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Updated: May 8, 2025
With difficulty could his forces even maintain their footing on the Mansourah side of the canal, and it was not till after a long and desperate conflict that there was time to inquire for the missing. The Prior de Rosnay came to the royal tent, to ask whether there were any tidings of the Count, "Only that he is in Paradise," said the King. "God be praised for what He sends to us."
Philip VI. had embroiled himself with a prince of his line, Robert of Artois, great-grandson of Robert the first Count of Artois, who was a brother of St. Louis, and was killed during the crusade in Egypt, at the battle of Mansourah.
Bisset's mail was almost hacked to pieces; the Templar's vestments were torn to rags, his cuirass pierced, and his eye and face wounded and bleeding. 'You bring tidings of woe? said the Count of Soissons. 'Woe, in truth, answered Bisset; for the grand master could not even muster voice to speak; 'of all who rode into Mansourah this morning, not a man, save ourselves, lives to tell the tale.
The reigning Sultan, Malek el Kamel, marched to its relief, and encamping at Mansourah, in the delta of the Nile, fought two severe battles with doubtful success, but could not assist the garrison, who, after holding out for fifteen months, at length surrendered.
So they made their pilgrimage to the third treasure of the hill-village; and then away to where the crumbling walls of Mansourah, and that great tower, which is one of the noblest Moorish relics in all Algeria, rise out of a flowering plain.
What Mussulman can refuse to march against them, and avenge the glory of Islamism? But, at Cairo and Mansourah, the Egyptians only answered with sighs and groans; and, at first, Fakreddin's appeal failed to produce the effect he intended. The emir, however, was not dismayed.
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.
Even then they remained, encamped outside, and Kamel continued to watch them from Mansourah, where he built permanent houses, and formed his camp into a town, while awaiting the aid of the natural defender of Egypt, the Nile, which, in due time arising, inundated the whole Christian camp, and washed away the stores.
The inhabitants, who were only concealed, showered down stones from the roofs; and at the same moment, a large body of the sultan's army made an attack in front. Louis reached Mansourah in time to save a few of his men, but found his brother and several others slain. The Moslem camp was captured, but proved a doubtful prize. Pestilence broke out, and the king himself fell dangerously ill.
The Franks regarded it with a superstitious horror, as a fiendish mystery, and compared it to a fiery dragon with a tail as long as a lance; but it did not actually cause many deaths, and they met with no serious disaster till they came to the canal of Aschmoum, which flowed between them and Mansourah.
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