University of Virginia Library

III.13. CHAPTER XIII

HOW THE ARMY SAILED FOR FRANCE; AND OF THE ADVENTURES THAT BEFELL THEM ON THEIR VOYAGE HOME.

ALL Lent, the King busied himself fitting out his ships to return to France. There were thirteen of them some ships, some galleys. They were all made ready by the Vigil of St. Mark, after Easter, on which day the King and Queen went aboard their ship; and we had a favourable wind for our departure. On St. Mark's day, the King told me that he was born on that day; and I replied, that he might truly add that he was born again, seeing from what a land of danger he was escaping.

On Saturday we sighted the island of and a mountain in Cyprus which is called " the Mountain of the Cross." That same Saturday a mist arose, and swept down from the land over the sea, whereby the sailors imagined that we were further from the island than we really were, because

they saw the mountain through the mist. For this reason they went full speed ahead; and hence it came to pass that our ship struck on a spit of sand that jutted out into the sea. Now it so happened, that if we had not met with this piece of sand on which we struck, we should have run full on the rocks, which were under water, where our ship would have gone all to pieces, and we ourselves should have been in great danger of drowning

Then a great cry went up throughout the ship, everyone crying " Alas! alas! " And the sailors and the rest beat their palms together, for every man feared to drown. Hearing it, I rose from the bed where I was Lying, and went to the round-house among the sailors.

When I came there, Brother Hamon, who was a Templar and master over the sailors, said to one of his servants: "Heave the lead!" which he did. And no sooner had he heaved it than he cried out, saying: " Alas! we are aground! "

When Brother Hamon heard this, he tore his clothes to the waistbelt, and began to pluck out his beard, and to cry "Oh me! Oh me! " At this moment, one of my knights, named Lord John of

Monson (father of Abbot William of St. Michael), showed me great kindness, for without a word he brought me one of my furred surcoats, and threw it round my shoulders, for I had only got my coat on. I exclaimed at him and said, " What do I want with your surcoat? What is the good of bringing it me when we are going to be drowned? " And he said to me, " Upon my soul, Sir! I had rather we were all drowned, than that you should take a chill and die of it! "

The sailors shouted: " Galley ahoy! " that it might take off the King; but of four galleys that the King had there, not one would come near us; which was very wise of them; for there were about eight hundred persons in the ship, who would all have jumped into the galleys to save themselves, and in so doing would have sunk them.

The man who had the lead, cast it a second time, and came back to Brother Hamon, and told him that the ship was no longer aground; and thereupon Brother Hamon went to tell the King, who was stretched out crosswise on the bridge, barefooted, in nothing but his coat, and all dishevelled, before the body of Our Lord which was in the

ship, like a man who thinks himself as good as drowned.[1]

So soon as it was day, we saw ahead of us the rock on which we should have struck, if the ship had not first encountered the spit of sand.

On the morrow, the King sent for the master seamen of the ships, and they sent four divers down, who dived into the sea; and when they came up, the King and the master seamen heard them separately, one by one, so that one diver did not know what the other had said. However from all four divers they learnt that the scraping of our ship on the sand had torn off about four fathoms of the keel on which the ship rested. Then the King summoned the master seamen before us, and asked what their advice would be as regards the shock the vessel had received.

They consulted together, and advised the King to leave the ship he was in and go aboard another. " We give you this advice, because we are sure that all the planks of your ship are thoroughly loosened.

Wherefore we doubt that when your ship gets into the open sea, she will not be able to withstand the shock of the waves, without going to pieces; for a similar thing occurred on your journey out from France: a ship struck like this, and when she came into the open sea, she could not withstand the force of the waves, but broke up, and as many as were in her were all lost, except one woman and her child who escaped on a piece of the wreck."

(I can bear witness to the truth of what they said; for in the Count of Joigny's house at Paphos I saw the woman and the child, whom the Count was supporting. )

Then the King asked Lord Peter the Chamberlain, and Lord Giles le Brun, the Constable of France, and Lord Gervaise Desoraines, the King's chief cook, and the Archdeacon of Nicocea, who carried his seal (who afterwards became Cardinal), and me, what we advised him to do under the circumstances. We replied, that in all worldly matters one ought to be guided by those who know most about the subject. " Therefore we advise you to follow the seamen's advice." Then the King said to the seamen, " I ask you, by

your fealty, supposing the ship were your own, and were laden with your merchandise, would you abandon her?" With one voice they answered, No! for they would rather risk drowning than spend four thousand pounds and more in buying a ship.

"Then why do you advise me to leave her?" "Because" said they "the two things are not on a par: for your person, and the persons of your wife and children who are in her, cannot be priced in gold and silver; and therefore we would not advise you to risk yourself nor them."

