Among those who took the cross after the assembly of the Louvre, history names Thibault, king of Navarre; Henry, count of Champagne, and his brother, the count d’Artois, son of Robert, killed at Mansourah; the counts of Flanders, de la Marche, St. Pol, and Soissons; the seigneurs de Montmorency, de Nemours, de Pienne, &c. The sieur de Joinville was warmly pressed to take the cross, but he resisted all the persuasions that could be made to him, alleging the vast injuries sustained by his vassals during the last expedition. The good seneschal also was not forgetful of the predictions of his almoner; he earnestly wished to accompany the king, whom he loved sincerely; but he was not yet recovered from the terrors he had experienced in Egypt, and no earthly motive could induce him to revisit the land of the Saracens. The determination of the king of France created a lively sensation throughout Europe, and revived in men’s minds the little that remained of the old enthusiasm for the crusades. As he was the chief of the enterprise, most of the warriors were ambitious of fighting under his immediate banners; the confidence entertained for his wisdom and virtues, in some sort fortified minds that dreaded distant expeditions, and restored hopes to the Christian nations, that they appeared to have forgotten. The remembrance, even, of the misfortunes of the first voyage added to the security of the future, and created a belief in many that the triumph of the Christian armies would at length be the reward of past labours and calamities, and the fruit of a salutary experience. Clement IV. wrote to the king of Armenia to console him for the evils he had suffered by the invasion of the Mamelukes, and to announce to him that the Christians of the East were about to receive powerful succours. Abaga, khan of the Tartars, who was then prosecuting a war against the Turks of Asia Minor, sent ambassadors to the court of Rome, and to several princes of the West, proposing to attack the Mamelukes in concert with the Franks, and drive them from Syria and Egypt. The pope received the Mogul ambassadors with great solemnity; he told them that an army, led by a powerful monarch, was about to embark for the East, that the hour fatal to the Mussulmans was come, and that God would bless his nation, and all the allies of his nation.