaimed, to do nothing that I have promised to do, or that Europe expects of me, and to deceive at once the hopes of the Church, of the Christians of Palestine, and of my faithful nobility.”

“Nevertheless, as you think that I was not in possession of my reason when I took the cross; well, I give it back to you; there is that cross which gives you so much alarm, and which I only took, you say, in a fit of delirium. But now that I am in the full enjoyment of my reason I ask it of you again, and I solemnly declare that no food shall enter my mouth until you have returned it to me. Your reproaches and your complaints affect me with the deepest sorrow; but learn to be better acquainted with my duties and your own; aid me in seeking for true glory; second me in the powerful cause in which I am engaged, and do not alarm yourselves on account of my destiny or that of my family and people. The God who made me victorious at Taillebourg will watch over the designs and plots of our enemies; yes, the God who sends me into Asia to deliver his heritage, will defend that of my children, and pour his blessings upon France. Have we not still her who was the support of my childhood and the guide of my youth, her whose wisdom saved the state in so many perils, and who, in my absence, will want neither courage nor ability to crush factions? Allow me, then, to keep all the promises I have made before God and before men; and do not forget that there are obligations which are sacred for me, and ought to be sacred for you—I mean the oath of a Christian and the word of a king!”

Thus spoke Louis IX.: Queen Blanche, the bishop of Paris, and the other counsellors of the king preserved a religious silence, and from that time only thought of seconding the endeavours the monarch was making to forward the execution of an undertaking which appeared to emanate from God.[280]

The crusade was preached at this time in all the countries of Europe; but as most states were filled with agitation and discord, the voices of the sacred orators were lost amidst the din of factions and the tumult of arms. When the bishop of Berytus went into England, to entreat the English monarch to succour the Christians of the East, Henry III. was fully employed in repelling the aggressions of the king of Scotland, and in appeasing the troubles of the country of Wales. The barons menaced his authority, and did not permit him to engage in a distant war. This prince not only refused to take the cross, but forbade the preaching of a crusade in his kingdom.

All Germany was in a blaze in consequence of the quarrel between the Church and the Empire. After having deposed the emperor at the council of Lyons, Innocent IV. offered the imperial crown to any one who would take up arms against the excommunicated prince, and bring about the triumph of the Holy See. Henry, landgrave of Thuringia, allowed himself to be seduced by the promises of the sovereign pontiff, and was crowned emperor by the archbishops of Mayence and Cologne, and a few other ecclesiastical electors. From that event civil war broke out in all parts; Germany was filled with missionaries from the pope, with the power of the evangelical word against Frederick, whom they styled the most redoubtable of infidels. The treasures collected for the equipments of the holy war were employed in corrupting fidelity, laying plots, fomenting treasons, and keeping up troubles and discords; so that it may well be supposed the cause of Christ and the deliverance of Jerusalem were entirely forgotten.

Italy was not less agitated than Germany; the thunders of Rome, so often hurled at Frederick, had redoubled the fury of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. All the republics of Lombardy were leagued in opposition to the party of the emperor; the threats and the manifestoes of the pope would not allow a single city to remain neuter, or leave peace an asylum in the countries situated between the Alps and Sicily. The missionaries of Innocent employed, by turns, the arms of religion and of policy; after having declared the emperor to be a heretic and an enemy to the Church, they represented him as a bad prince and a tyrant, and dazzled the eyes of the people with the charms of liberty, always so powerful a motive upon the minds of nations. The sovereign pontiff sent two legates into the kingdom of Sicily, with letters for the clergy, the nobility, and the people of the cities and country. “We have not been able to see without some surprise,” wrote Innocent, “that, burdened as you are, living under the opprobrium of servitude, and oppressed in your persons and your property, you have hitherto neglected the means of securing yourselves the sweets of liberty. Many other nations have presented you with an example; but the Holy See, far from accusing you, is satisfied with pitying you, and finds your excuse in the fear that must hold possession of your hearts under the yoke of a new Nero.” On terminating his letter to the Sicilians, the pope endeavoured to make them understand that God had not placed them in a fertile region and beneath a smiling sky to wear disgraceful chains; and that by shaking off the yoke of the emperor of Germany, they would only second the views of Providence.

