University of Virginia Library

II.17. CHAPTER XVII

ANECDOTES OF THE RETREAT — "CHATILLON, CHEVALIERS!" — DEATH OF THE BISHOP OF SOISSONS A RENEGADE HOW THE QUEEN FARED IN DAMIETTA — THE VOYAGE TO ACRE.

I MUST not forget certain matters that occurred in Egypt whilst we were there.

First of all I will tell you about my Lord Walter of Châtillon: how a knight named Lord John of Monson, told me that he saw my lord of Châtillon in the walled village where the King was taken. A street ran straight through the village, so that one could see the fields on either side. In this street was my Lord Walter of Châtillon with his naked sword in his hand. As often as he saw the Turks entering this street, he charged upon them, sword in hand, and hustled them out of the place; and whilst the Turks were fleeing before him, they (who shoot as well backwards as forwards) would cover him with darts. When he had driven them out of the village,

he would pick out the darts that were sticking all over him; and put on his coat-of-arms again; stand up in his stirrups, and brandishing his sword at arm's length cry, "Châtillon! knights! where are my paladins? " Then, turning round, and seeing that the Turks had come in at the other end of the street, he would charge them again, sword in hand, and drive them out. And this he did about three times in the manner I have described.

After the Emir of the Galleys had brought me to those who were captured on land, I made inquiries of such as belonged to Lord Walter's household, but I never found anyone who could tell me how he was taken. Only Lord John Frumons, that good knight, told me that, when they were leading him away prisoner to Mansoora, he met a Turk who was riding Lord Walter of Châtillon's horse, and the horse's crupper was all bloody. And he asked the Turk what he had done with him whose horse it was; and the Turk answered, that he had cut his throat on horseback, as might be seen from the crupper that was all covered with the blood.

There was a very brave man in the army, named

Lord James of Châtel, the Bishop of Soissons. When he saw our men in retreat to Damietta, he, who had a great longing to be with God, would not return to the land where he was born, but chose rather to hasten his journey to God. So he clapped spurs to his horse, and engaged single-handed with the Turks, who with their swords slew him, and sent him into God's presence, among the ranks of the martyrs.

Whilst the King was waiting for his servants to finish paying the Turks in order that his brother might be set free, a Saracen, very well dressed, and a very honest fellow by his looks, came to the King, and offered him milk in jars and flowers of divers kinds, on the part of the children of the Nasac, the whilom Sultan of Egypt; and he made the offering in French. The King asked him: where he had learnt French? and he replied, that he had once been a Christian. And the King said to him: "Get you hence; for I have no more to say to you."

I drew the man aside and questioned him about his affairs; and he told me, that he was born in Provence, and had come to Egypt with King John,

and that he was married in Egypt and a rich and powerful man.

I said to him: " Surely you know very well, that if you were to die in this state, you would go to hell? " " Yes," said he (for he was sure there was no religion so good as the Christian), " but I dread the poverty in which I should find myself, were I to go over to your side, and the shame. Not a day would pass, but I should hear them say: 'There goes the renegade'; and so I prefer to live rich and comfortable, rather than put myself in such a position as I foresee."

And I told him: that on the day of judgment, when his sin would be seen of all men, the shame would be much greater than what he was describing. Many good words I said to him, with very little effect. So he left me, and I never saw him again. You have already heard the great tribulations which the King and we suffered. The Queen, too, did not escape them, as you shall hear presently. For, three days before she was brought to bed, she got the news that the King was a prisoner.

This news terrified her so much, that every time she fell asleep in her bed, she fancied that her room

was all filled with Saracens, and she would scream out, "Help! help!" And for fear lest it should kill the child she was carrying, she made an aged knight eighty years old sleep beside her bed, who held her hand; and whenever the Queen cried out, he would say, " Lady, do not be afraid, for I am here."

Before she was brought to bed, she turned every one out of her room, except this knight; and she knelt down before him, and begged him to grant her a boon. The knight promised it on his oath; and she said: " I desire you " said she " by the troth you have pledged me, that if the Saracens take this town, you will cut off my head before they take me." The knight answered, " Rest assured I will readily do so. For I always meant to kill you, before we should fall into their hands."

The Queen was delivered of a son, who was named John, and whom they called Tristan, because of the great sorrow in which he was born.

On the same day that she was brought to bed, she was told that the settlers from Pisa, Genoa, and the other republics, were bent upon leaving the town. The next day she summoned them all to

her bedside, so that the whole room was packed: "Sirs," said she, " for God's sake do not abandon this town. For, look you, my lord the King would be lost, and all those who are prisoners, if this town were lost. And if you must go yet take pity on this poor woman lying here, and wait at least until I am recovered."

And they answered: " Lady, how can we do so? for we shall die of hunger in this town."

Then she told them, that they should not go for fear of famine, at least. " For I will have all the victuals in the town bought up, and retain you all henceforth at the King's expense."

They consulted together, and came back to her, and consented to remain. And the Queen God rest her soul! caused all the food in the town to be bought in, which cost her three hundred and sixty thousand pounds and more.

She was obliged to get up before her time, on account of surrendering the city to the Saracens. To Acre went the Queen, to await the King.

Whilst the King was waiting for his brother to be set free, he sent Brother Ralph, the preaching friar, to an Emir named Faracataye, one of the

most upright Saracens that I ever met, with this message: That he marvelled much how he and the other Emirs could permit their treaty with him to be so disgracefully broken; for they had killed his sick men, whom they were specially bound to protect; and had used the timber of his engines to burn their bodies and the salted pork which they had also promised to keep.

Faracataye answered Brother Ralph: " Brother Ralph " said he " tell the King, that, by my faith, I cannot help it, and it grieves me; and tell him, from me, that he must show no signs of annoyance so long as he is in our hands, or he is a dead man." And he advised him to remember it as soon as he should be in Acre.

When the King reached his ship, he found that his people had got nothing ready for him neither bedding, nor clothes; and so, until we came to Acre, he was obliged to lie on the mattresses with which the Sultan had supplied him. And he wore the clothes which the Sultan had supplied and had made for him, which were of black samite trimmed with beaver and squirrels' fur, with a mass of tassels, all of gold.

During our six days' voyage, I, being ill, sat always at the King's side; and he then told me how he had been taken prisoner, and how he had obtained his ransom and ours, by God's assistance; and he-made me relate how I had been taken on the water. And afterwards he said to me: that I ought to be very grateful to our Lord, since he had delivered me out of such great dangers.

Much did he lament the death of his brother the Count of Artois; and said that he would hardly have been withheld from visiting him, like the Count of Poitiers, but that he would have come to see him in the galleys.

Of the Count of Anjou, too, who was in his ship, he used to complain to me, that he never kept him company. One day he asked, what the Count of Anjou was doing, and was told, that he was playing at tables with my Lord Walter of Annemoes. And he walked up to them, staggering with weakness from his malady, and took the dice and the tables and flung them into the sea; and was very wroth with his brother for so soon taking to dice-playing. But my Lord Walter got the best of it, for the King flung all the money that was on the cloth (of

which there was a great quantity) into his lap, and he carried it off.

Hereafter you shall hear of divers trials and tribulations that befell me in Acre; from which God in whom I trusted and still trust delivered me. And these matters I shall have written, so that they who hear them may put their trust in God in their sufferings, and He will aid them as He did me.

NOTE TO CHAPTER XVII

With regard to the Bishop of Soissons, whose death is here narrated; at the time of the retreat, when the men in the galleys were refusing to wait for the Ring, and the Legate and Patriarch were thinking only of their own safety, the Bishop of Soissons refused to leave the King's side, and remained with him all through the night's disasters.