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Updated: May 10, 2025
However that may be, the conditions agreed upon with the late Sultan Malek-Moaddam were carried out; on the 7th of May, 1250, Geoffrey de Sargines gave up to the emirs the keys of Damietta; and the Mussulmans entered in tumultuously.
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."
The two good knights, Geoffroi de Sargines and Gautier de Chatillon rode on each side of him, and, as he afterward said, guarded, him from the Saracens as a good servant guards his master's cup from flies.
Louis offered as hostage one of his brothers, the Count of Anjou, or the Count of Poitiers. "We must have the king himself," said the Mussulmans. A unanimous cry of indignation arose amongst the crusaders. "We would rather," said Geoffrey de Sargines, "that we had been all slain, or taken prisoners by the Saracens, than be reproached with having left our king in pawn."
Jean d'Acre, on the 24th of April, 1254, carrying away with him, on thirteen vessels, large and small, Queen Marguerite, his children, his personal retinue, and his own more immediate men-at-arms, and leaving the Christians of Syria, for their protection in his name, a hundred knights under the orders of Geoffrey de Sargines, that comrade of his in whose bravery and pious fealty he had the most entire confidence.
They were obliged to support him in his saddle after a time, so faint and exhausted did he become; and at last, on arriving at a little village named Minieh, Sargines look him from his horse, and laid him down just within a house, his head on the lap of a Frenchwoman whom he found there, and watched over him, expecting each breath to be the last.
I confess, this was nearly my own case yesterday, on hearing an air from "Sargines;" and had not the funeral oration reminded me, I should have forgotten the unfortunate event we were celebrating, and which, for some days before, when undistracted by this pious ceremony, I had dwelt on with pity and horror.* "Let every one shift for himself we are betrayed."
His quaint and affectionate biographer, the Lord of Joinville, who was with him in this expedition, thus describes the scenes which ensued: "Of all his men-at-arms there was only one with him, the good knight, Sir Geoffrey de Sargines; and who, I heard say, did defend him like as a faithful servant doth guard his master's cup from flies for every time that the Saracens did approach the king he defended him with vigorous strokes of the blade and point of his sword, and his strength seemed doubled.
I confess, this was nearly my own case yesterday, on hearing an air from "Sargines;" and had not the funeral oration reminded me, I should have forgotten the unfortunate event we were celebrating, and which, for some days before, when undistracted by this pious ceremony, I had dwelt on with pity and horror.* "Let every one shift for himself we are betrayed."
But Louis was immovable, and the Emirs at last contented themselves with his word, and retired, saying that this was the proudest Christian that had ever been seen in the East. They knew not that his pride was for the honor of his God. On the 6th of May, Geoffroi de Sargines came to Damietta, placed the Queen and her ladies on board the Genoese vessels, and gave up the keys to the Emirs.
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