Frederick, who had at first defied the thunders of Rome, was terrified at the new war declared against him by the pope. The interdict placed upon his states, the terrible array of the maledictions of the Church, strongly affected the minds of the multitude, and might at length shake the fidelity of his subjects; he himself felt his courage forsake him; his party in Italy grew weaker every day; his armies had experienced some checks in Germany; many conspiracies had been formed against his life, and amongst the conspirators, he had the grief to find some of his servants whom he had loaded with kindnesses. This haughty monarch became convinced that he had no course but to seek a reconciliation with the Church, and addressed himself to Louis IX., whose wisdom and piety rendered him the arbiter of sovereigns and nations. Frederick, in his letters, promised to abide by the decision of the king of France and his barons, and engaged, beforehand, to go in person to the conquest of the Holy Land, or to send his son, the king of the Romans. In order to interest Louis in his cause, the emperor offered to supply him with provisions, vessels, and everything he should stand in need of in the expedition to the East.

Louis eagerly embraced this opportunity for reëstablishing peace in Europe and assuring the success of the holy war. Several ambassadors were sent to the pope at Lyons, conjuring the father of the faithful to listen to the voice of mercy rather than to that of anger. The king of France had two long conferences with Innocent in the monastery of Cluni, and supplicated him afresh to appease by his clemency the troubles of the Christian world; but enmity had been carried too far to leave any hopes of peace; it was not possible for Innocent and Frederick to pardon each other sincerely the outrages they had mutually committed. The emperor had spared neither threats nor violences against the popes; he did not hate them more for the injuries he had received from them than for those he had done them. On the other side, it had for a length of time been determined, in the councils of Rome, to effect the overthrow of the house of Swabia, which was suspected, and with reason, of entertaining the project of invading Italy and establishing the seat of imperial domination in the city of St. Peter. This policy, embraced with ardour, had assumed all the character of a personal vengeance in the mind of Innocent. The triumph, even, of the pontiff, whilst flattering his pride and ambition, appeared to double his hatred, and the hope of completing the ruin of his enemy rendered him implacable.

In vain the emperor of Germany, overcome by fear rather than won by the love of peace, promised to descend from his throne, and pass the remainder of his days in Palestine, on condition that he should receive the benediction of the pope, and that his son Conrad should be raised to the empire. This entire abnegation of power, this strange abasement of royal majesty, produced no effect upon Innocent, who did not believe, or feigned not to believe, the promises of Frederick; in vain Louis IX., whose mind was incapable of suspecting imposture, represented to the pope the advantages that Europe, Christendom, and the court of Rome itself might derive from the repentance and offers of the emperor; in vain he spoke to him of the vows and the safety of pilgrims, of the glory and peace of the Church; the discourses of the holy king were scarcely listened to, and his pious mind could not view, without being moved with disgust, this inflexible rigour in the father of the Christian world.

Whilst the report of these discords, upon gaining the East, spread joy among the infidels, the unhappy inhabitants of Palestine gave themselves up to despair on learning that so many untoward events retarded the preparations for the crusade. Several messages from the Christians beyond the seas were sent to the sovereign pontiff to intercede for a prince from whom they hoped for such powerful assistance. The patriarch of Armenia wrote to the court of Rome to demand favour for Frederick; he demanded it in the name of the threatened Christian colonies; in the name of the city of God, fallen into ruins; in the name of the sepulchre of Christ, profaned by barbarians. The pope made no reply whatever to the patriarch of the Armenians, and appeared to have forgotten Jerusalem, the holy sepulchre, and the Christians of Syria; he had, indeed, but one thought,—that of carrying on the war against Frederick. Innocent pursued his redoubtable enemy even to the East, and endeavoured to induce the sultan of Cairo to break his engagements with the emperor of Germany. The sultan of Cairo received, with as great joy as surprise, a message which informed him so authentically of the divisions that existed among the Christian princes; he answered the pope with a severity full of contempt; and the more he was pressed to be unfaithful to the treaties made with Frederick, the more he affected to display a fidelity from which he hoped to obtain an advantage over the Christian Church.

