Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/114

88 conversation with any secular guest who may chance to be taking his meals in their refectory, otherwise they are enjoined to maintain a strict silence during such times. We also fiud the following incident recorded by Joinville, the historian of the Crusade of St. Louis. A dispute having arisen between some Hospitallers and French knights, who were together in that expedition, Chateauneuf, after investigation, considered his brethren to be in the wrong, and in consequence condemned them to take their meals on the ground. They were, moreover, expressly forbidden to drive away any dog or other animal which might choose to intrude upon their platters. This discipline was maintained unrelaxed until after the most urgent entreaties on the part of Joinville himself, on the occasion of a visit which he paid to their convent.

The Crusade of St. Louis of France was one of the results of the disaster of Gaza, and the consequent loss of the principal cities of the Holy Land. That monarch, of whom history has recorded every virtue that could adorn a hero, and whose piety was destined to earn for him the posthumous honours of canonization, was seized with an ardent desire to achieve what so many of his predecessors had iii vain attempted. Whilst lying on a bed of sickness he had pledged himself to the undertaking even before he had heard of the fatal day of Gaza, and he now decided upon leading in person the chivalry of France to the rescue of their co-religionists in the East. Accompanied by his three brothers, the counts of Artois, Poictiers, and Anjou, and followed by an army of 50,000 well-appointed troops, he landed at Damietta in the summer of 1249, having spent the previous winter in Cyprus. The resistance offered to his landing was but slight, and at the close of a short struggle he found himself master, not only of the shore, but of the city itself. The garrison of the fortress, struck with panic at the bold and daring advance of the French chivalry, and mindful of the scenes which had been enacted on the same spot on the occasion of its previous capture by John of Brienne. abandoned the citadel and took to flight, leaving everything open to the French.

Whilst at Damietta, Louis was joined by the whole strength