Then said the King: "Sirs, I have heard your opinion, and the opinion of my followers, and now in return I will tell you mine which is this: If I leave this ship, there are in her five hundred persons and more, who will remain in Cyprus for dread of the danger they may run; for there is no one whose life is not of as much value to him as mine to me; and maybe they will never get home at all. And so, I prefer to trust my life and my wife and children in God's hands, rather than cause such injury to such a vast number of people as are here on board."

Oliver of Termes is an example of what great

injury the King would have done to those in his ship. He was in the King's ship, and was one of the bravest men that ever I saw, and that best acquitted himself in the Holy Land. He durst not remain with us for fear of drowning; but chose to stay behind in Cyprus; and it was a year and a half before he rejoined the King. And yet he was a powerful man and a rich man, and could well pay for his transport. Now consider what lesser folks would have done, who could not have afforded to pay, when a man like him found such difficulties.

Out of this peril, from which God had delivered us, we ran into another; for the wind which had driven us into Cyprus, when we were so nearly drowned, sprang up most strong and dreadful, beating us back upon the island; and though the mariners cast their anchors against the wind, yet they could not hold the ship a whit, until they had brought five anchors to bear on her.

The sides of the King's cabin were nearly blown down, and no one durst stay near it for fear of being blown overboard. At the time, Lord Giles le Brun (the Constable of France) and I were lying in the King's cabin; and just then, the Queen opened the

door of the cabin, thinking, as it was the King's, to find him in it. I asked her, what she had come for? and she said that she had come to speak to the King and ask him to vow some pilgrimage to God, or to his saints, whereby God might deliver us from the danger we were in; for the sailors had said that we were in danger of drowning. — I said to her: " Lady, vow the journey to my Lord St. Nicholas of Warangeville and I will be his warranty that God will bring you home to France, with the King and your children" — "Seneschal" — said she — "indeed I would gladly do so; but the King is so odd, that if he knew that I had made the promise without him, he would never let me go." " One thing you can do; you can promise him, if God brings you back to France, a ship of silver of five marks weight, for the King, and yourself, and your children; and I will be your warranty that God will bring us back to France; for I vowed to St. Nicholas that if he saved us from the danger we were in that night, I would go and seek him from Joinville on foot and unshod."

And she told me, that, as for the silver ship of five marks weight, she vowed it to St. Nicholas,

and that I must stand warranty for it; and I said I would right gladly do so. She went away, and it was only a little while before she came back to us, and said to me: "St. Nicholas has preserved us from this peril; for the wind has dropped."

When the Queen God rest her soul! was back in France, she caused the silver ship to be made at Paris. And in the ship were the King and Queen and the three children, all of silver: the sailors, the mast, the rudder and the cordage, all of silver, and a silver sail. And the Queen told me that the workmanship of it had cost an hundred pounds When the ship was finished, the Queen sent it to me at Joinville, that I might have it brought to St. Nicholas; and so I did; and 1 saw it still at St. Nicholas' when we brought the [present] King's sister to Hagenau, to the German king.

Now to return to our subject: After we had escaped these perils, the King seated himself on the bulwark of the ship, and made me sit at his feet, and spoke to me as follows: " Seneschal, God has indeed shown us His great power; for not the chief of the four winds, but one of His little nameless winds, came near drowning the King of

France, his wife, his children, and all his company. Now ought we to render Him love and thanks for the peril from which He has delivered us."

We left Cyprus, after we had shipped fresh water from the island and other things that we needed; and we came to an island called Lampedousa, where we shipped as many rabbits as we could carry. There we discovered an ancient hermitage in the rocks, and we found the gardens that had been made in old days by the hermits who slept there; olives and figs, vine-stocks, and other trees were there. The streamlet from the spring flowed through the garden. The King and we walked to the end of the garden, and found, in the first cave, a whitewashed oratory and a cross of red clay. We went into the second cave, and found the bodies of two dead men from which the flesh was all rotted away; the ribs still hung together complete, and the bones of their hands were folded on their breasts, and they were laid out towards the East, in the way in which one lays bodies in the ground.

On going aboard our ship again, one of our sailors was found to be missing, and the skipper

thought that he had remained behind to become a hermit. So Nicholas of Soisy, the King's chief serjeant, left three bags of biscuit on the beach, so that he might find them and live on them.

So we sailed away, and next sighted a great island in the sea, named Pantelaria, which was peopled by Saracens who were subject to the King of Sicily and the King of Tunis. The Queen begged the King to send three galleys ashore, to get some fruit for her children; and the King consented, and ordered the galleys to be all ready to come off and rejoin the King's ship directly she passed in front of the island. The galleys put into a port that was in the island; but it came to pass that when the King's ship passed before the harbour mouth, there were no signs of our galleys. Thereupon the sailors began to mutter among themselves; and the King sent for them, and asked them, what they thought had happened? and the sailors answered that the Saracens must have seized his men and the galleys. "But we beg and advise you, Sir, not wait for them; for you are between the kingdom of Sicily and the kingdom of Tunis, who bear you little love, either of them;

