At length the unwilling crusaders, stimulated by repeated exhortations and by the example of Louis, set forward on their march from all the provinces, and directed their course toward the ports of Aigues-Mortes and Marseilles.  Louis soon welcomed the arrival of the Count of Poictiers, with a great number of his vassals; the principal nobles brought with them the most distinguished of their knights and their most brave and hardy soldiers; many cities likewise contributed their supply of warriors.  Each troop had its banner, and formed a separate corps, bearing the name of a city or a province, the battalions of Beaucaire, Carcassonne, Chalons, Perigord, etc., attracted observation in the Christian army.  These names, it is true, excited great emulation, but they also gave rise to quarrels, which the wisdom and firmness of Louis had great difficulty in appeasing.  Crusaders arrived from Catalonia, Castile, and several other provinces of Spain; five hundred warriors from Friesland likewise ranged themselves with full confidence under the standard of such a leader as Louis, saying that their nation had always been proud to obey the kings of France.

Before he embarked, the King wrote once more to the regents of the kingdom, to recommend them to watch carefully over public morals, to deliver France from corrupt judges, and to render to everybody, particularly the poor, prompt and perfect justice, so that He who judges the judgments of men might have nothing to reproach him with.

Such were the last farewells that Louis took of France.  The fleet set sail on the 4th of July, 1270, and in a few days arrived in the road of Cagliari.  Here the council of the counts and barons was assembled in the King’s vessel, to deliberate upon the plan of the crusade.  Those who advocated the conquest of Tunis said that by that means the passages of the Mediterranean would be opened and the power of the mamelukes would be weakened; and that after that conquest the army would go triumphantly into either Egypt or Palestine.  Many of the barons were not of this opinion; they said that, if the Holy Land stood in need of prompt assistance, they ought to afford it without delay.  While they were engaged on the coast of Africa, in a country with which they were unacquainted, the Christian cities of Syria might all fall into the hands of the Saracens.  The most redoubtable enemy of the Christians was Beibars, the terrible Sultan of Cairo; it was him they ought first to attack; it was into his states, into the bosom of his capital, that the war should be carried, and not to a place two hundred leagues from Egypt.  They added to this, remembrances of the defeats that ought to be avenged upon the very theatre of so many disasters.  Contemporary history does not say to what extent Louis was struck with the wisdom of these last opinions; but the expedition to Tunis flattered his most cherished hopes.  It had been proposed by the King of Sicily, whose concurrence was necessary to the success of the