In the same year, 1249, a dreadful pestilence ravaged the armies of St. Louis the Crusader, caused, says Joinville, his historian, by the decomposition of the dead bodies of those who had been slain in two great battles fought a few days previously. They had been thrown into the river by the Saracens, and when they floated, were arrested by the low bridge, which was the means of communication between the two divisions of the French troops. The river was covered with them from bank to bank, so that the water could not be seen a good stone’s-throw from the bridge upwards. The pious king caused the bodies of the Christians to be removed from the river and buried in deep graves; those of the Saracens were thrust under the arch of the bridge, and floated down to the sea. This occurred during Lent, and all that time, being obliged by their creed to live on fish, the soldiers could get no other than eelpouts,--a gluttonous fish, which fed on the dead bodies. The disease which broke out among them, Joinville says, dried up the flesh on their legs to the bone, and the skin became tanned as black as the ground, or like an old boot that has long lain behind a coffer (evidently a kind of dry gangrene). In addition to this miserable disorder, those affected by it had another sore complaint in the mouth, from eating such fish, that rotted the gums, and caused a most stinking breath: very few escaped death that were thus attacked; and the surest symptom of its being fatal was a bleeding at the nose; when that took place, none recovered. Starvation was soon added to their miseries, for the enemy was enabled so to blockade them, that the provision-boats could not reach them. The disorder so increased in the army, that the barbers were forced to cut away very large pieces of flesh from the gums to enable their patients to eat. The mortality was very great indeed, but what number thus perished miserably is not mentioned by Joinville.