THE EIGHTH CRUSADE.

68. Nearly seven years passed away before the French king, Louis IX,
was able to set sail for Egypt. The royal saint, who lives for us in
the quaint and graphic account of his seneschal Joinville, may with
truth be said to have been animated by a spirit of devotion and
self-sacrifice. Intolerant in theory and bigoted in language, Louis
had that true charity which would make him succor his enemies not less
than his friends. Nor was his bravery less signal than his gentleness.
His dauntless courage saved his army from complete destruction at
Mansourah in 1249, but his offer to exchange Damietta for Jerusalem
was rejected, and in the retreat, during which they were compelled to
fight at desperate disadvantage, Louis was taken prisoner. With serene
patience he underwent suffering, for which the Saracens, so Joinville
tells us, frankly confessed that they would have renounced Mahommed;
and, when the payment of his ransom set him free, he made a pilgrimage
in sackcloth to Nazareth in 1250. As a general he achieved nothing,
but his humiliation involved no dishonor; and the genuineness of his
faith, his devotion, and his love had been fully tested in the furnace
of affliction.

69. The crusading fire was now rapidly burning itself out. In the West
there was nothing to awaken again the enthusiasm which had been
stirred by Peter the Hermit and St. Bernard, while in Palestine itself
the only signs of genuine activity were furnished by the antagonism
between the religious orders there. The quarrels of Templars and
Hospitallers led to a pitched battle in 1259, in which almost all the
Templars were slain.