But on the 17th of July, when the fleet arrived before Tunis, the admiral, Florent de Varennes, probably without the king’s orders and with that want of reflection which was conspicuous at each step of the enterprise, immediately took possession of the harbor and of some Tunisian vessels as prize, and sent word to the king “that he had only to support him and that the disembarkation of the troops might be effected in perfect safety.”  Thus war was commenced at the very first moment against the Mussulman prince whom there had been a promise of seeing before long a Christian.

At the end of a fortnight, after some fights between the Tunisians and the crusaders, so much political and military blindness produced its natural consequences.  The re-enforcements promised to Louis, by his brother Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily, had not arrived; provisions were falling short; and the heats of an African summer were working havoc amongst the army with such rapidity that before long there was no time to bury the dead, but they were cast pell-mell into the ditch which surrounded the camp, and the air was tainted thereby.  On the 3d of August Louis was attacked by the epidemic fever, and obliged to keep his bed in his tent.  He asked news of his son John Tristan, Count of Nevers, who had fallen ill before him, and whose recent death, aboard the vessel to which he had been removed in hopes that the sea air might be beneficial, had been carefully concealed from him.  The count, as well as the Princess Isabel, married to Theobald the Young, King of Navarre, was a favorite child of Louis, who, on hearing of his loss, folded his hands and sought in silence and prayer some assuagement of his grief.  His malady grew worse; and having sent for his successor, Prince Philip (Philip the Bold), he took from his hour-book some instructions which he had written out for him, with his own hand and in French, and delivered them to him, bidding him to observe them scrupulously.  He gave likewise to his daughter Isabel, who was weeping at the foot of his bed, and to his son-in-law the King of Navarre, some writings which had been intended for them, and he further charged Isabel to deliver another to her youngest sister, Agnes, affianced to the Duke of Burgundy.  “Dearest daughter,” said he, “think well hereon:  full many folk have fallen asleep with wild thoughts of sin, and in the morning their place hath not known them.”  Just after he had finished satisfying his paternal solicitude, it was announced to him, on the 24th of August, that envoys from the Emperor Michael Palaeologus had landed at Cape Carthage, with orders to demand his intervention with his brother Charles, King of Sicily, to deter him from making war on the but lately re-established Greek empire.  Louis summoned all his strength to receive them in his tent, in the presence of certain of his counsellors, who were uneasy at the fatigue he was imposing upon himself.  “I promise you, if I live,” said he to