and if you let us sail on, we can bring you out of danger this very night, for we have got you past these straits." "Truly"—said the King "you shall never persuade me leave my followers in the hands of Saracens, without at least doing all in my power deliver them; and I order you put about, and let us bear down on them." When the Queen heard this, she began lament loudly, saying, "Alack! It is all my doing!" Whilst they were busy tacking the King's ship and the rest, we saw the galleys put off from the island. As soon as they came up, the King asked the sailors: Why had they acted thus? And they answered: That they could not help it; that it was the fault of the burghers' sons of Paris, of whom there were six, who stayed eating the fruit in the gardens, so that they could not get them away, and they did not like leave them behind. Then the King ordered that the six burghers' sons should be put into the dinghy; whereupon they began scream and cry, "Sir, for God's sake, put us ransom for all we are worth, but do not put us in there, where they put murderers and thieves, for it would be an everlasting reproach us."

The Queen and we all did our utmost to persuade the King to let them off; but he would not hear a word from anyone; so they were put into the dinghy and stayed there until we came to land. They were indeed in a sorry plight; for when the sea ran high, the waves flew over their heads, and they were forced to keep their seats for fear the wind should carry them overboard. And it served them right, for their greed injured us so much as to delay us for full a week, because the King had made the ships put about.

Yet another adventure befell us at sea, before we reached land; which was as follows. One of the Queen's bedeswomen, after she had put the Queen to bed, carelessly threw the kerchief which she wore round her head onto the top of the iron stand in which the Queen's night light was burning; and after she had gone down to bed in the cabin below the Queen's, where her ladies slept, the candle burnt so low that it set fire to the headdress, and from the head-dress spread to some sheets which covered the Queen's clothes. The Queen waking up, saw the cabin all alight with fire, and jumped up out of bed with nothing on, and

seized the head-dress, and flung it out to sea, and took hold of the sheets and extinguished them. The men who were in the dinghy shouted, "Look out! fire! fire!" I raised my head, and saw the head-dress still blazing brightly on the sea, which was quite calm. I donned my coat as quickly as I could, and went and sat among the sailors. Whilst I was sitting there, my squire, who used to sleep at my feet, came to me, and told me, that the King was awake, and had asked where I was. " And I told him that you were down below; and the King said: 'That's a lie! "' Whilst we were talking, up comes Master Geoffrey, the Queen's clerk, who said to me, " Do not alarm yourself, for it is all over! " And I said to him, "Master Geoffrey, go and tell the Queen that the King is awake, and that she should go to him and set his mind at rest."

On the morrow, the Constable of France, and my Lord Peter the Chamberlain, and my Lord Gervaise said to the King: "What happened last night? for we heard some talk of fire." I said not a word. Then said the King: "It must have been a certain accident about which the Seneschal

is more reticent than I am; and I will tell you about it" said the King "for we might have been all burnt alive last night." He told them how it happened, and said to me: " Seneschal, I order you for the future never to go to bed, until you have put out all the lights on board, all except the big fire in the poop; and know, that I shall not go to bed until you come back to me." And so I did for as long as we were at sea, and when I came back to him, then the King went to bed.

Still another adventure befell us at sea; for my Lord Dragonès, a rich man of Provence, was sleeping one morning in his ship, which was about a league ahead of ours; and he called one of his squires, and said to him: "Go and stop up that opening, for the sun is in my eyes." The squire saw that he could not stop up the opening without getting outside the ship, so he got outside; but as he was about to block up the opening, his foot slipped, and he fell into the water. Now this ship, being a small one, had no dinghy attached, and soon she was far away. We in the King's ship thought it was a bundle or a jar, for the man did not keep his wits about him when he fell into the water.

One of the King's galleys picked him up, and brought him to our ship, where he told us how it had happened. I asked him, how it was that he did not use his wits and try to save himself, by swimming, or by some means or other? He replied: There was no need nor call for him to trouble his wits about it, for that as soon as ever he began to fall, he commended himself to Our Lady, and she bore him up by the shoulders, from the moment he fell, until the King's galley picked him up.

In honour of this miracle, I have had it painted in my chapel at Joinville, and also in the glass window at Blechicourt.

NOTE TO CHAPTER XIII

After the Queen Mother's death on I December, 1253, the King's brothers, Alfonso of Poitiers and Charles of Anjou, became the Regents of the kingdom. The nobles, on their own account, tried to make Simon de Montfort third Regent; but he refused.

The internal state of France under this administration became most unsatisfactory. Moreover, Henry III of England was in Gascony with an army, intriguing with the King of Castile. Manfred, the bastard son of the

great Emperor Frederick, in his war with the Pope had the whole of Italy in flames. And, on the north-east frontier, Charles of Anjou was taking an active part in the civil war in Flanders.

The whole peaceful foreign policy of Louis was in danger; and his return was now urgently needed.