There were the same delays and loss of time in Damietta as there had been in Cyprus. The army waited for the arrival of new Crusaders, and whilst waiting they quarrelled over the booty taken in the city, consuming and wasting it without forethought; they fell into all kinds of excesses, which Louis saw and mourned over, but had not the power to repress. 'The barons began to give sumptuous banquets,' says Joinville, 'with great profusion of dishes, and the common soldiers gave themselves up to low debauchery; and it was for this reason that, when we returned from captivity, the King dismissed nearly all his attendants. When I asked him why he had taken such a step, he told me that he knew for certain that the men whom he had dismissed had kept places of ill fame within a stone's throw of his own tent, and that at a time when the army was enduring greater hardships and misery than it had ever known.' At length, on the 20th of November, after five months of inactivity in Damietta, the army resumed its march: it had received important reinforcements from Europe; among others it had been joined by Alphonse, Count of Poitiers, one of the brothers of the King, and his suite; there was also a strong force of English crusaders just returned from Palestine, whither they had gone at first. Queen Margaret and many pilgrims were left at Damietta under the charge of five hundred chosen knights. {66} There was no port at Damietta, and therefore many prudent leaders urged the seizure of Alexandria, so as to obtain a seaport before proceeding further; but, in opposition to their advice, it was decided that the army should march direct upon _Babylon_, that suburb of Cairo now known as 'Old Cairo,' which in their ignorance the majority of the Crusaders believed to be the true Babylon, and in which they hoped to find vast treasures and to avenge the ancient wrongs of the Hebrew captives. 'It is the head of the whole kingdom of Egypt,' said the Count of Artois, the impetuous brother of the King, 'and he who would destroy the serpent entirely must crush its head.' But the Mussulmans had now had time to recover from their first panic. They had reassembled their forces and prepared a vigorous resistance at all points; every day, at every step, the Crusaders were exposed to sudden attacks, and were assailed by instruments of war hitherto unknown to them. Louis was grievously disquieted. 'Every time,' says Joinville, 'that our holy king heard that the Saracens were throwing Greek fire, he would cast himself upon his couch and stretch out his hands towards the crucifix, saying, "Dear Lord God, take care of my people, keep them for me!" But his people would not take care of themselves, and the wisest counsels could not influence them so much as the impulsive ardour of the Count of Artois. On the 8th of February, 1250, twenty leagues from Damietta, at a place called Mansourah (or the City of Victory), which stands on the right bank of the Nile, the battle began. {67}