He reported seeing a woman called Paquette from Metz in Lorraine who had been captured in Hungary, who prepared a banquet for them as best she could and spoke of all she endured. But now she was happy because she had married a young Russian carpenter and they had three children. She said there was at Karakorum a Parisian goldsmith named William Boucher who constructed a silver tree at the base of which stood four lions with mare’s milk spouting from their throats. Gilded serpents writhed among the branches of this tree while rice beer, wine, and boal issued from their mouths. The goldsmith had a brother whose name is Roger who lives on the Grand Pont. This caused us to marvel.
Friar William also reported that while visiting Mangu Khan he saw ambassadors from the sultan of India and they had brought eight leopards that were able to stand on the cruppers of horses. He reported further that the Caspian Sea does not anywhere touch the ocean but is surrounded by land, which contradicts the teaching of Isidore of Seville. All this we found astonishing. As to the Mongols, he did not think they could be converted. They appeared sympathetic to any religion but would submit to none. They were beyond understanding. As for sending aid to Syria, Mangu Khan would do so if Christian rulers acknowledged his sovereignty and came dutifully to pay homage. King Louis therefore felt disappointed because he could not treat on such terms.
During Lent his majesty summoned the barons to consult with him at Paris. I sent word asking to be excused since I was at that time suffering quartan fever, but he insisted. I got to Paris on the eve of Lady Day and could find no one to account for the summons. God willed that I should fall asleep. And while asleep I dreamt of King Louis on his knees before an altar. Prelates robed for service were about to vest him with a chasuble of Reims serge. When I awoke I sent for my priest Guillaume, told him my dream and asked what it meant. He replied that tomorrow King Louis would take the cross. When pressed to explain, he told me that the chasuble signified the cross upon which Christ died for us and was scarlet because of blood streaming from His wounds. Because the chasuble is coarse wool, Guillaume added, the crusade will bring scant profit. After hearing mass I went to the king’s chapel and there he was by the scaffolding where relics are kept. A fragment of the True Cross was being handed down.
Next day his majesty took the vow, as did his three sons.
Clerics would remind us that vows of pilgrimage discomfit the devil. They speak of a knight en route to Paris who rode through a gloomy forest and heard frightful groans as devils bemoaned the loss of souls they thought belonged to them, shrieking the names of eminent lords. The knight felt terrified for himself and vowed at once to go on pilgrimage and made a cross of leafy branches to verify his oath. In Paris he told what he had heard, naming those lords named by the devils, and learned they had taken the vow at that same hour. Similarly, clerics remind us that in Flanders are numerous canals we are not able to cross except with much expenditure of time to reach a bridge. However, agile men take up a staff or perch or lance and with its help contrive at one leap to vault across the water. Thus do all who pick up the staff of the cross avoid the long pain of purgatory by crossing to heaven with a leap. Yet I think our saintly king had little need of instruction.
It seemed to me that those who encouraged him to undertake this journey committed mortal sin for he was at that time very weak. He could scarce mount a horse, nor ride with comfort in his coach. What his physicians predicted among themselves I do not know. It was his majesty’s brother, Charles d’Anjou, a cold and merciless lord, who persuaded him that Tunis might be taken. The emir, Mustansir, did at times negotiate with Christians and King Louis perhaps thought the infidel ripe for conversion. Or should that plan slip, why then, Tunis ought to be an easy prize and here was a vast resource to use against Egypt. Charles, God help me, resembled his saintly brother as a toad may be likened to a prince. If Charles did not bulge with ambition, then never did any man. His wife Béatrice, avaricious as himself, hungered to wear a crown. So would he found an empire in the Mediterranean such as his ancestors vainly dreamt. So he argued that King Louis ought not squander funds in pursuit of the distant Holy City but go and capture Tunis, next to Cairo which was very rich. And with the king not apt to live much longer, who should benefit? Who might then call the sea his province?
I myself thought his majesty no longer showed good sense. Our beloved sovereign, whose intellect once was equaled only by his grace, now coursed with madness. For what is that we call madness, if not the compound of folly?
The last day I saw him, when I went to take leave, he allowed me to carry him in my arms as if he were a small child, from the house of the Comte d’Auxerre to the Franciscan abbey. He urged me to accompany him, but I said that while we were oversea my estates had become impoverished and my tenants suffered. I told him that if I wished to please God it behooved me to stay and redress what wrongs were done. For if, I said, knowing it would prove detrimental to my subjects, I
