A.D. 1249.]] SURRENDER OF DAMIETTA. 893 disembark from it, and against the will of the legate, who was with him, leaped into the sea, which was up to his shoulders, and advanced to the land, his shield on his neck, his helmet on his head, and lance in hand.* On joining his men, he observed the Saracen army, and asked who they were. On beiog told they were Turks and Saracens, he wanted to make a course alone against them, but his attend ants would not permit it, aud made him remain quiet until his whole army should be assembled and armed. A messenger, called Cotillon, was sent thrice to the sultan of the Saracens, to inform him of the arrival of the king of France ; but no answer was returned, because the sultan was ill. The Saracens, hearing of this, abandoned the city of Damietta, believing their sultan was dead.t When the king heard this news, he sent one of his knights to Damietta to know the truth of it, who, on his return, related that the sultan was really dead, and that the Saracens had fled from Damietta, for he had entered their houses that were empty. Upon this, the king had the legate called, with all the prelates of the army, and ordered the " Te Deum laudamus " to be sung throughout. The king and his army, shortly after, mounted their horses, and went to take up their quar ters in Damietta. The Turks were ill advised to retreat so suddenly without destroying the bridges which they had made of boats, which would have distressed us much. But m another way they did us great mischief, by setting fire to all parts of the Soulde,^ where their merchandise and plun • Froissait, vol. i. ch. 12, and the Chronicle of Flanders, pp. 55, 99, fltc., mention this usage. f The Oriental Chronicle says, that the sultan of Babylon was not deceased when St. Louis took Damietta, but that he died the day the king left it to encamp before Massoura, which was the 25th of November. * According to the lord de Joinville, the Soulde was a row of tradesmen's shops; but it is an error, and la Soulde must be changed to la Fonde, as it is printed in the edition of Bordeaux. In the treaty concluded by the patriarch Guermond, and the barons of Jérusalem, with Dominico Michiel, doge of Venice, relative to the undertaking the siege of the city of Tyre in the year 1123, as reported by William, archbishop of Tyre, in We History, 1. 12, ch. 25 :— " Ipse rex Hierusalem et nos omnes dud Venetorum de funda Tyri ex parte regis festo apostolorum Petri et Pauli trecentos in unoquoaue anno Byzantios Saracenatos ex debiti conditione persolvere debemus. Now the words funda Tyri mean nothing else than the revenue afforded by commerce,