volume one

388
UlSTOST OF THE CRUSADES.
from "his enemy, shed torrents of blood in the capital to insure
his triumph, received amid the general consternation
the congratulations of the caliph, and resumed the reins of
government.
It was not long, however, before di\-isions arose between
the general of Noureddin, who daily placed a more excessive
price on his services, and the vizier, whom Chirkou accused
of perfidv and ingratitude. Chaver desired in vain to send
the Mussulmans back into Syria ; they replied to him only
bv threats, and he was on the point of being besieged in
Cairo by his own deliverers. All the Egyptians, particularly
the people of the capital, were seized with trouble and con-
sternation.
In the midst of so pressing a danger, the vizier Chaver
placed his only hope in the Christian warriors, whose approach
he had not long since so much dreaded. He made
the king of Jerusalem the same promises that he had offered
to Noureddiu ; and Amaury, who only wanted to enter
Egvpt, whatever might be the party that prevailed there, set
out upon his march to defend Chaver with the very same
army he had collected to fight against him. "When arrived
on the banks of the Xile, he united his troops ^ith those of
the \-izier, and thev sat down before the city of Bilbeis, into
which Chirkou had retired. Xoureddin's general resisted
during three months all the attacks of the Christians and
Egvptians ; and when the king of Jerusalem proposed peace
to him, he demanded payment of the expenses of the war.
After some negotiations, in which he displayed great haugh-
tiness, he marched out of Bilbeis still threatening the Christians,
and led back his army to Damascus, loaded with the
spoils of his enemies.
Chirkou had beheld the riches of Egypt, and become
acquainted with the weakness of its government ; the first
words about the conquest of Egypt ; he agrees with the continuator of
Tabari and Keraaleddin. Dzeraaleddin, in his History of Egypt, is also
very brief on this important event. Macrizi, in his Kitab-alsoloueJc
Timaresch Doiial Almoulouek (Institution on the Knowledge of the
Dynasties of Kings), only speaks with brevity of these events. Amongst
the Latin authors who have spoken of the conquest of Egypt, we principally
quote William of Tyre, and the Latin history of the latter years of
the kingdom of Jerusalem, which is met with in the Collection of Bongars.