commands of the church, stains his fair fame more deeply than his sword. To my poor wit it seems good sire, that this crusade against our own vassals in happy France, bears a hue far different from the wars in Palestine." "So thought my good lord," returned de Joinville, "for though his soul loveth peace, his conscience was often un-quiet with the thought of the sufferings of the Christians, who, pressed by the Turks, cried out for aid, and yet he knew not how he might leave his people for a foreign war. At length his doubts were resolved on this wise.—Being grievously ill at Paris, his soul as it were departed from his body. He saw standing before him Count Raimond of Toulouse, who, being in the torment of purgatory, cried out, ' Oh! that I had employed my people in chasing the children of Satan from the Holy Land, then would they not have had leisure to have devised those heresies by which they have destroyed both their souls and bodies in hell.' When the soul of the king returned, he heard those who had nursed him speaking together, and one would have covered his face with a cloth, thinking that all was over, but another (so God willed it) declared continually that he was alive. Then he opened his eyes and looked upon them, and he desired one of them to bring him the crucifix, and he swore upon it that if God should please restore him to health, he would, in person, undertake the Holy War. In like manner as the king put on the cross, so did Iiis three brothers, Robert, Count d' Artois, Alphonzo, Count de Poitiers, and Charles, Count d'Anjou, the vene-rable Hugh le Brun, Count le Marche and his sons, with many others of rank and dignity, and many lords whom Simon de Moiitfort had deprived of their patrimony in Languedoc, and many others who had fought against the heretics. Thus did the pious king make the Holy War the means of expiation and of universal reconcilement. But so wise was he withal, andso careful of his people, that he thought also to make the expedition the foundation of a great colony in Egypt. Thus many of the transports were laden with spades, pitch-forks, plows, and other implements 352 HEROINES OF THE CRUSADES.