ambiguous and very reserved counsel. When he learned that Louis was
taking with him on the crusade three of his sons, aged respectively
twenty-two, eighteen, and seventeen, he could not refrain from writing to
the Cardinal of St. Cecile, "It doth not strike us as an act of well-
balanced judgment to impose the taking of the cross upon so many of the
king's sons, and especially the eldest; and, albeit we have heard reasons
to the contrary, either we be much mistaken or they are utterly devoid of
reason." Even the king's personal condition was matter for grave
anxiety. His health was very much enfeebled; and several of his most
intimate and most far-seeing advisers were openly opposed to his design.
He vehemently urged Joinville to take the cross again with him; but
Joinville refused downright. "I thought," said he, "that they all
committed a mortal sin to advise him the voyage, because the whole
kingdom was in fair peace at home and with all neighbors, and, so soon as
he departed, the state of the kingdom did nought but worsen. They also
committed a great sin to advise him the voyage in the great state of
weakness in which his body was, for he could not bear to go by chariot or
to ride; he was so weak that he suffered me to carry him in my arms from
the hotel of the Count of Auxerre, the place where I took leave of him,
to the Cordeliers. And nevertheless, weak as he was, had he remained in
France, he might have lived yet a while and wrought much good."

All objections, all warnings, all anxieties came to nothing in the face
of Louis's fixed idea and pious passion. He started from Paris on the
16th of March, 1270, a sick man almost already, but with soul content,
and probably the only one without misgiving in the midst of all his
comrades. It was once more at Aigues-Mortes that he went to embark. All
was as yet dark and undecided as to the plan of the expedition. Was
Egypt, or Palestine, or Constantinople, or Tunis, to be the first point
of attack? Negotiations, touching this subject, had been opened with the