It was at this period that the emperor of Germany, urged on to despair, in some sort justified the most violent proceedings of the court of Rome by his conduct. He could not pardon Louis IX. for having remained neuter in a quarrel that interested all Christendom, and if the Arabian historian Yafey may be believed, he sent an ambassador secretly into Asia to warn the Mussulman powers of the expedition projected by the king of France. Throwing off at once the tone of submission to the pope, he resolved to repel force by force, and violence by violence. Some successes which he obtained in Germany, raised his courage, and completely dissipated all his scruples. He laid siege to the city of Parma, at the head of a formidable army. Horrible cruelties signalized his first triumphs; the bishop of Arezzo, who fell into his hands, with many other prisoners of war, were loaded with irons, and handed over to the executioner without even the ceremony of a trial.

In the intoxication of success, Frederick threatened to cross the Alps, and attack Innocent within the walls of Lyons. Heaven, however, would not permit the execution of a project formed by hatred and revenge. The Guelphs beat and dispersed the imperial army. Fortune changed, and the irresolute character of Frederick changed as suddenly with it. Victory had inflamed his pride and redoubled his fury; a single defeat cast him into despondency, and rendered him again accessible to fear. From that time he resumed the part of a suppliant to the pope; from that time protestations and prayers seemed to cost his terrified mind no effort.

As the extent of his empire gave umbrage to the court of Rome, Frederick promised to divide his dominions, and give Sicily to his son Henry, and Germany to his son Conrad. He submitted his religious belief to the examination of several bishops, and sent their decision to the pope. He went at last even so far as to promise to come in person to solicit the clemency of Innocent. The sovereign pontiff had just caused the count of Holland to be nominated emperor, in the place of the landgrave of Thuringia, who had died on the field of battle. In this state of things he dreaded less the hostilities and angry threats of Frederick, than he did his protestations of submission and repentance. The supplications of princes and nations, who demanded favour for a power he wished to destroy, annoyed Innocent; they seemed to accuse him, in the eyes of Christendom, of obstinacy in his refusal, and without inducing him to renounce his policy, only embarrassed him in the execution of his designs.

The pope remained constantly inflexible; but astonished Europe began to ask what powerful interest it was that commanded all these rigours. Frederick, pursued with so much inveteracy, found at length the number and zeal of his friends and partisans increase. Germany, Cologne, and several other cities, rejected the decrees of the Holy See, and proceeded to violent excesses. The angry pope launched all his thunders against the guilty, and by an injustice which characterizes these times of discord and vengeance, many of the penalties he pronounced extended to the fourth generation. This senseless rage completed the alienation of men’s minds, and the fanaticism of heresy was added to the furies of civil war.

As the court of Rome, under the imposing pretext of the crusade, levied tributes in all the states of Europe to keep up the fire of sedition and revolt, so many violences, and so much injustice infused dissatisfaction everywhere, and gave birth to a spirit of opposition among nations even, that had been exempt from the consequences of the terrible quarrel. The commissaries of the Holy See ruined the provinces of France; they pervaded the cities and countries, compelling the curates and chaplains of the nobles to sell all their little property; they required from all, church dues; and from religious communities, now the twentieth for the crusade against Constantinople, then the tenth for that of Palestine, and at last a contribution towards carrying on the war against the emperor. The French nobility, stimulated by a feeling of patriotism, by the spirit of chivalry which led all the _preux_ of that time to enter the lists against iniquity of any kind, and perhaps also by the fear of being oppressed in their turn, spoke loudly in favour of Frederick, and expressed their anger at seeing the kingdom of France a prey to the agents of the pope. Just remonstrances were at first made; but in a short time no measures were observed, and they proceeded so far as to agitate the question, whether they ought to acknowledge a pontiff, whose conduct appeared so contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, as the vicar of Jesus Christ. The principal French nobles at length formed a confederacy against the proceedings of the pope and the clergy. Throughout this new struggle, Louis IX., equally removed from that sacrilegious impiety which pretends to brave everything, and from that superstitious pusillanimity which believes itself obliged to suffer everything, managed to restrain the excesses of both parties, and maintain peace; the league which was then formed, without embittering men’s minds, succeeded in enlightening them; it served, during the absence of the king, to repress the enterprises of the Holy See, and many writers trace to this period the origin of those Gallican liberties which have constituted the glory of the French clergy up to modern times.

