We confessed our sins. Each man readied himself for the morrow and organized his affairs, knowing he should die if it so pleased our Lord.
Very early the king heard mass as it is said at sea. Then, having armed himself, he ordered everyone to do likewise and go aboard the small boats. He himself boarded a Normandy coche, as did the legate who was holding the True Cross. Into a longboat went Geoffrey de Sargines, Jean de Beaumont, and Matthew of Marly with the banner of Saint Denys. While I was looking to the conveyance of my people one of Érard de Brienne’s knights called Plonquet attempted to jump into a boat as it was pulling away but fell in the water and drowned. We set our course toward land where a large party of Saracens awaited us, fully six thousand. At our approach they spurred hotly forward. When we got ashore we thrust the points of our shields in the sand and fixed lances. At the last moment these unbelievers wheeled aside, none anxious to have his belly punctured.
Soon thereafter came a message from Baoudoin de Reims. He asked if I would hold up for him, which I did quite readily since he was a valiant knight bringing hundreds more. I saw the Comte de Joppa, his galley surging through the waves like a thunderbolt amid the screech of horns and drums booming. His galley looked very fine, what with painted escutcheons that bore his arms and three hundred men at the sweeps. Alongside each hung a targe displaying the arms of Joppa, which are gold with a cross of gules patée, and from each fluttered a pennon. When this galley came ashore his knights leapt out and hurried to join us. About the distance of a crossbow shot to our right here came the banner of Saint Denys. A Saracen boldly galloped toward it thinking others would follow, or because he was unable to control his mount, and went galloping straightway to hell.
As for his majesty, the legate and others urged him to remain on board until the landing was decided for if he were slain the expedition must fail. But when he learned the banner of Saint Denys was ashore he would not be separate from the emblem of his sovereignty. He set his feet together, slung his shield about his neck and all at once leapt into the water, which came up to his waist. Now others shouted Montjoie! They flung themselves into the sea, a rare and splendid thing to behold what with pagan arrows glancing like sparks off their helmets. So the Babylonians drew together, excitedly speaking in their tongue, and came toward us. We advanced with the spirit of Christ while the legate held overhead the True and Holy Cross.
Our Lord proved merciful. By noon the unbelievers had enough and retreated to the city. I think they lost quite five hundred, including four emirs. All plunged shrieking into eternal fire. Then his majesty sent for the legate and the bishops. Loudly we chanted Te Deum Laudamus.
Next morning came emissaries to speak with the king. They said the fighting men had gone away and the city was deserted, excepting old people and the sick. They said the king should hang them if they did not speak the truth. His majesty detained them until we could find out. Presently we learned that certain of our knights were inside and our standard flew from a turret. We gave thanks and praised the Lord because Damietta was very strong, with moats and palisades, barbicans, weapons of every sort. We could have taken it only after a siege reduced the people to starvation, as King John took Damietta more than a generation earlier. Our enemies had sent pigeon messengers to Cairo but heard nothing, so they thought the sultan was dead. That is why they quit the city. In fact, the sultan had not recovered from the poison he got while playing chess at Homs.
We learned that he punished his soldiers for giving up Damietta and had fifty officers strangled. I am told that one of these officers, condemned along with his son, requested the favor being executed first. But the sultan denied this indulgence. On the contrary, the officer was forced to watch his son strangled. Such is the cruelty of Egyptians.
We released a good fifty Christians who told us they had been enslaved at Damietta for twenty-two years. They told his majesty how the unbelievers called us pigs. The pigs have come, said they. Also there were Syrians who had been subservient to these infidels, who displayed crosses when we entered the city. They were permitted to keep their houses and goods.
We thought we could not leave Damietta until the feast of All Saints because each year the Nile spreads across Egypt, preventing much travel by land. However we did not feel threatened. King Louis with his queen took up lodging in the palace. The legate and each high baron took a beautiful house appropriate to his rank inside the walls. The army camped outside. Bedouin now and again would approach but rode away if crossbowmen went to shoot at them. During the night they returned to steal horses. They would cut off the heads of sleeping pilgrims or dig up corpses of hanged men in order to collect heads because Sultan Ayub paid ten gold bezants for a Christian head.
