“Next Sunday,” says Joinville, “we came again, all of us, before the king.  ‘Sirs,’ said he, ’I thank very much all those who have counselled me to get me gone to France, and likewise those who have counselled me to bide.  But I have bethought me that, if I bide, I see no danger lest my kingdom of France be lost, for the queen, my mother, hath a many folk to defend it.  I have noted likewise that the barons of this land do say that, if I go hence, the kingdom of Jerusalem is lost.  At no price will I suffer to be lost the kingdom of Jerusalem, which I came to guard and conquer.  My resolve, then, is, that I bide for the present.  So I say unto you, ye rich men who are here, and to all other knights who shall have a mind to bide with me, come and speak boldly unto me, and I will give ye so much that it shall not be my fault if ye have no mind to bide.’”

Thus none, save Louis himself, dared go to the root of the question.  The most discreet advised him to depart, only for the purpose of coming back, and recommencing what had been so unsuccessful; and the boldest only urged him to remain a year longer.  None took the risk of saying, even after so many mighty but vain experiments, that the enterprise was chimerical, and must be given up.  Louis alone was, in word and deed, perfectly true to his own absorbing idea of recovering the Holy Sepulchre from the Mussulmans and re-establishing the kingdom of Jerusalem.  His was one of those pure and majestic souls, which are almost alien to the world in which they live, and in which disinterested passion is so strong that it puts judgment to silence, extinguishes all fear, and keeps up hope to infinity.  The king’s two brothers embarked with a numerous retinue.  How many crusaders, knights, or men-at-arms, remained with Louis, there is nothing to show; but they were, assuredly, far from sufficient for the attainment of the twofold end he had in view, and even for insuring less grand results, such as the deliverance of the crusaders still remaining prisoners in the hands of the Mussulmans, and anything like an effectual protection for the Christians settled in Palestine and Syria.

Twice Louis believed he was on the point of accomplishing his desire.  Towards the end of 1250, and again in 1252, the Sultan of Aleppo and Damascus, and the Emirs of Egypt, being engaged in a violent struggle, made offers to him, by turns, of restoring the kingdom of Jerusalem if he would form an active alliance with one or the other party against its enemies.  Louis sought means of accepting either of these offers without neglecting his previous engagements, and without compromising the fate of the Christians still prisoners in Egypt, or living in the territories of Aleppo and Damascus; but, during the negotiations entered upon with a view to this end, the Mussulmans of Syria and Egypt suspended their differences, and made common cause against the remnants of the Christian crusaders; and all hope of re-entering Jerusalem by these means