To Innocent, however, is due the credit of inaugurating a new method of approaching Eastern nations. It was well known that Christians were to be found in the Mongolian armies; and the tolerant treatment accorded to them was construed as a favourable feeling towards Christianity itself. The truth was that for the purpose of reconciling all nations to their rule the Mongols tolerated all religions among their subjects. Already Mohammedanism and Buddhism competed with the Christianity of the Nestorians for the favour of the Tartar Princes. Their own religion has been characterised as a vague monotheism. Its lack of definiteness led the early missionaries in their enthusiasm to hope that its followers were in a state of mind to be easily persuaded of the superior claims of the Catholic faith. Anyhow there existed for some time quite an expectation in the West that the whole of Asia would one day acknowledge the spiritual rule of Rome. Pope Innocent, therefore, fully convinced of the friendly disposition of the Mongols, despatched two embassies to them. One was composed of John of Piano Carpini, a friend of St. Francis of Assisi, and three other Franciscans. From the Khan of Kipchak at the Golden Horde on the Volga they were passed on to the Great Khan, who ruled now from the old capital of the Karaïtes at Karakorum. Here they were received in friendly fashion by the newly elected Kuyuk, grandson of Ghenghiz. The other embassy, composed of four Dominicans, visited Persia; but they showed so much want of tact that their lives were endangered, and they returned with letters written in the name of the Great Khan, in which all princes of the earth were bidden to come and pay their homage. Immediately, then, these visits were without result; but they had opened the way for further communications. [Sidenote: Louis IX's missions.] It was known in the East that Louis IX of France was preparing to set out on crusade; so that when he halted with his army in Cyprus he was visited by an envoy purporting to come from Kuyuk and seeking an alliance against Mohammedans. Louis sent two Dominicans to a Christian monarch, as he supposed, armed with suitable presents; but Kuyuk was dead, and the presents were treated as tribute. Perhaps in consequence of this failure Louis turned his army against Egypt instead of Syria; but the envoys returned to find him after the disastrous Egyptian campaign in Palestine, where he spent four years. In consequence of their report he sent to Kuyuk's successor, Mangu, a Franciscan, William of Ruysbroek or Rubruquis. It was afterwards reported to the Pope that Mangu and another Tartar Prince had been converted. Such fabricated stories were only too common. Rubruquis has left us much information about the Tartar Court; but his public discussions before the Khan with Nestorians, Mohammedans and Buddhists led to no practical result. [Sidenote: Tartars and Mohammedans.]