The Grand Master of the Temple also lost an eye, and cut his way through the infidels to the main body of the christian army, accompanied only by two Knights Templars.[290] There he again mixed in the affray, took the command of a vanguard, and is to be found fighting by the side of the Lord de Joinville at sunset. In his account of the great battle fought on the first Friday in Lent, Joinville thus commemorates the gallant bearing of the Templars:-- "The next battalion was under the command of Brother William de Sonnac, Master of the Temple, who had with him the small remnant of the brethren of the order who survived the battle of Shrove Tuesday. The Master of the Temple made of the engines which we had taken from the Saracens a sort of rampart in his front, but when the Saracens marched up to the assault, they threw Greek fire upon it, and as the Templars had piled up many planks of fir-wood amongst these engines, they caught fire immediately; and the Saracens, perceiving that the brethren of the Temple were few in number, dashed through the burning timbers, and vigorously attacked them. In the preceding battle of Shrove Tuesday, Brother William, the Master of the Temple, lost one of his eyes, and in this battle the said lord lost his other eye, and was slain. God have mercy on his soul! And know that immediately behind the place where the battalion of the Templars stood, there was a good acre of ground, so covered with darts, arrows, and missiles, that you could not see the earth beneath them, such showers of these had been discharged against the Templars by the Saracens!"[291] [Sidenote: REGINALD DE VICHIER. A. D. 1252.]