The chief occupation of Louis and his knights was in repairing the few remaining fortifications held by the Christians, and in making pious pilgrimages to the holy places at Nazareth, Tabor, and Cana. The Sultan of Damascus invited him to Jerusalem, but, having come to conquer it, he would not consent to enter it as a guest, having in mind the example of Richard Cœur de Lion, who sixty years before had refused to look upon the city he could not rescue. The Egyptians pressed Louis for alliance against the Sultan of Damascus. They pledged to liberate all captives remaining in Egypt, and further to send to Palestine the heads of the Christians which had been exposed on the walls of Cairo; they would also give up Jerusalem and nearly all the cities of Palestine. Under this immense lure Louis made treaty with the Egyptians for fifteen years. The Sultan of Damascus did not let his resentment cool before he interposed an army between the Christians and their new allies. He was defeated February 3, 1251. The Egyptians were unable or unwilling to fulfil the promise to join Louis’s forces. At the expiration of a year the Moslems had made peace with each other and declared war upon Louis as their common enemy. The Turkomans also made raid upon Sidon and slaughtered two thousand of the Christian people. Louis ordered Joinville to retaliate by assaulting Baneas, or Cæsarea Philippi, where they took recompense in blood. As they returned to Sidon they saw the ground covered with putrefying corpses of their martyred kinsmen. Louis bade them bury the dead, but no one would touch spade for the disgusting task. “Come, my friends, let us bestow a little earth upon the martyrs of Jesus Christ,” said the king; and springing from his horse, he took one of the bodies in his hands and gently laid it beneath the dirt. His example was followed by his suite. A few months later news came of the death of Queen Blanche. The pens of the historians, who are usually concerned only with great affairs of state and the issue of battles, linger over the page in which they describe the tender lamentation of the good Louis. For two days he spoke to no one; then sent for Joinville, to whom he outpoured his passionate grief. The call for Louis’s return to France was renewed; the throne had no protector; England was threatening. There was no possibility of further service in the East, yet the king was undecided. Religious processions of prayer were organized and the altars in various holy places besieged with petitions for the divine guidance of the royal mind. At length Heaven seemed to concur in what had long been the judgment of men, and the king consented to abandon the field.