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CHAPTER VIL
THE ARMED PILGRIMS AT CYPRUS,

N°”; with the very best grace did the King of

France come to the resolution of sailing for
Cyprus. Indeed, the safety of his army depended,
in some degree, on the route selected; and the
safest way to the Holy Land was understood to be
by Sicily. Unluckily, however, Sicily was subject
to the Emperor Frederick; and Frederick and his
dominions had been excommunicated by the Pope;
and Louis, with his peculiar notions, feared ‘to set
foot on a soil that was under the ban of the Church.
At Lyons, where he received the papal blessing, he
endeavoured to reconcile the Emperor and the Pope;
but his Holiness declined to listen to mediation ; and
the saint-king, yielding to conscientious scruples,
determined, without further hesitation, to sacrifice
his plan of passing through Sicily to Syria, and
announced his intention of proceeding by way of
Cyprus to Egypt.

At that time the King of Cyprus was Henry de Lu-
signan, to whose family Richard Coeur de Lion had,
in the twelfth century, given the throne, from which
he dragged the Emperor Isaac; and no sooner did