Voltaire ridicules the whole story with that levity and shallow common sense which so often led him to place blind confidence in his own scepticism, and made him ready to reject as absurd fables any facts which he could not easily explain. 'The great Prince of the Assassins,' says he, 'fearing lest the King of France, Louis IX., of whom he had never heard, should journey to the East at the head of a new crusade, and snatch away his dominions, sent two noble adherents from his court in the caverns of Anti-Lebanon to assassinate the King in Paris. {48} But next day he was told what an amiable and generous prince this was; so he sent two other nobles by sea to countermand the assassination.' [Footnote 13] [Footnote 13: Œuvres de Voltaire, tome xxvii. Edit, de Beuchot.] But, in order to disprove the records of the thirteenth century, something more is necessary than merely to burlesque them in the language of the eighteenth. The chronicles of the time give numerous and detailed accounts of these early transactions between the Old Man of the Mountain and St. Louis. The accounts agree with all the documents of the time which refer to the relations existing between the East and West after the commencement of the Crusades. They are confirmed by other and almost contemporaneous testimony, which shows the Old Man of the Mountain, four years later, asking the help of St. Louis against the Mongol Tartars, from whose invasions Western Asia suffered as much as Eastern Europe. Without thinking of any difference of race or religion, the foes of yesterday eagerly sought each other's help against the common enemy of to-day. Such a complication of nations, princes, and events would give rise to many improbable and contradictory facts, and the true history of the period lies hidden under the many legends which exaggerate and disfigure it. Another apprehension and another temptation were added about this time to those which already attracted the thoughts and heart of Louis to the East. The dangers of the Latin empire of Constantinople increased daily. {49} It was assailed alike by Greek, Mussulman, and Tartar. In 1236 the young Emperor Baldwin II. resolved to solicit in person the help of the princes of the West, more especially of the young King of France, who was already renowned for his piety and his chivalrous zeal.