them for their licentiousness, and in reconciling the Templars and
Hospitallers. His kindness was injurious to his power; he lent too ready
an ear to the wishes or complaints of his comrades, and small matters
took up his thoughts and his time almost as much as great.

At last a start was made from Cyprus in May, 1249, and, in spite of
violent gales of wind which dispersed a large number of vessels, they
arrived on the 4th of June before Damietta.

The crusader-chiefs met on board the king's ship, the Mountjoy; and one
of those present, Guy, a knight in the train of the Count of Melun, in a
letter to one of his friends; a student at Paris, reports to him the
king's address in the following terms: "My friends and lieges, we shall
be invincible if we be inseparable in brotherly love. It was not without
the will of God that we arrived here so speedily. Descend we upon this
land and occupy it in force. I am not the King of France. I am not Holy
Church. It is all ye who are King and Holy Church. I am but a man whose
life will pass away as that of any other man whenever it shall please
God. Any issue of our expedition is to usward good; if we be conquered
we shall wing our way to heaven as martyrs; and if we be conquerors, men
will celebrate the glory of the Lord; and that of France, and, what is
more, that of Christendom, will grow thereby. It were senseless to
suppose that God, whose providence is over everything, raised me up for
nought: He will see in us His own, His mighty cause. Fight we for
Christ; it is Christ who will triumph in us, not for our own sake, but
for the honor and blessedness of His name." It was determined to
disembark the next day. An army of Saracens lined the shore. The galley
which bore the oriflamme was one of the first to touch. When the king
heard tell that the banner of St. Denis was on shore, he, in spite of the
pope's legate, who was with him, would not leave it; he leaped into the