and covetous for to enhance it, as he yet that of late convalesced and issued out of a grievous sickness, lying at Pontoise, took the cross with great devotion from the hands of the bishop of Paris, led with him three of his brethren with the greatest lords and barons in his realm, and many a knight and other people with him, appliked on his way, and with right great host arrived into Egypt, the which, setting foot on ground, occupied and took by force of men of arms that same city renowned which is called Damietta, and all the region about. Then after, the christian host, esprised and beat with a much great and wonderful sickness by the just judgment of God, many christian men died there, insomuch that of the number of two and thirty thousand fighting men, ne was there left on live but six thousand men. And God, father of misericorde, willing himself showed wonderful and marvellous on his saint, gave and betook the same king, champion, or defensor of the faith, into the hands of the evil paynims, to the end that he should appear more marvellous. And as the debonair king might have escaped by the next ship nigh thence, always he yielded himself with his good gree, to the end that he might deliver his people through the encheson of him.
He was put to great ransom, which paid, he would yet abide prisoner for the payment or ransom of other his lords and barons, and then after, he put and left so as Joseph out of the chartre or prison of Egypt, not as fleeing or dreadful returned anon unto the proper or own parts; but first abode continually by the space of five years in Syria, where he con-
