If these Tartars, as we call them, arrive here, either we will hurl them back to Tartarus, their home, whence they are come, or they shall send us up to Heaven." About the same period, another cause of disquietude and another feature of attraction came to be added to all those which turned the thoughts and impassioned piety of Louis towards the East.

The perils of the Latin empire of Constantinople, founded, as has been already mentioned, in 1204, under the headship of Baldwin, Count of Flanders, were becoming day by day more serious.

Greeks, Mussulmans, and Tartars were all pressing it equally hard.

In 1236, the emperor, Baldwin II., came to solicit in person the support of the princes of Western Europe, and especially of the young King of France, whose piety and chivalrous ardor were already celebrated everywhere.

Baldwin possessed a treasure, of great power over the imaginations and convictions of Christians, in the crown of thorns worn by Jesus Christ during His passion.