Nazareth was almost destroyed, Cæsarea, Joppa and Antioch fell, Acre was sorely threatened. In vain did Jerusalem call upon the Pope for help; his attention was fixed, not on Palestine but on Constantinople, where the Latin Empire had vanished, and a new Greek dynasty had been set up under Michael Palæologus. Absorbed in his desire to gain acknowledgment from this quarter, Clement IV. gave only half-hearted encouragement to a Ninth Crusade, yet he did succeed in stirring up enthusiasm in a somewhat unexpected quarter. {252} To England, still in the turmoil of the Baron's War, came the message of Clement reminding Henry III. of his old promise to take up the Cross; and the answer came, not from Henry, the inert and ineffective king, but from young prince Edward, his eldest son, moved perhaps rather by the expediency of employing his treasonable barons than by a keen desire for the freedom of Jerusalem. One there was, however, who needed no urging, and had no base motives in his longing to start upon a Ninth Crusade. Saint Louis, as we have seen, had left his heart behind him in the Holy Land, and when he summoned all his barons to Paris in the Lent of 1267, it was not hard to guess the reason. Among those who responded to the call went the Sire de Joinville, and, seeing how well he knew the mind of the king, it was no wonder that he should dream on the night of his arrival that he saw Louis on his knees, before an altar, whilst many prelates, duly vested, placed upon his shoulders a red chasuble of Rheims serge. Calling his chaplain, a very wise man, Joinville told him of the vision, and the priest at once said: "Lord, you will see that the king will take the Cross to-morrow." Joinville asked why he thought so; and he answered that it was because of the dream; for the chasuble of red serge signified the Cross; which was red with the blood that Christ shed from His side and His feet and His hands. "And because the chasuble is of Rheims serge," said he, "that signifies that the Crusade shall be of little profit, as you shall see if God gives you life," for Rheims serge was but poor and common material, and worth but very little. {253} So Joinville went to the king's chapel, and heard two knights talking there, one to the other. Then one said, "Never believe me if the king is not going to take the Cross here!" And the other made answer, "If the king takes the Cross, this will be one of the most dolorous days that ever were in France. For if we do not take the Cross we shall lose the king's favour; and if we take the Cross we shall lose God's favour, because we shall not take it for His sake but for the sake of the king." "So," adds Joinville, tersely, "it happens that on the following day the king took the Cross, and his three sons with him; and afterwards it befell that the Crusade was of little profit, according to the prophecy of my priest."