The loan and discomfiture which for more than a hundred years had concluded every attempt to regain the Holy Land did not yet extirpate the hope of final success in the hearts of the clergy and sovereigns of the West. Gregory the Ninth, who himself had served in the Christian armies of Syria, exerted all the means in his power to equip another expedition against the enemies of the faith. The small republics of Italy, which found a ready employment for their shipping in transporting troops to Palestine, were the first to embrace the cause recommended by their spiritual ruler. The King of France seemed to favour the enterprise, and advanced money on the mortgage of certain estates within his dominions belonging to the Templars; Charles of Anjou followed the example of his royal relation; and Michael Paleologus, the Emperor of the East, announced his willingness to take arms against the ambitious sultan, who already threatened the independence of Greece. A council held at Lyons in 1274 sanctioned the obligations of a crusade, and imposed upon the church and other estates such taxes as appeared sufficient to carry it to a successful issue. But the death of the pope dissolved the coalition, and all preparations for renewing the war were immediately laid aside,--never to be resumed. The Franks in Palestine, now left to their own resources, ought to have cultivated peace, and more especially to have abstained from positive and direct aggression. Their conduct, however, was not marked by such abstinence or wisdom. On the contrary, by attacking certain Mohammedan merchants, they provoked the anger of the sultan, who swore by God and the Prophet that he would avenge the wrong. A war fatal to the Christian interests was the immediate consequence. Their fortresses were rapidly demolished; and at length, in the year 1289, the city of Tripoli, the principal appanage of the kingdom of Jerusalem, was taken, its houses were consumed by fire, its works dismantled, and its inhabitants massacred, or sold into slavery. Acre now remained the sole possession of the Latins, in the country where their sovereignty had been acknowledged during the lapse of nearly two centuries. A short peace granted to Henry the Second of Cyprus, the nominal king of the Holy Land, postponed its fate, and the utter abolition of Christian authority in Syria, a few years longer. Within its walls were crowded the wretched remains of those principalities which had been won by the valour of European soldiers. A reinforcement of unprincipled Italians only added to the disorder which already prevailed in the town, and increased the number of offences by which they were daily accumulating upon their heads the vengeance of the fanatical Mamlouks, who longed for an opportunity to attack them.