were to descend the Nile, carrying the wounded and the most suffering; but he refused absolutely, saying, “I don’t separate from my people in the hour of danger.”  He remained on land, and when he had to move forward he fainted twice.  When he came to himself, he was amongst the last to leave the camp, got himself helped on to the back of a little Arab horse, covered with silken housings, and marched at a slow pace with the rear-guard, having beside him Geoffrey de Sargines, who watched over him, “and protected me against the Saracens,” said Louis himself to Joinville, “as a good servant protects his lord’s tankard against the flies.”

Neither the king’s courage nor his servants’ devotion was enough to insure success, even to the retreat.  At four leagues’ distance from the camp it had just left, the rear-guard of the crusaders, harassed by clouds of Saracens, was obliged to halt.  Louis could no longer keep on his horse.  He was put up at a house,” says Joinville, “and laid, almost dead, upon the lap of a tradeswoman from Paris; and it was believed that he would not last till evening.”  With his consent, one of his lieges entered into parley with one of the Mussulman chiefs; a truce was about to be concluded, and the Mussulman was taking off his ring from his finger as a pledge that he would observe it.  “But during this,” says Joinville, “there took place a great mishap.  A traitor of a sergeant, whose name was Marcel, began calling to our people, ’Sirs knights, surrender, for such is the king’s command:  cause not the king’s death.’  All thought that it was the king’s command; and they gave up their swords to the Saracens.”  Being forthwith declared prisoners, the king and all the rear-guard were removed to Mansourah; the king by boat; and his two brothers, the Counts of Anjou and Poitiers, and all the other crusaders, drawn up in a body and shackled, followed on foot on the river bank.  The advance-guard, and all the rest of the army, soon met the same fate.

Ten thousand prisoners—­this was all that remained of the crusade that had started eighteen months before from Aigues-Mortes.  Nevertheless the lofty bearing and the piety of the king still inspired the Mussulmans with great respect.  A negotiation was opened between him and the Sultan Malek-Moaddam, who, having previously freed him from his chains, had him treated with a certain magnificence.  As the price of a truce and of his liberty, Louis received a demand for the immediate surrender of Damietta, a heavy ransom, and the restitution of several places which the Christians still held in Palestine.  “I cannot dispose of those places,” said Louis, “for they do not belong to me; the princes and the Christian orders, in whose hands they are, can alone keep or surrender them.”  The sultan, in anger, threatened to have the king put to the torture, or sent to the Grand Khalif of Bagdad, who would detain him in prison for the rest of his days.  “I am your prisoner,” said