Nevertheless, Louis IX. was constantly employed in preparations for his departure. As no other route to the East was available but that by sea, and as the kingdom of France had no port in the Mediterranean, Louis made the acquisition of the territory of Aigues-Mortes, in Provence; the port, choked with sand, was cleansed, and a city large enough to receive the crowd of pilgrims was built on the shore. Louis at the same time busied himself in provisioning his army, and preparing magazines in the isle of Cyprus, where he meant to land. Thibault, count de Bar, and the sieur de Beaujeu, sent into Italy, found everything necessary for the provisioning and transport of an army, either in the republic of Venice, or in the rich provinces of Apulia and Sicily, whither the directions of the emperor Frederick had preceded them.

The fame of these preparations soon reached Syria, and the authors of the times describe the Mussulman powers as struck with terror, and as immediately and earnestly employed in fortifying their cities and their frontiers against the approaching invasion of the Franks. Such popular rumours as were then in circulation that history has deigned to preserve, accuse the Saracens of having employed perfidious means and odious stratagems to avenge themselves upon the Christian nations, and ruin their enterprise. It was asserted that the life of Louis IX. was in danger from the emissaries of the Old Man of the Mountain; it was reported in cities, and the multitude did not fail to give credit to it, that the pepper which came from the East was empoisoned; and Matthew Paris, a grave historian, does not hesitate to affirm that a great number of persons died of it before this horrible artifice was discovered. We may well believe that the policy of the time itself invented these gross fables, to render the enemies they were about to combat more odious, and that indignation might increase and animate the courage of the warriors. It is natural also to suppose, that such rumours had their origin in popular ignorance, and that they gained credit from the opinion that was then entertained of the manners and characters of infidel nations.

Three years had passed away since the king of France assumed the cross. He convoked a new parliament at Paris, in which he at length fixed the departure of the holy expedition for the month of June of the following year (1248). The barons and prelates renewed with him the promises of fighting against the infidels, and engaged to set out at the period assigned, under the penalty of incurring ecclesiastical censures. Louis took advantage of the moment that the magnates of his kingdom were assembled in the name of religion, to require that they should take the oath of fealty and homage to his children, and to make them swear (these are the expressions of Joinville) “that they should be loyal to his family, if any misadventure should befall his person in the holy voyage beyond the seas.”[281]

It was then that the pope addressed a letter to the nobility and people of France, in which he celebrated in solemn terms the bravery and other warlike virtues of the French nation and its pious monarch. The sovereign pontiff gave his benediction to the French Crusaders, and threatened with the thunders of the Church all who, having made the vow of pilgrimage, deferred their departure. Louis IX., who had no doubt requested this warning from the pope, saw with joy all the nobility of his kingdom hasten to join his standard; many nobles, whose ambition he had repressed, were the first to set the example, for fear of awakening old mistrusts or incurring fresh disgraces; others, seduced by the habitual spirit of courts, declared themselves with ardour champions of the cross, in the hope of obtaining, not the rewards of Heaven, but those of the earth. The character of Louis IX. inspired the greatest confidence in all the Christian warriors. “If, till this time,” said they, “God has permitted the crusades to be nothing but a long course of reverses and calamities, it is because the imprudence of the leaders has compromised the safety of the Christian armies; it is because discord and licentiousness of manners have reigned too long among the defenders of the cross: but what evils have we to dread under a prince whom Heaven appears to have inspired with its own wisdom,—under a prince who, by his firmness, has succeeded in suppressing every division in his own country, and is about to exhibit to the East an example of all the virtues?”