they were rushing to meet, their blind self-confidence, their obstinate rivalry, their moral disorders and military insubordination, daily aggravated the already enormous difficulties of the enterprise. {60} Louis spent his whole time amongst them in making peace, adjusting quarrels, repressing licence, reconciling the Templars and the Hospitallers. He received envoys from the King of Armenia, the Khan of Tartary, and many other princes of the East, Christian and Pagan, who came, not to offer support in the crusade, but by their intrigues to draw the Crusaders into their own quarrels, and to obtain help in promoting their own private interests. 'The Empress of Constantinople [Footnote 18] sent me word,' says Joinville, 'that she had arrived at Baffe, [Footnote 19] a city of Cyprus, and that I must needs go and seek her, I and Monseigneur Erard de Brienne. When we arrived we found that her vessel had dragged its anchors in a storm, and drifted over to Acre, and that she had nothing out of the whole of her luggage except the mantle she was wearing and a surcoat. [Footnote 20] [Footnote 18: Marie de Brienne, wife of the Latin Emperor Baldwin II.] [Footnote 19: The ancient Paphos.] [Footnote 20: A garment worn by ladies over their petticoat and tight-fitting jacket.] We escorted her to Limisso, where the King, the Queen, and all the nobles received her with great honour. On the morrow I sent her a piece of cloth for a garment, and some taffetas to line it with. She had come to ask the King's help for her lord, and she managed so well that she carried back two hundred letters and more from me and other friends she had there. In these letters we were bound by oath, if the King or the legate would send three hundred knights to Constantinople after the return of the King from the crusade, we were then bound, I say, by our oath, to go thither also. {61} And when we were about to return, in order to fulfil this oath, I appealed to the King before the Count of Eu, whose letter I still have, saying that if he would send three hundred knights I would go and fulfil my oath. And the King answered that he had not the wherewithal, and that great as his treasure was he had poured it out to the very dregs.' [Footnote 21] [Footnote 21: Joinville, c. xxx.]