The Haschischini, whom certain contemporary historians describe to us as infatuated by the hope of some future boundless felicity, owe their melancholy celebrity solely to the blind obedience with which they executed the orders of their chiefs, and to the coolness with which they sought the favourable moment for fulfilling their sanguinary missions (Fig. 318). The Old Man of the Mountain (the master of daggers, _magister cultellorum_, as he is also called by the chronicler Jacques de Vintry), was almost continually at war with the Mussulman princes who reigned from the banks of the Nile to the borders of the Caspian Sea. He continually opposed them with the steel of his fanatical emissaries; at times, also, making a traffic and merchandise of murder, he treated for a money payment with the sultans or emirs, who were desirous of ridding themselves of an enemy. The Ishmaelians thus put to death a number of princes and Mahometan nobles; but, at the time of the Crusades, religious zeal having incited them against the Christians, they found more than one notable victim in the ranks of the Crusaders. Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat, was assassinated by them; the great Salah-Eddin (Saladin) himself narrowly escaped them; Richard Coeur de Lion and Philip Augustus were pointed out to the assassins by the Old Man, who subsequently, on hearing of the immense preparations which Louis IX. was making for the Holy War, had the daring to send two of his followers to France, and even into Paris, with orders to kill that monarch in the midst of his court. This king, after having again escaped, during his sojourn in Palestine, from the murderous attempts of the savage messengers of the Prince of Alamond, succeeded, by his courage, his firmness, and his virtues, in inspiring these fanatics with so much respect, that their chief, looking upon him as protected by heaven, asked for his friendship, and offered him presents, amongst which was a magnificent set of chessmen, in crystal, ornamented with gold and amber. The successors of Hassan, simultaneously attacked by the Moguls under Houlayon, and by the Egyptians commanded by the Sultan Bibars, were conquered and dispossessed of their States towards the middle of the thirteenth century; but, long after, the Ishmaelians, either because their chiefs sought to recover their power, or because they had placed their daggers at the disposal of some foreign foe, continued notorious in history. At last the sect became extinct, or, at least, retired into obscurity, and renounced its murderous profession, which had for so long made its members such objects of terror.