It was only in Sardinia, after four days' halt at Cagliari, that Louis announced to the chiefs of the crusade, assembled aboard his ship the Mountjoy, that he was making for Tunis, and that their Christian work would commence there.

The King of Tunis (as he was then called), Mohammed Mostanser, had for some time been talking of his desire to become a Christian, if he could be efficiently protected against the seditions of his subjects.

Louis welcomed with transport the prospect of Mussulman conversions.

"Ah!" he cried, "if I could only see myself the gossip and sponsor of so great a godson!" But on the 17th of July, when the fleet arrived before Tunis, the admiral, Florent de Varennes, probably without the king's orders and with that want of reflection which was conspicuous at each step of the enterprise, immediately took possession of the harbor and of some Tunisian vessels as prize, and sent word to the king "that he had only to support him and that the disembarkation of the troops might be effected in perfect safety." Thus war was commenced at the very first moment against the Mussulman prince whom there had been a promise of seeing before long a Christian.
At the end of a fortnight, after some fights between the Tunisians and the crusaders, so much political and military blindness produced its natural consequences.

The re-enforcements promised to Louis, by his brother Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily, had not arrived; provisions were falling short; and the heats of an African summer were working havoc amongst the army with such rapidity that before long there was no time to bury the dead, but they were cast pell-mell into the ditch which surrounded the camp, and the air was tainted thereby.