_Divisions among the Moslems--Among the Christians--Crusade of Children--Innocent III. declares he will lead a new Crusade to Syria--The King of Hungary takes the Cross--Arrives in Syria--Successes of the Pilgrims--They abandon the Siege of Mount Thabor--The King of Hungary returns to Europe--The Duke of Austria continues the War--Siege of Damietta--Reinforcements arrive under a Legate--Famine in Damietta--The Moslems offer to yield Palestine--The Legate's Pride--He refuses--Taking of Damietta--The Army advances towards Cairo--Overflowing of the Nile--The Army ruined--The Legate sues for Peace--Generous Conduct of the Sultaun--Marriage of the Heiress of Jerusalem with Frederic, Emperor of Germany--His Disputes with the Pope--His Treaties with the Saracens--He recovers Jerusalem--Quits the Holy Land--Disputes in Palestine--The Templars defeated and slaughtered--Gregory IX.--Crusade of the King of Navarre ineffectual--Crusade of Richard, Earl of Cornwall--Jerusalem recovered--The Corasmins--Their Barbarity--They take Jerusalem--Defeat the Christians with terrible slaughter--Are exterminated by the Syrians--Crusade of St. Louis--His Character--Arrives in the Holy Land--Takes Damietta--Battle of Massoura--Pestilence in the Army--The King taken--Ransomed--Returns to Europe--Second Crusade of St. Louis--Takes Carthage--His Death--Crusade of Prince Edward--He defeats the Saracens--Wounded by an Assassin--Returns to Europe--Successes of the Turks--Last Siege and Fall of Acre--Palestine lost._
The fifth crusade had ended, as we have seen, without producing any other benefit to Palestine than a deep depression in the minds of the Turks, from the knowledge that the weak dynasty of the Greeks had been replaced by a power of greater energy and resolution. The famine also, which about this time desolated the territories of the Egyptian sultaun, and the contests[809] between the remaining Attabecs and the successors of Saladin, crippled the efforts of the Moslems; while the courageous activity of Jean de Brienne[810] defeated the attempts of Saif Eddin. Nevertheless, many bloody disputes concerning the succession of Antioch, and the fierce rivalry of the orders of the Temple and Hospital, contributed to shake the stability of the small Christian dominion that remained.