We are still in possession of a brief of the pope’s, in which the holy father felicitates the ladies who had taken the cross, upon their following the steps of Cazan, the emperor of the Tartars, _who, although a pagan, had conceived the generous resolution of delivering the Holy Land_. History has preserved two other letters of the pope, one addressed to Porchetto, archbishop of Genoa, and the other to four Genoese nobles, who had undertaken to direct the expedition. “Oh, prodigy! oh, miracle!” says he to Porchetto; “a weak and timid sex takes the advance of warriors in this great enterprise, in this war against the enemies of Christ, in this fight against the workers of iniquity. The kings and princes of the earth, regardless of all the solicitations that have been made to them, refuse to send succours to the Christians banished from the Holy Land, and here are women who come forward without being called! Whence can this magnanimous resolution come, if not from God, the source of all strength and all virtue!!!” The pope terminated his letter by directing the archbishop to call together the clergy and the people, and proclaim the devotion of the noble Genoese ladies, in order that their example may cast seeds of good works into the hearts of the people. This crusade, notwithstanding, never took place; it was doubtless only preached to rouse the emulation of the knights, and the pope only directed his attention to it to give a lesson to the princes of Christendom, by which they did not at all profit. The letters written upon this occasion by Boniface VIII. were preserved in the archives of the republic of Genoa for a long time. Even in the last century, the helmets and cuirasses which were to have been worn by the Genoese ladies in this expedition were exhibited in the arsenal of that city. The Tartars, in spite of their victories, were not able to triumph over the constancy and discipline of the Mamelukes, who, like themselves, had issued from the deserts of Scythia. That which had so often happened to the Franks in the height of the crusades, now happened to the Moguls; they at first obtained great advantages, but events foreign to the Holy War recalled them into their own country, and forced them to abandon their conquests. Cazan was obliged to quit Syria and return into Persia; he attempted a second expedition, which he again abandoned; and he died in the third, amidst his triumphs, bearing with him to the tomb the last hopes of the Christians.