Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [42]
Joinville’s pen turns many of these battles and skirmishes into charming ballets. Heads roll here and there, implorations to the good Lord abound, and the king sheds tears over a loyal follower’s death. But the whole thing is Technicolor, complete with crimson saddlecloths, gilded trappings, the flash of helmets and swords under the yellow desert sun, and an azure sea in the background. And who knows? Perhaps the Templars really lived their daily butchery that way.
Joinville’s perspective shifts vertically, depending on whether he has fallen from his horse or just remounted. Isolated scenes are sharply focused, but the larger picture eludes him. We see individual duels, whose outcome is often random. Joinville sets off to help the lord of Wanpn. A Turk strikes him with his lance, Joinville’s horse sinks to its knees, Joinville falls over the animal’s head, he stands up, sword in hand, and Chevalier Erard de Siveiey (“may God grant him grace”) points to a ruined house where they can take refuge. They are trampled by Turks on horseback. Chevalier Frederic de Loupey is struck from behind, “which made so large a wound that the blood poured from his body as if from the bunghole of a barrel.” Siverey receives a slashing blow in the face, so that “his nose was left dangling over his lips.” And so on, until help arrives. They leave the house and move to another part of the battlefield, where there are more deaths and last-minute rescues, and loud prayers to Saint James. In the meantime, the good Comte de Soissons, wielding his sword, cries, “Seneschal, let these dogs howl as they will. By God’s bonnet, we shall talk of this day yet, you and I, sitting at home with our ladies!” The king asks for news of his brother, the wretched Comte d’Artois, and Brother Henri de Ronnay, provost of the Hospitalers, answers that he “has good news, for certainly the count is now in Paradise.” “God be praised for everything He gives,” says the king, big tears falling from his eyes.
But it isn’t always a ballet, angelic and bloodstained. Grand Master Guillaume de Sonnac dies, burned alive by Greek fire. With the great stink of corpses and the shortage of provisions, the Christian army is stricken with scurvy. Saint Louis’s men are finally routed. The king is so badly racked by dysentery that he cuts out the seat of his pants to save time in battle. Damietta is lost, and the queen has to negotiate with the Saracens, paying five hundred thousand livres tournois to ransom the king.
The crusades were carried out in virtuous bad faith. On his return to Saint-Jean-d’Acre, Louis is hailed as a victor; the whole city comes out in procession to greet him, including the clergy, ladies, and children. The Templars, seeing which way the wind is blowing, try to open negotiations with Damascus. Louis finds out and, furious at being bypassed, repudiates the new grand master in the presence of the Moslem ambassadors. The grand master has to retract the promises he made to the enemy, has to kneel before the king and beg his pardon. No one can say the Knights haven’t fought well—and selflessly—but the king of France still humiliates them, to reassert his power. And, half a century later, Louis’s successor, Philip, to reassert his power, will send the Knights to the stake.
In 1291 Saint-Jean-d’Acre is conquered by the Moors, and all its inhabitants are put to the sword. The Christian kingdom of Jerusalem is gone for good. The Templars are richer, more numerous, more powerful than ever, but they were born to fight in the Holy Land, and in the Holy Land there are none left.
They live in splendor, isolated in their commanderies throughout Europe and in the Temple in Paris, but they dream still of the plateau of the Temple in Jerusalem in their days of glory, dream of the handsome church of Saint Mary Lateran spangled with votive chapels, dream of their bouquets of trophies, and all the rest: the forges, the saddlery, the granaries, the stables of